NEW ORLEANS (WGN) — While he has his sights set on winning a third consecutive matchup in football’s biggest game, Kansas City Chief’s offensive coordinator Matt Nagy is all too familiar with what it’s like to be an innovative offensive mind hired to become the next head coach of the Chicago Bears.
His advice for Ben Johnson — the next hot-to-trot offensive coordinator tasked with being the Bears head coach — is simple.
“Win,” Nagy said on media row Tuesday. “Win and beat the Packers.”
Before Chicago’s front office backed up the Brinks truck to bring in Johnson, the mastermind behind the NFL’s top offense over the last three years, a similar tale played out before the Bears hired Nagy as their head coach ahead of the 2018 season.
“I have a lot of respect for [Johnson] and what he does, just the offense that he runs. It’s a cool path that he’s had to be able to get to this point,” Nagy said. “We’re a small fraternity of coaches that are around each other. You go different places and you work through this. I was in those shoes before. There’s a lot that you go through that you don’t know [about] if you’ve never been a head coach before.
“When you go through that, it’s very important to make sure you have a circle of people around you that can really help you out. However that is, you’ve got to have that because it’s a little different when you’re not just a coordinator. But they’ll do a heck of a job over there and I’m just a big fan of what he’s done there in Detroit. He’s going to have a bright future.”
The New Jersey native’s NFL story originated with Andy Reid during the longtime head coach’s days with the Philadelphia Eagles. Nagy was brought on as an offensive assistant with the Eagles in 2010, shortly after a six-year stint playing quarterback in the Arena Football League.
He went on to be promoted to quality control coach with Philadelphia before Reid was fired in 2012. Nagy followed him to Kansas City when the Chiefs hired Reid in January 2013.
By 2016, Nagy was promoted to co-offensive coordinator and was tasked with directly communicating the team’s offense to then-starting quarterback Alex Smith from the sideline.
Smith threw for 3,502 yards, 15 TD passes and eight interceptions on the way to his second Pro Bowl selection. Kansas City finished the year 12-4 with the NFL’s 13th-best scoring offense (24.3 PPG) and were eliminated in the divisional round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16-18.
A year later, Nagy became the team’s lone OC after co-offensive coordinator Brad Childress was promoted to associate head coach. He helped oversee an offense that finished sixth in the league in scoring (25.9 PPG) and coached Smith toward the best statistical season of his career.
The former No. 1 overall pick with the San Francisco 49ers threw for career-highs in passing yards (4,042) and TD passes (26) in 2017, while also tying a career-low for interceptions over a full season (5). He led NFL quarterbacks in interception percentage (1.0%), adjusted yards gained per pass attempt (8.59) and passer rating (104.7).
Those collective performances by Nagy’s offenses in Kansas City led to Chicago hiring him as their 16th head coach in franchise history on Jan. 8, 2018.
Nagy, with the help of current Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, won AP and PFWA Coach of the Year honors in 2018 after the Bears finished 12-4. While the regular season was a smashing success, Chicago was bounced from the playoffs after Cody Parkey’s game-winning field goal was partially blocked and “double doinked” off the crossbar in a 16-15 loss to the Eagles in the wild card round.
The Bears never recovered and failed to make the playoffs in each of the next three years under Nagy, finishing 8-8 in 2019 and 2020, and 6-11 in 2021. He was fired on Jan. 10, 2022.
“That year in 2018 that we had together is a year I’ll never forget,” Nagy said. “[Fangio] taught me a lot and so, to see what he’s done — he went on and had his career as a head coach, and now he goes ahead and [does] what he’s doing [in Philadelphia].”
Now three years removed from the end of his tenure with Chicago, Nagy said he respects the city for how much they love the game of football and will always look back fondly on his time in the Windy City, even if it didn’t go the way he and fans wanted it to.
“They’re passionate, but it’s all for good. They care about their teams. I know that and so, you understand that,” Nagy said. “I think for me, being three years out, being away from everything, but also from afar, seeing what’s going on, you understand it. Like I’ve [said over] the last three years, I had a lot of great times in Chicago.
“It didn’t end how I wanted it to end, but that’s life man. Things go on. You learn from it. And that’s what I’m going to try to do.”
Ahead of the 2022 season, Nagy was rehired by the Chiefs to be a senior assistant and their quarterbacks coach.
As Kansas City romped through the regular season behind the NFL’s No. 1-ranked offense and Patrick Mahomes’ earning his second league MVP award, Philadelphia quietly brought Fangio in as a consultant a couple of weeks before Super Bowl LVII, which prompted his first Big Game matchup against Nagy on opposite sidelines.
Nagy said he remembered seeing Fangio after his Chiefs beat Fangio’s Eagles, 38-35, and he exchanged text messages with his former defensive coordinator leading up to their sequel matchup in the Big Game this weekend.
“I did. I sent him a few text messages so, I’m sure he’s been waiting for this one,” Nagy said. “He’s done an amazing job. It doesn’t surprise me … It’s special and I know guys play hard for him and what he wants to do. It’ll be a fun little game on Sunday.”