Matt Nagy, what can be said about this guy? He is by far the most polarizing candidate in this cycle, and he is probably more polarizing than anybody in the last two cycles as well. If you ever end up in the same room as two Titans fans, one pro-Nagy and the other anti-Nagy, good luck trying to get them to find a middle ground, because both sides are convinced, and they are not going to let up.
There’s no such thing as a person who is in the middle of hating and loving Matt Nagy; everyone either loves Nagy and thinks he’s the next head coach redemption story, or he’s never going to learn his lesson, and his tenure would kill Borgonzi’s tenure alongside Chad Brinker’s. For these reasons, he is probably one of the most interesting coaching candidates I’ll cover during this cycle.
Now, this leads to the question: how do I feel about Matt Nagy as a head coaching candidate? Well, I’m gonna tell you eventually, but for now, we need to get into the details of Nagy’s profile. So, without any further interruption, this is the head coaching profile of the current Chiefs offensive coordinator, Matt Nagy.
Matt Nagy’s Background
Before talking about his positives and negatives, it is necessary to look at the background of Nagy and how he got to this point. Before I go on, I need to clarify that this may be the weirdest path that I’ll cover in this series. Nagy’s coaching career started way back in the year 2001, when he was the quarterbacks coach at Manheim Central High School in Pennsylvania. He left this job after one year to take a spot in the same position, this time at Cedar Crest High School, also in Pennsylvania, and then he became an offensive coordinator at Palmyra High School from 2008-2009, and I think you can take a guess at where that school is.
Now, during these two years, Nagy was an intern for the Philadelphia Eagles during his time as coordinator for this high school, and, an interesting fact, on August 10, 2009, before the beginning of the preseason, backup QB Kevin Kolb got injured. The Eagles staff was a little spooked by this, and to make sure that Donovan McNabb and AJ Feely were protected, Andy Reid tried to get the NFL to let Nagy play in a preseason game since he wasn’t being paid as a coach, and, at first, the NFL actually allowed it and Nagy actually practiced for a day! The NFL eventually came to its senses and didn’t let Nagy play, but it’s still a very fun story.
Anyway, in 2o10, Matt Nagy decided to take a full-time job with the Eagles as a coaches’ assistant, and after a year in that position, he was promoted to offensive quality control coach, where he would stay for 2011 and 2012.
After that, he joined Andy Reid’s Kansas City staff in 2013 as a QBs coach from 2013-2015, and after Doug Pederson was hired away by the Eagles, Nagy was promoted to Offensive Coordinator from 2016-2017. He was pretty impressive here and had Alex Smith, statistically, playing the best ball of his career, and this led to an even bigger opportunity for Nagy in 2018.
In 2018, Matt Nagy was hired as the next head coach of the Chicago Bears and stayed there until 2021. Like McCarthy, I’ll save my thoughts on his tenure for the positives and negatives. After he was fired by the Bears, he was brought back to the Chiefs, where he served as a senior assistant and a QB coach for the 2022 season, and after Eric Bieniemy left, Nagy was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2023 and has been in that position since. Now, we can get into the positives and negatives of Nagy.
Matt Nagy’s Positives
So, the first and most obvious positive of Matt Nagy is the fact that he has head coaching experience. While nowhere near the experience that McCarthy had, Nagy still has four years of coaching experience, and he even has a coach of the year under his belt, alongside a 12-4 season that was completely ruined by Cody Parkiey’s double doink. This is something that I feel like has slowly faded away from the perspective of the front office in their next head coach.
There’s a feeling inside the building for the Titans that the culture is slowly shifting into something that is functioning and can stand bringing in a young head coach who is trying to figure out how to establish his culture. Now, this does not mean I don’t think it’s likely that they still end up going with an experienced coach, though; it just means it’s seeming more like the Titans could go with a young mind each day.
Now, that’s not meant to be a knock on Nagy; he had some solid moments as a head coach and was especially great his first time around as OC for the Chiefs in 2016. It’s just not as strong a point as it used to be. The second positive that needs to be addressed is how good a fit Nagy’s playcalling philosophy is, and how it is such a great fit for Cam Ward. Look, whatever you want to think about Nagy’s play design and play calling is a different thing, but there should not be a denial that he fits so well with Cam in play calling.
Question, what is the one thing that Titans fans have been begging for all year in our head coach? Well, that’s easy, we’ve been begging for more RPO action out of Brian Callahan and Mike McCoy all year, and that’s something that Nagy specializes in. His playbook is full of RPOs, and as we saw in the game on Sunday (as bad as it was), Nagy really likes his RPO game.
Now, does this mean his play-calling is automatically elite? Not really, but it still is something that could be very helpful in the future for Cam’s development. The last positive I want to mention is something that has evolved over time, and that’s how gracefully the Bears era has aged since he was fired. Look, as weird as he was during his head coaching days, Nagy was still most definitely not the biggest problem that haunted the Bears during this time; that was QB play. Mitch Trubisky was his QB the majority of the time Nagy was in Chicago, and if we’re being real, he was never going to be a good QB, no matter where he ended up. I’ll stand by this take when I say that he would’ve gotten Kyle Shanahan fired if he had gone to the 49ers.
Nagy did not have a losing season with Trubisky at QB, and his only losing season was with a mix of washed Andy Dalton and a rookie Justin Fields. That team was never going to be an offensive juggernaut, yet the offense was still average to below average with Nagy, which, with Trubisky, is an absolute miracle. Again, even with Nagy’s downsides, he still has some very strong positives that make him a very viable candidate.
Matt Nagy’s Negatives
Now, even with the positives of Matt Nagy, the negatives are still extremely concerning, and it’s the reason some people hate Nagy so much. The first negative I’ll talk about is how questionable Nagy’s leadership was with the Chicago Bears. Remember how terribly Trubisky was treated by Nagy during his time with the Bears? This doesn’t mean that Trubisky’s career was ruined by Nagy or anything, but Nagy definitely didn’t seem like he was helping matters in any way with Trubisky.
Also, he shares with Callahan a huge problem that can help any coach lose trust very quickly, and that’s accountability. There was never a time that I could remember where Nagy looked at the media in Chicago and said, “Guys, I’ve got to do better.” He was never someone who was a true leader, and honestly, it does seem like the true leader in that Chicago locker room that season was Vic Fangio.
By the end of his time in Chicago, Matt Nagy had completely lost the locker room, and the only person I could find who expressed genuine sadness was David Montgomery. Don’t forget about how he started the pandemic season 5-1 and then went on to lose seven of his last ten games that season. That speaks to his ability to keep the locker room humble the entire season.
The next negative I’d like to address is the stubbornness that Nagy has. This is where we get into the disaster class that was the 2021 season for Nagy and how terribly he managed his QB room. Look, Justin Fields ended up being a bad QB, there’s no doubt, but unlike Trubisky, I think Fields could have been fine. I mean, when he was given the right coaching with Arthur Smith, he didn’t look elite, but he looked serviceable, but he was terribly managed in his rookie year. Nagy had this weird knack for not using Fields’ mobility and making him become a pocket passer like Ben or Alex Smith. This obviously was a complete disaster and led to Nagy being fired.
I remember when Nagy had to miss a game back in 2021 due to him catching Covid, which led to Bill Lazor taking over play calling, and he actually used Fields the way he was meant to be used, moving all over the place with play action and read options, and even though they lost, Fields played pretty well.
So, in this situation, if it were me, I’d give the guy some credit for actually doing some good things. What did Nagy do? He dodged the question and, in a weird way, he tried to give himself credit for hiring him, genuinely the weirdest thing I’ve seen.
The last thing I’ll talk about is his refusal to adjust. This isn’t about his players, though, as I already addressed that; this is about his in-game adjustments. He would be consistently stubborn and stick to it, whether they were up or down, sound familiar? We even saw this during Sunday’s game, where he was just the worst about this. He had two, very opposite QBs on his roster in Gardner Minshew (pocket QB) and Chris Oladokun (mobile and accuracy is questionable), so, instead of adjusting to Oladokun’s mobility, he used him like he was Minshew. Again, his adjustment game has just proven to be incompetent. Overall, the negatives of Nagy are concerning, and they’re the reason that people hate him as a head coach so much.
How likely is Nagy to get hired?
So, I want all the people reading this to guess how I feel about Matt Nagy. I really did try to be fair to both sides with this, but I think it’s obvious how I feel. Overall, Matt Nagy is my least favorite head coaching candidate, and yes, this includes guys like Jon Gruden and Lou Anarumo, whom I have very adamantly spoken out against in this coaching search.
Look, I don’t disrespect anyone who will tell me that they feel a certain way about Nagy, because there are people who want Nagy in the community that I seriously respect; he’s just not for me. Now, how likely do I think the Tennessee Titans are to actually hire Nagy? Well, I have zero clue how to feel about the likelihood of this. A lot of insiders like Dianna Russini, Connor Orr, and even Schefter said something about Nagy, but here’s my question, is this really a list these insiders have actually heard from in the building, or was Easton Freeze right when he said that no one really knows who the next head coach is going to be yet, and that these are just lazy connections?
I tend to lean toward Easton on this and think that even though he will definitely interview for the job and might even get to the final, I don’t think Nagy will be the next head coach, and I know sources have said Amy is trying to take a backseat during this, but I would be very shocked if she heard that Borgonzi and Brinker landed on Nagy and Amy just let it slide.
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