A very interesting critique of Matt Nagy the other day by one of this writer’s best friends and favorite people in the NFL business, Jay Glazer, and it’s a perspective, even though just opinion at this point, with potentially enormous what-if implications for the Bears franchise.
Few folks command greater respect than the Glaze, longtime FOX insider and now also writing for The Athletic. Answering a reader’s question regarding the biggest key for Trubisky and the Bears to make a next jump, Glaze had this to say in reference to how so much is made of finding the “next Sean McVay,” meaning a hot, young coach with a Midas touch with quarterbacks:
“Then I met Matt Nagy,” Glaze wrote, “and as I told TE Zack Miller the other day, “I thought it would take another 10 years to find that next great young offensive coach. Damn, was I wrong!
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“Nagy is extremely impressive, and if he pans out, he and [Mitch] Trubisky could be married to each other for the next 13 years the way that Sean Payton and Drew Brees have been.”
That was when a light flashed. A sort of what-if flash….
Consider the implications if GM Ryan Pace was right in his assessment of Trubisky, and of Nagy. Pace has made some colossal personnel missteps (e.g., Mike Glennon, Quinton Demps, Marcus Cooper, Marcus Wheaton, staying with Jay Cutler for two more years). But he also wanted Dan Quinn as his head coach before John Fox came available, about which Glaze pointed out:
“Back in 2015, there was so much that needed to be cleaned up behind the scenes, and the Bears needed a veteran like John Fox to come in with Ryan Pace to change the culture inside the building. Pace and Fox did so, and now Nagy will now likely reap the benefits.”
NFL
The overarching point, though, is back to Nagy and Trubisky. Not since 1982 when Jim Finks drafted Jim McMahon and George Halas hired Mike Ditka have the Bears stood at quite the brink of something as franchise-epic as they do right now.
And “epic” is the operative term. Obviously, health is a qualifier, or disqualifier (see: McMahon). And so are talent and intangibles (see: Cutler, Jay). Or even timing and fit (see: Harbaugh, Jim). So many things need to go right.
But Glaze’s reference to Payton and Brees is noteworthy. Because then-New Orleans GM Mickey Loomis hired Payton and went all-in with a massive contract to get Brees out of San Diego, gambling that Brees would come back from shoulder issues. Pace was in New Orleans when the Brees/Payton era began.
Consider what that could conceivably happen with the Bears, as in something along the lines of the “13 years” that Glaze alludes to. If Nagy is THE coach, and Trubisky is THE quarterback, then the upside is a New Orleans-, or Green Bay-, or New England-type situation, the fondest fantasy of every NFL franchise in which it gets the coach and quarterback situations right for a decade-plus.
All a longshot. Well, duh. But so was the Patriots’ sixth-round pick in the 2000 draft.
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Roster’ing
The notion of “stashing” or “hiding” a player on the practice/developmental squad can be misunderstood. Truly hiding a player only happens when 31 other personnel departments are negligent in monitoring the league’s transaction wire, which eventually lists all goings-on for teams, meaning that Wims, Morgan or anyone else who might be released will pass in front of eyes elsewhere in the league, like it or not. And players on the practice squad are eligible to be signed away at any time, so they are on the extended rosters as long as they’re on a developmental list.
But the situation does come with two complicating aspects.
The first is that a released player has the option of signing anywhere else, obviously (and ideally for the player) to another team’s 53-man roster, but less obviously to another NFL practice squad. Another team can offer more money, even a bit of a signing bonus, and may offer a better chance of moving onto an active roster than the former team, who may have released the player simply because of a talent glut at his particular position.
The second isn’t quite a true “poison pill” but it can be enough to trigger a small gag reflex.
A team signing another’s practice-squad’er is required to put the player on the active roster, which works in favor of the team with the individual on their practice squad. But only if they’re right in their talent evaluation. Because the Bears weren’t once, resulting in making them one of the NFL’s biggest-ever losers in this sort of situation, which may serve as a cautionary tale in the Javon Wims case.
The Bears had wide receiver Keenan McCardell on their 1993 practice squad until he was signed away by the Cleveland Browns, for whom he caught a total of 80 passes, then went on to catch 499 for Jacksonville on his way to becoming the 13th player in NFL history with 800 receptions – all while the Bears were going along with Terry Obee, Chris Penn, Michael Timpson and others.