The Chicago Bears fired coach Matt Nagy on Monday, ending his tenure after the team slumped to a 6-11 record this season, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
The fate of general manager Ryan Pace, whose future has also been under review, was not immediately clear.
Nagy won the NFL’s Coach of the Year award after his first season in 2018, when he led the Bears to a 12-4 record and reached the playoffs for the first time in eight years. He earned praise that season for his offensive wrinkles and humble disposition, but the Bears couldn’t sustain that success over the ensuing three seasons.
They finished 8-8 in 2019 and then again in 2020, when the league’s expanded playoff field put them into the wild-card round. Nagy was never able to duplicate his first season, in part because the quarterback he inherited — Mitch Trubisky, the No. 2 overall pick of the 2017 draft — never made the necessary improvement.
Trubisky departed via free agency last spring, after the Bears traded up to draft quarterback Justin Fields. The Bears were 2-8 in Fields’ 10 starts, and he finished the season ranked last in the league in Total Quarterback Rating (QBR). In four seasons, the Bears were 34-31 under Nagy in the regular season and 0-2 in the playoffs.
Buzz around Nagy’s possible firing has been brewing since the end of November, when a local report emerged that Nagy would be fired after the Bears’ Thanksgiving Day game at the Detroit Lions. Nagy said at the time that he was unaware of his impending firing, but no member of the Bears’ front office or ownership immediately stepped forward to publicly deny the report.
A day later, owner George McCaskey told players during a team meeting that Nagy would not be fired after the game. The Bears beat the Lions 16-14, but it was their only win in a 1-8 streak that lasted from Weeks 6-15.
Nagy, 43, came to the Bears after eight years working for longtime head coach Andy Reid, including five with the Kansas City Chiefs and three more with the Philadelphia Eagles. Reid promoted him to offensive coordinator in 2017, one year before the Bears hired him.
