Bears, Nagy search for remedy after 'ridiculous' opener

[September 07, 2019]  On the optimistic side, Matt Nagy has 10 days to evaluate and implement a fix for an ailing offense after the Chicago Bears put up three points in what the second-year head coach termed a "ridiculous" showing Thursday against the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers won the opener 10-3 at Soldier Field.

"It just seemed a little scattered tonight with all our personnel (groups) and just trying to find a rhythm and trying to find our identity on offense, and we just put ourselves in bad situations and shot ourselves in the foot," quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said after throwing a game-sealing interception in the end zone with 2:03 remaining. "It's just we were uncharacteristic of usually who we were tonight as an offense, and I think we just need to do our job. But we just couldn't find a rhythm, and I don't think it's because we didn't play in the preseason, because we were rolling in practice, and it just didn't translate the week of practice we had to the game. We're going to look at the film and try to find out why and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Packers defensive coordinator Mike Pettine helped spare the Matt LaFleur in his coaching debut. The Bears went 3 for 15 on third downs.

The Packers put up negative yardage in the first quarter and survived with a win despite consistently moving the chains on only one drive, which ended in Aaron Rodgers finding tight end Jimmy Graham in the end zone.

Chicago dialed up only 12 handoffs in the game, while Trubisky threw 45 passes and never found the strike zone. Rookie David Montgomery, a star of the preseason for the Bears, managed six carries and one reception.

Bears head coach Matt Nagy watches during warmups before a game against the Carolina Panthers at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

"That part is new to us a little bit, so we've got to make sure that, again, we figure out how to get that thing right," Nagy said. "And luckily it is the first game of the year."

Nagy will be knuckles deep in his game plan for the Denver Broncos and former Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio by the time the rest of the Week 1 slate gets underway Sunday. Fangio knows all the flaws and personalities inside the building, and he likely already has a decent jump on his plan to keep the Bears' offense in hibernation next week in Denver.

Nagy might take a day or two to get over putting up a 3-spot in the primetime 2019 opener.

"There's humility there just for the fact that I know that our guys - we feel really good, we felt good going into it," Nagy said. "I don't know what the exact word is for it other than that what you can't do and what you can't fall into the trap of is all of a sudden making this seem like it was the Super Bowl and we just lost the Super Bowl. We didn't lose the Super Bowl, we lost the first game of the regular season. We just need to make sure that we pull back and understand, okay, we're 0-1, we were 0-1 last year, let's go ahead and figure out how we rally together."

--Field Level Media

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