The sixth day of Bears OTAs carried mixed feelings.
"We were a little sloppy today than we've been in other days, but the volume's picking up a little bit," Matt Nagy said. "That's expected, it's our job to teach them."
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Justin Fields threw a few nice passes and Andy Dalton was picked off three times during a seven-on-seven and team drill, according to a tweet by Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune.
Nagy was asked by Dan Wiederer of the Chicago Tribune about his experience coaching Patrick Mahomes in 2017 as the Chiefs' offensive coordinator, and what gives Nagy the same confidence with Justin Fields that he had with Mahomes slotted in the No. 2 role behind quarterback Alex Smith.
Smith was receiving a lot of reps then, but Nagy is focused on Fields obtaining mental reps.
"...You get the mental side down in the offseason," Nagy said. "You're able to come out here on the grass and see what the timing's like. As you saw today, there was some issues with snaps. Like, those are little things that we try to tune up and get ready for training camp so that doesn't happen.
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"But now what we wanna do is say, 'Okay. This is what you've done. This is where you can grow. Let's see if that happens now in training camp.'"
In 2017, Mahomes received preseason opportunities and even did his signature runaround scramble and deep pass down the sideline as Nagy recalled, showing off his potential. But Mahomes didn't get to play until the last game of the regular season, leading his team to victory and quickly to superstardom. A year later, he was named the 2018 NFL MVP.
This time, Nagy is calling the shots as head coach and will decide when it's time to put Fields to the test.
"We wanna see the plays that he's (Fields) now repped in the offseason," Nagy said. "In training camp, we wanna see is he making better decisions and better throws. And that's really for all the quarterbacks."
Nagy believes that Mahomes benefited from sitting on the bench for most of the 2017 season and that his career was not held back in doing so.
"These guys are all competitive," Nagy said. "That doesn't mean that that's gonna happen for any of these guys, I mean, there's so many things these quarterbacks that come in, these running backs, wide receivers, whatever position, you never know, you know, how the season goes, but in that scenario in '17, when you ask Patrick, I mean, for him to be able to develop like that and learn from Alex and grow, he would probably tell you it was a pretty good thing to happen to him."
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