Wearing Chiefs colors Thursday, Matt Nagy was asked one of the biggest questions facing the Bears this week: generally, what can an offensive coordinator do to let his quarterback play freely?
“We live in this world of instant gratification … wherever we are, you see a lot of these young quarterbacks that come in that are forced to play and do well right away,” the offensive coordinator told Chiefs reporters. “You have the old stories of old quarterbacks … that have had some time to sit and get to see.
“These NFL defenses are so much different than college. You need to be able to adjust and adapt to the player and how they can grow. But you also have to be able to go through the highs and the lows together.
“It’s in this league, it’s not just Justin in Chicago, it’s in this league in general, how do you do that and navigate through that, staying together and staying positive?”
Nagy, the Bears’ head coach from 2018-21, cited his experience sitting Patrick Mahomes as a rookie and mentoring Mitch Trubisky in Chicago.
“There’s a lot to it,” he said. “Staying together, being positive. But also understanding that instant gratification is real. So how do you get to that point?”
Nagy said he hadn’t given much thought to facing the Bears — he got that out of his system in a preseason game in Chicago last year.
“I know people in the building, I know players, a lot of support staff,” he said. “And that’s what’s real. At the same time you really try to get to a point where you want to make sure it’s not about any of that. And I mean that.”
