The Chicago Bears entered the 2019 campaign with Super Bowl aspirations. Now, it doesn't even look like they are going to make the playoffs.
The Bears lost their fourth straight game on Sunday, falling to the Philadelphia Eagles by a score of 22-14 and dropping to 3-5 on the season. They are in last place in the NFC North and don't appear to be showing any signs of turning things around.
Last year at this time, Chicago was one of the hottest teams in the NFL and was on its way a 12-win season that ended in a division title.
Sure, the Bears lost in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs, but the future looked bright.
But nine weeks into 2019, Chicago looks lost, and Matt Nagy's job security may be in danger as a result.
It's hard to pin all of the blame on Nagy. He is not the reason Mitchell Trubisky has underperformed as the starting quarterback, nor is he the reason why the running game has been virtually non-existent.
Not only that, but the Bears' defense is not even as dominant as it was in 2018, which could have a lot to do with the fact that Chuck Pagano replaced Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator.
Basically, everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong for Chicago this season, and that probably falls more on the shoulders of general manager Ryan Pace than Nagy.
But you know how it works: stuff runs downhill, and Nagy will likely be the first one on the chopping block if the Bears do decide to make some changes.
So, is Nagy really on the hot seat as soon as his second season?
Well, here's the thing: if his seat isn't hot, it is lukewarm. Chicago probably won't can him at the end of this season, but his leash will likely be short in 2020.
Not living up to expectations tends to lead to rash decisions, and because the Bears are a franchise starving for success, they may have a bit less patience than, say, the Tennessee Titans, but Nagy probably deserves the benefit of the doubt here.
Nagy, an offensive guy, doesn't really have a whole lot of talent to work with on the offensive side of the ball. As a matter of fact, Chicago doesn't have a single top-end player at any of its skill positions, and its offensive line isn't great, either.
That's not his fault, even if he was supposed to turn lemons into lemonade here.
You can't expect a coach to succeed if he doesn't have adequate talent in front of him, and while I understand the Bears won 12 games a year ago, we have to keep in mind that that came in a much weaker NFC North division and that Fangio probably had more of an impact than Chicago would have liked to believe when he left to take the Denver Broncos' head-coaching job.
Yes, the Bears are playing beneath expectations, and yes, Nagy does deserve to take some responsibility for that, but while his job isn't 100 percent secure, it would surprise me if Chicago fired him after this season.
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