The criticisms of Bears coach Matt Nagy have been endless — and warranted — as his team has perpetually plunged to new lows. The exasperation has erupted in droning boos, fans at Soldier Field chanting for him to be fired and surely unspeakable insults barked at him as he has exited the northwest tunnel of the field.
To Nagy’s credit, he has remained remarkably composed through all of it, even when the hostility toward him spilled into his son’s high school football game with the opponent’s students taunting Nagy as he sat in the bleachers.
The first sign that any of this is pushing Nagy to a breaking point came between the first and second quarters of the Bears’ 17-9 loss to the Vikings on Monday.
With about a minute left in the first quarter and his team down 7-0 in another feeble offensive performance, Nagy thought his defense had come up with a key pass breakup on third down — only to be delivered a gut punch when back judge Terrence Miles flagged safety Deon Bush for unnecessary roughness because of a hit to the head on tight end Tyler Conklin.
The call, which NFL officiating immediately said on Twitter was made correctly, triggered an uncharacteristic tirade by Nagy after the first quarter. He got in Miles’ face and was livid as he screamed, occasionally covering his mouth with his play sheet.
Coaches tend to get a lot of leeway in those arguments, but Nagy apparently took it too far with Miles, and Miles launched a flag for unsportsmanlike conduct. Miles flung it as Nagy walked away, and Nagy turned back to keep yelling as he left.
There are questionable calls every week, often in critical situations. There’s no doubt Nagy’s explosion was rooted in frustration that has been accumulating all season. It was a flare up from a man who knows that with a margin of error as thin as the dying grass at Soldier Field, he needs everything to go perfectly.
And it almost never does. The Vikings got a fresh set of downs at the Bears’ 35-yard line and eventually kicked a field goal for a 10-0 lead.
Nagy had a few other animated discussions with the refs, though none rose to the level of a second flag. That would’ve been an automatic ejection.
His rage seemed to ripple through the Bears as they trudged through another loss to a team that isn’t any good.
It boiled over for rookie left tackle Teven Jenkins, who has endured only three games of this but already had all he can take.
Jenkins worked through his feelings in a post-play altercation with Vikings defensive ends D.J. Wonnum and Sheldon Richardson late in the third quarter. He swung at Richardson’s head and earned his third penalty of the night: an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that dropped the Bears to an impossible second-and-22 from their own 13-yard line.
After the inevitable punt, Nagy grabbed Jenkins as soon as he reached the sideline and covered his mouth with his play sheet during whatever he had to say.
What could he have said, though?
It wouldn’t have been credible whatsoever for him to lecture Jenkins about self-control after Nagy cost the team yards with his own outburst.
At least Nagy isn’t going out with a whimper. But he is leaving in futility as he inches dangerously close to ending his Bears career with a losing record. The Vikings, a team he dominated his first three seasons, dropped him to 32-30 in the regular season. He’s also 0-2 in the playoffs.
He’ll exit knowing he didn’t fix any of the things the Bears hired him to handle, and the Vikings game was a harsh reminder of that.
This has been falling apart gradually for three years.
And now, it has crumbled entirely.
