Bears coach Matt Nagy canceled all player and team meetings today in honor of Blackout Tuesday, a source tells PFT.
Blackout Tuesday is a day promoted by activists to observe, mourn and bring about policy change in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Nagy turned Monday’s meeting into an open dialogue about the events of the last week, seeing it as more important right now than football.
“Put X’s and O’s on the back burner,” Nagy said Monday on NFL Network. “I don’t care about that right now. We’re going to talk through it, and if guys want to talk more or less, that’s fine. But it’s up to them. It’s about the family.”
Bears Chairman George McCaskey issued a statement Monday night, too.
“A week ago another unarmed African-American man died at the hands of a white police officer,” the statement read. “We are witnessing the anger and frustration play out in protests across the nation, including Chicago. We must do more than wring our hands and hope it doesn’t happen again.
“As an organization, we have addressed it internally by offering unconditional support to our family of staff, coaches and players, and today Ryan Pace and Coach Nagy spent the allotted two hours of team meeting time listening to and healing together with our players and the coaching staff.”