In the middle of NFL season there are already two head coaching vacancies and there will surely be more as fall turns to winter. AND NFL team Owners will once again be faced with the decision of who they want to lead their franchise.
Training agents and executives consulted by CBS Sports in recent weeks have said that former Bears head coach and current Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy should be in line for a head coaching job in this next cycle, where there could be between six and 10 vacancies throughout the NFL. .
Sandwiched between two stints in Kansas City as offensive coordinator was a four-year stop in Chicago as head coach, where he led the Bears to two playoff appearances, their only postseason appearances since 2011.
Time, sources say, has helped Nagy’s record in Chicago look even better. And Chiefs head coach Andy Reid is ready to vouch for his offensive coordinator.
“He does everything,” Reid told CBS Sports in a recent interview. “He sets up the offense. He coordinates the offense, that’s what he does. And he’s very creative. I knew that when I was a quarterbacks coach, and I saw it when I was a coordinator, and then you saw it in Chicago as their head coach. And then he comes back here and I want the best from the guys, so with him you just let him go and let him go.”
Nagy came to Kansas City under Reid in 2013, working his way up the coaching ladder before becoming the OC in 2016. When the Bears fired him, he returned to KC in 2022 as quarterbacks coach before taking over as OC again. when Eric Bieniemy left. for Washington.
What works against Nagy is the fact that he is not the one calling the offensive plays and, like many people seeking professional mobility with the Kansas City franchise, the greatness of Reid and Mahomes. The two first-ballot Hall of Famers rightly receive an overwhelming amount of credit for all three. Super Bowl wins, four trips to the Super Bowl and six appearances in the AFC Championship Game.
Half the NFL interviewed Bieniemy for a head job and he never got one, and now he’s the offensive coordinator at UCLA. Current defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has had a top-five defense the past two years and is the only coordinator in NFL history to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises, but he hasn’t gotten a coaching interview lately in boss. And as far as personnel goes, only Ryan Poles has been plucked from Kansas City to take a GM job elsewhere.
Reid detailed what Nagy, and former Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo, bring to the undefeated Chiefs.
“He’s fantastic to me. Invaluable to me because he’s been a head coach,” Reid says. “So he understands that and not many people have sat in that seat. Not many assistants have sat in that seat. I’m fortunate to have him and Spags. They’ve both been head coaches and just understand it.
“There’s more to it than just calling plays and setting up plays. It’s about making sure you keep track of all the players and their lives and everything else on and off the field. And he understands that.”
The Chiefs, at 8-0, are undefeated and winning games by the skin of their teeth. The plus-56 scoring differential is the lowest for an 8-0 team in NFL history. But again, they are 8-0 with a 14-game winning streak that is the longest in franchise history.
The classic offensive statistics of these Chiefs surprise no one. In the Reid-Mahomes era that began in 2018, the 2024 Chiefs have the fewest yards per game (352.2), the fewest yards per play (5.2), the fewest passing yards per game (230.1), the highest interception rate (3.3%) and the highest. sack percentage (5.9%) of any previous Chiefs group. The 24.6 offensive points per game are the third lowest.
But if we dig deeper, we’ll find out how the Chiefs offense is winning. Kansas City is top two in the league in third down percentage, 10+ touchdown plays, plays per drive and time of possession. The Chiefs offense holds drives at a level no one else in the league does while running out the clock and smothering opponents with late-game comebacks.
Nagy has had to coordinate an offense that looks markedly different than the one in training camp. Speed had returned to the Chiefs in July with the additions of Hollywood Brown and rookie Xavier Worthy to pair with Rashee Rice. The passing game would also be helped by second-year running back Isiah Pacheco.
But Brown suffered a shoulder injury in the preseason that required surgery that ended the regular season. Pacheco fractured his fibula in Week 2 and still has a few weeks left before returning. Rice injured his knee in Week 4 and underwent season-ending surgery.
“He doesn’t bat an eyelid at it,” Reid says. “He’s next and off we go. He’s great with that. He never worries about that stuff. He just gets on with it and keeps going.”
Hiring former head coaches came back into vogue in the last hiring cycle as Raheem Morris, Dan Quinn and Jim Harbaugh filled three of the seven vacancies. This year, previous head coaches like Bill Belichick and Mike Vrabel are at the top of many teams’ wish lists along with Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.
For Nagy, he’ll have to show an NFL team owner what he learned during his time in Chicago. He went 34-31 in four years with the Bears, winning the AP Coach of the Year award in his 2018 freshman campaign with a 12-4 record. But Nagy wouldn’t have another winning season (two 8-8 years followed by his 6-11 finish) and would be fired after the 2021 season.
The Bears made the postseason twice, losing to the infamous Double Doink in 2019 and getting blown out by the Saints in 2021 when they snuck into the postseason.
Nagy had three years of Mitchell Trubisky and rookie year Justin Fields in his four seasons with the Bears. Trubisky, the second overall pick in 2017, hasn’t been a regular starter since his final year under Nagy in Chicago.
Trubisky has a starting record of 25-13 with Nagy and 6-13 without him. For the more analytics-driven crowd, Trubisky had a cumulative offensive EPA (expected points added) on dropbacks of 56.08 with Nagy as his head coach. In his career without Nagy, he is negative 63.56.
“I think it’s a success for an owner if they’re willing to dig deep and study what it’s about and what the situation really was in Chicago at the time,” Reid says.
There isn’t much benefit for Reid to potentially lose his offensive coordinator. But he realizes that this could be a reality in just a few months.
“Beyond the offensive part, it gets the bigger picture,” Reid says. “And when you’re an owner, you look for someone who can help you maximize the players that you have, and he can do that. With the players that he has, he’s going to get the maximum potential out of those players. And I think that’s proven when you really look at it from when I was in Chicago if you’re real and a true student of the game.
“Also, the owners don’t want problems and they want guys they don’t have to worry about on and off the field. He’s a phenomenal person and a phenomenal father, he spends a lot of time here. But when he’s not here, he’s with his kids and wife. ”
