Before everyone realized that Matt Nagy was a terrible head coach, he had a very promising start. Everyone was impressed with his bald head and visor combo and how he was going to turn Mitch Trubisky into the next Rex Grossman. One of the things that commentators and media pundits loved early on was that he had “BE YOU” on his play calling sheet as a reminder to always be himself. Let’s ignore the fact that he should have used the reflexive pronoun “YOURSELF” instead of “YOU”; being a grammatical imbecile is the least of his worries. I think trying to be himself was a failed strategy right from the start. He should have picked a good coach to be instead. Here are five coaches he should have listed on his play calling sheet to try to mimic.
1. Lovie Smith
Let’s start with a former Bears coach. When Lovie was hired as the Bears head coach, he made it a focal point to beat Green Bay and started off promising winning 7 of the first 10 games. Lovie ended up with a record of 81-63 in Chicago with two Conference Championship Game appearances, a Super Bowl appearance and he didn’t have a quarterback either. Bears’ fans would kills to have Lovie right now.
2. Bill Walsh
I don’t think I really need to explain this one. Bill was probably the greatest offensive mind of all time (or Paul Brown) and a great quarterback guru. Perhaps if he would have channeled his inner Bill Walsh, he wouldn’t have wasted Allen Robinson’s career.
3. John Harbaugh
This one may surprise some people but John was also an Andy Reid assistant coach, and if Nagy would have focused more on special teams and finding a good kicker, he would at least have one playoff win. Instead, he let kickers get inside his head which has destroyed his confidence overall.
4. Doug Pederson
I know Doug was fired himself but like John Harbaugh, at least he did win a Super Bowl. And he did it with Nick Foles. Matt was never able to recreate that BDN magic in Chicago.
5. Jimmy Johnson
Matt Nagy was the anti Jimmy Johnson. Instead of getting a haul of players and rebuilding that way, he instead shipped a ton of picks to the Raiders and Giants for Khalil Mack and Justin Fields. He should have sought out a bunch of idiots like the Vikings’ front office and try to fleece them for a bunch of picks for Jordan Howard.