MINNEAPOLIS — Seasons like this usually have some fallout, but Black Monday figures to be fairly quiet for the Bears.
It is a virtual certainty that coach Matt Nagy will be back, and the team has already announced an end-of-season press conference for general manager Ryan Pace on Tuesday.
In Pace’s five seasons, the Bears have gone 34-46, scored the fourth-fewest points in the NFL and missed on multiple high draft picks. He traded up to take Mitch Trubisky No. 2 overall in 2017, passing on Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes.
With the victory over the Vikings on Sunday, Nagy is 20-12 in two seasons with the Bears. While he has certainly contributed to their failures this year, he bought himself credibility and time by presiding over their NFC North title at 12-4 last season.
If there’s any shakeup, it will likely be with their coordinators or position coaches.
No one appears to be on shakier ground than offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich, who could be the fall guy for the Bears finishing in the bottom four in points and yardage. Nagy hired Helfrich in 2018 after never having worked with him, and this has been his first NFL job.
But Helfrich doesn’t call plays. Nagy does.
One caveat, though, is the Bears’ potential interest in free-agent-to-be Marcus Mariota. He played quarterback for Helfrich at Oregon, which could incentivize the Bears to retain him.
There could also be ripple effects from Trubisky’s debacle of a season. He regressed across the board, and Nagy might want to change up the host of coaches that work with him.
Like Helfrich, quarterbacks coach Dave Ragone has no history with Nagy other than this job. Ragone was on John Fox’s staff, and Nagy kept him in large part because of his relationship with Trubisky.
There have been no complaints about new defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano, who has maintained the standard set by Vic Fangio, but he clearly hasn’t given up on being a head coach. He coached the Colts from 2012 to ’17 and interviewed with the Broncos last offseason. With several vacancies expected to pop up this week, it’s plausible that at least one team will want to talk with him.
If not, Nagy seems more than happy to keep him.
“Chuck and his staff will be doing what they need to do to figure out... what you do well and what you don’t do well,” Nagy said last week.
While the Bears didn’t match last season’s gaudy takeaway numbers, they were a Super Bowl-caliber defense. They finished top-10 in points and yards allowed, and the team lost games in which it held the opponent to 10, 17, 17, 21 and 22 points.
