It must have been bewildering for Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy as they sat side-by-side at a New Year’s Eve press conference to confront the reality of a failed season.
Everything that worked so beautifully in 2018, Nagy’s debut, imploded in 2019. Sure there were some significant new twists, but essentially, the same plan produced disappointingly different results as the Bears dropped from 12-4 to 8-8.
Each had his own interest to guard, and both spoke diplomatically and in generalities about what went wrong.
If it was the personnel, that’s Pace’s fault. He wasn’t ready to make many specific concessions at that point and even defended quarterback Mitch Trubisky against the highly unfavorable comparison to rocketing superstars Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson by saying he’s just developing at a different speed.