If Matt Nagy hasn’t already, he’ll take a moment to relax after three long days spent in Halas Hall’s draft room for his first NFL Draft as Bears coach. And Nagy said general manager Ryan Pace should join in.
“We will sit back and take a little bit of a deep breath,” Nagy said.
But expect that moment to be brief.
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Nagy and Pace share a grind-at-all-hours personality, and they simply have too much to do. Together, they’ve built a new team around quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
“My whiteboard up there is starting to get kind of busy,” Nagy said Saturday after the draft concluded. “It gets busy with circles, and now it can get busy with names, which is nice.”
A prevailing message from the Bears since Nagy was hired is that he and Pace are in lockstep. That continued after the draft. There are no longer conflicting ideologies afoot on offense.
To use some of Pace’s buzzwords, it has been a “collaboration” between the scouting staff and the coaches to get on “the same page” for “the vision of what we’re looking for” offensively and for Trubisky.
“When Ryan and I first got together and we started formulating a plan of how we wanted to go about this, we mentioned about adding pieces offensively, and that’s what we’ve done,” Nagy said. “Now it’s up to us and coaches to make it happen, and it’s up to the players when we get on the field to make it happen.”
Free agency and seven rounds of the draft produced at least five new players who figure to have prominent roles offensively: receivers Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel and Anthony Miller (the 51st overall selection), tight end Trey Burton and guard/center James Daniels (the 39th selection).
Overall, it is an impressive haul — one praised publicly in the national media and one also eyed jealously in league circles — which improves a young offense that already had running backs Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen, offensive linemen Cody Whitehair and Kyle Long and tight end Adam Shaheen.
The talent upgrades and variety of skills give Nagy plenty of options in his pursuit of finding the best matchups for his offense.
“We certainly have enough — without a doubt,” Nagy said. “You’re at a point right now where there [are] really good numbers in regards to all the positions.
“Whether it’s the running-back position, the tight-end position, wide receiver and then the depth at O-line, we’re in a really good spot. That was the goal going into free agency, going into the draft. I feel like we accomplished that.”
Nagy said repeatedly that the onus is on him and his offensive staff to make it all work. That will take time. Nagy’s offense is new for many players on the roster. The Bears might be several weeks into the regular season before the offense’s complexities simplify internally for Trubisky.
Regardless, something vastly different is brewing offensively for the Bears and Trubisky as opposed to what the team fielded last season under John Fox and Dowell Loggains.
It started with Nagy and Pace sharing a vision. Pace said that he would never be satisfied in his pursuit of adding and improving around Trubisky.
“That’s going to continue,” he said.
But on paper, the changes have been good. It was imperative to improve the talent around Trubisky, and they’ve succeeded. Pace has every right to say that Halas Hall is “energized” by a “positive vibe” right now.
“The general consensus is that we did improve,” Nagy said. “Now you need to do it on the field.”
