Maybe it had something to do with the five days of questions about the placement of the ball on Eddy Piñeiro’s missed field goal against the Chargers, but some obvious Bears-Eagles angles were muted or pushed into the background this week at Halas Hall.
Facing former Bear Jordan Howard got some traction, but not a lot. Trey Burton finally playing against his old team; Matt Nagy vs. good buddy Doug Pederson; Nagy’s return to Philadelphia; Super-Bowl-winning ex-Bear Alshon Jeffery; The Bears disastrous losses in Philly in 2017 and 2013 — blips on the radar at best.
And most surprisingly, the Eagles’ 16-15 wild-card victory over the Bears in the playoffs last year was a non-subject all week. Outside of the almost bizarre similarity to last week’s 17-16 loss to the Chargers — a poor performance at home, Mitch Trubisky salvaging a bad game with a final-minute drive that ended with a missed field goal to the North end zone — it was largely ignored.
That disappointing home loss remains an indelible stain on the Nagy era. It was the start of the Bears’ current downfall. It was the start of the Cody Parkey affair. It took the sheen off Nagy’s impressive rookie season as head coach. And it kept the Bears from a divisional round game against a Rams team they already had beaten.
But at 3-4, the Bears just aren’t in the frame of mind to use that loss as motivation to fuel a rejuvenation.
“I think just because this week we’ve been focused on us,” wide receiver Taylor Gabriel said. “Polishing up us. Focusing on the things we can execute. I feel like we have enough things … to be motivated about. We’re motivated to get this win. Last year in the playoffs was a big time for us. But at the end of the day, we’re looking to go 1-0.”
Nagy noticed the lack of playoff-game talk this week — inside Halas Hall and from the media.
“It hasn’t really been talked about by anybody,” Nagy said. “That was a big game for us, a big loss for us that we used in the offseason. I think internally everybody knows the feeling of what we felt, but we haven’t turned it into any type of revenge game. We’re just focused on going 1-0.”
In case you can’t tell, “going 1-0” was Nagy’s mantra this week. Players often credit him with striking the right tone with his motivational themes each week. And revenge for the playoff loss was purposely not on that docket.
“I think sometimes if the word revenge is used … you have to be a little bit careful of that, because then maybe it takes you out of your element for this game that matters this year. It’s a different year. You can use it in the offseason. Now we’re in the season, that’s last year. We don’t want to live in the past. We don’t want to live in the past [of] last week. That’s just kind of where we’re at. We’re trying to stay moving forward here. That’s probably why it hasn’t been brought up as much.”
Khalil Mack is on board with that. He thrives on an unemotional even-keeled approach. When he dared to admit to loving the word “vindictiveness” prior to facing the Raiders in London in Week 5, it kind of back-fired on him. No surprise he’s staunchly in favor of forgetting the playoff loss.
“I try to tell you all the time — you can’t really be emotional in the game of football,” Mack said. “You can’t react on emotion. There’s a lot of different things that if you react [emotionally] it could get you thrown out of the game. So you just gotta be smart and aware.”
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