Any NFL team would be on the brink after what the Bears have endured over the first half of their season.
Their Super Bowl hopes are toast amid a four-game losing streak, and they have the always-tricky element of the offense sinking what would otherwise be winning efforts by the defense.
When a season goes sideways, locker rooms often slides into every-man-for-himself, blame games and infighting. The same tactics a coach used during high times grow more annoying with each defeat.
The Bears insist that’ll never happen to them, but at 3-5, a loss to the Lions on Sunday could be a blow to the culture Matt Nagy thinks they have.
“The No. 1 thing is making sure that there’s no friction or fracture or separation or segregation between the team,” Nagy said. “When bad things happen, you don’t do all that, [and] it gives you a better chance.
“When you have bad people, me-people, selfish people, it can get out of control.”
When a team no longer has the playoffs as a motivator, which is almost the case already for the Bears, it can become unmanageable. The emphasis shifts from collective to individual.
“When you have that, that’s hard to stop,” Nagy said. “But I really believe we don’t have that with our team.”
Wide receiver Taylor Gabriel knows the scenario well. He spent his first two seasons with the Browns, and their 2015 team started 2-10.
It’s a miserable environment, and trudging through it for months is demoralizing.
“You don’t want to show up to work,” he said. “You don’t want to be around.
“But we don’t have those types of guys. We have nothing but good guys. That’s why you haven’t seen the finger pointing. As long as we keep the locker room positive, we’ll be OK.”
It’s impressive the Bears have avoided a schism thus far.
All it usually takes is one player saying, “Hey, I’m doing my job,” which is true for virtually everyone on defense and many skill players. It’d be understandable for defenders to feel like their performances are being wasted and skill players to lose patience with Mitch Trubisky over lost opportunities.
Nagy seems especially vigilant about any potential offense-defense rift and he should be. The Bears are sixth in opponent scoring and ninth in yardage allowed—impressive when the offensive failures are forcing them to play 65.5 defensive snaps per game, 11th-most in the NFL.
“A four-game losing streak isn’t easy, especially when you have a separation of two sides with the offense struggling and the defense playing really well, you know?” Nagy said. “We haven’t had any of that, and that’s a credit to our players for being so strong.”
There hasn’t been any obvious division, but warning signs are there. Defensive players have mentioned needing to get shutouts, and they’re clearly aware of the burden on them.
Maybe that’s what they’d say even if things were going fine, but the stressors are stacking up. Imagine how it must’ve felt to go into halftime down 12-0 after the offense mustered 9 yards, or the frustration of being gassed on the Eagles’ final drive while playing a season-high 89 snaps.
There’s also been quite a few mishaps since the playoff loss in January, and that wears on players, too.
There was Cody Parkey’s ill-fated Today Show appearance, followed by the circuslike search for his replacement. Then the hashmark debacle against the Chargers. Trubisky continues to play poorly, yet gets unconditional job security. Nagy ran the ball fewer times than any coach in the Bears’ 100-year history in a loss to the Saints, then declared himself “not an idiot” the next day as he touted the importance of a good ground game.
That stuff just doesn’t seem to happen in New England.
The cumulative effect of it hasn’t broken the Bears yet, but they’re one loss away from as tough of a test as any NFL team can face.
