Practice makes perfect? Wins on Sunday are made during practices on Wednesday?
Not exactly. And certainly not according to one member of the Football Aftershow panel on NBC Sports Chicago.
After the Lions shocking 34-30 comeback win over the Bears at Soldier Field, one where quarterback Matthew Stafford torched the Bears ‘D for 402 passing yards and three touchdowns, former Bears center Olin Kreutz took head coach Matt Nagy to task.
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“When you lose a team, it’s during the week. It’s practicing your details, it’s how focused you are, how into the game you are. Because most football players are going to show up on Sunday and fly around,” Kreutz said. “But when you see mistakes like guys running free for touchdowns, or guys getting beat. You start to wonder, how the defense really felt about their head coach coming after them, early in the week and then you start to wonder, okay, why all the sudden are we hearing Coach Nagy went back and talked to them again? Because it probably rubbed some guys the wrong way.”
“That doesn’t give them an excuse for the way they played today,” Kreutz continued. “All I am saying is, for the last two weeks, we have seen a defense that we haven’t really recognized. They score fast after a 96-yard drive and then we put up our QB, who everyone knows doesn’t perform well in the pocket…at the most critical times in the game, and eventually, I am running the Chicago Bears, or I am in charge up there, I walk down the hall and say whose idea was this?”
Nagy called out the defense last Monday after the brutal loss to the Packers at Lambeau Field.
[MORE: Matt Nagy's culture put to test, calling out defense after loss to Packers]
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“You have to be able to shut them down and not allow 16 first downs in 36 plays, five of six on third downs and three touchdown drives. That's not who our defense is,” Nagy said Monday on a Zoom call with reporters. “I think that the thing that I start off with is what started on the beginning of the game for them to go on this 14-play drive, 75 yards, for them to go down and score, it just, that's not who we are as a defense.”
Come mid-week, it'll be interesting to see if the topic comes up again in the lead-up to Sunday’s Texans game at Soldier Field. Will Nagy look down on the defense again? Will members of the ‘D step up and take ownership?
The plot thickens.