KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Moments after the end of the Chiefs’ training camp practice on Monday at Missouri Western State University, senior assistant and quarterbacks coach Matt Nagy was headed off the field when fans started chanting his name (“Nagy, Nagy”) seeking to lure him over for autographs.
Nagy was only too happy to comply. And why not?
“It’s very welcoming …,” said Nagy, who had spent a decade with Andy Reid in Philadelphia and Kansas City before returning this spring after four seasons as head coach in Chicago. “I appreciate that, and it means a lot to me.”
And perhaps it stood out all the more this week.
As fate would have it, the deposed former Bears coach immediately gets the matter of his first return to Chicago for a game out of the way:
The Chiefs will open their 2022 preseason schedule at noon Saturday in Soldier Field — where, alas, some started chanting “Fire Nagy” during a 6-11 season that proved his undoing.
“Real-life experiences,” Nagy called his four-season tenure that began with a 12-4 playoff team (that lost in the wild-card round) and a 22-27 record thereafter.
Experiences he wouldn’t take back, he added, even if he had to endure a “grieving process” and wished “we had done more and could have won more.”
“But I learned a lot, and that part I wouldn’t change,” he said, adding, “I think I’ve got to be able to self-reflect on where I went wrong and how I could have been better.”
Time enough for that later, though. Or along the way.
Because overall this is a lot less about his return to Chicago than his return to Kansas City, which sure seems to be win-win-win:
For the organization itself, which will prosper by his sheer acuity and energy; for the still-young Nagy, 44, as he resets back at his roots; and for quarterback Patrick Mahomes, with whom Nagy established a certain chemistry and rapport during Mahomes’ “redshirt” 2017 season when Nagy was the offensive coordinator.
Put it all together with the offense transitioning in certain ways in the wake of the Tyreek Hill trade, not to mention its need to grow and evolve, and Nagy inherently provides some valuable fresh perspective and juice.
The unique lens that comes from having been such a part of forming the baseline and yet bringing fresh eyes means Nagy has been able to essentially audit the very core of the operation and help “bridge where we want to go,” as receivers coach Joe Bleymaier put it.
Nagy “can ask questions about what we’ve changed since he’s been gone and why,” Bleymaier said. “So we can go back to the fundamentals or the foundation of what we were doing, talk about the progressions that we’ve gone to, and then really we can revisit whether it’s still valid this year going forward.”
Bleymaier added, “Should we go back to things we’ve done before (or) keep where we’ve progressed? Are all the same assumptions that we’ve made holding true at this point in time?”
One key assumption you can bet holds true:
Nagy’s return has been reinvigorating for Mahomes because of the synchronicity they had in 2017 when Mahomes also was being mentored by Alex Smith.
Not that Mahomes didn’t have a strong relationship with previous quarterbacks coach Mike Kafka, who left after last season to become offensive coordinator of the New York Giants.
But there was, and is again, something special in this relationship.
Nagy’s role in that crucial 2017 acclimation season was part of the springboard for Mahomes a season later, when he led the Chiefs to the first of their four straight AFC Championship game appearances.
That included back-to-back Super Bowl berths, of course, including their first in 50 years in the 2019 season that included a 26-3 win at Chicago.
The romp over the Bears, you might remember, included Mahomes counting to 10 on his fingers on one touchdown celebration.
That apparently was intended to remind the Bears that they’d chosen Mitchell Trubisky with the No. 2 overall pick in 2017 and left Mahomes for the Chiefs to trade up to get at No. 10.
Asked if he’d ever spoken with Mahomes about that, Nagy laughed and said “no comment.”
But he sure had plenty to say about how that No. 10 pick grew over the last four years.
Most of all, he spoke to the infectious confidence Mahomes exudes. And to the fact that Mahomes is so comfortable in the offense now that at he is known to supplement the teaching of Reid, offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy (with whom Nagy, his former boss, has expressed a bond and vice versa) or Nagy by running parts of meetings himself.
“It’s wild to see what type of leader (Mahomes) is; he’s rare,” said Nagy, later adding that his persona “makes me a better coach because of that. He makes his teammates better players. And it’s just special.”
In a sense, anyway, Chicago on Saturday also will be just that for Nagy, who says he’ll retain lifetime relationships with many in the Bears organization. He smiled as he pondered the possibility he might accidentally gravitate to the Bears sideline or locker room.
“It’s my professional job to step back and make sure it’s about ‘we’ and not me (Saturday),” he said. “I mean that when I say that. But that’s hard sometimes.”
Even if he doesn’t quite know how he’ll feel when he gets out there, he’ll surely be reminded both of the hard times there and the chance for growth from it.
Starting with the homecoming that matters most now: this one with the Chiefs.
