Not a shocker: Nagy picked as NFL's best coach
ATLANTA - Honestly the real surprise would have been if Bears head coach Matt Nagy were not selected the 2018 NFL Coach of the Year.
With 24, Nagy received almost half the available votes of the Associated Press panel of the top 50 football writers in the country, and he tallied more than double the total of LA Chargers coach Anthony Lynn, who came in second with 10 votes. The other coaches getting votes were Indianapolis' Frank Reich, Kansas City's Andy Reid, Seattle's Pete Carroll and New Orleans' Sean Payton.
Accepting the award, Nagy said: "I want to thank the AP for selecting me as the Coach of the Year for 2018, especially considering the other deserving coaches who had outstanding seasons.
"This recognition is not about me - it is about our coaching staff, our players, the entire organization and the great Chicago Bears fans. We won this together as a family."
In his rookie season in the top job, Nagy inherited a team that had gone 5-11 last season, just 8-24 over the last two and was riding a streak of four straight NFC North last-place finishes.
Nagy led the Bears to a 12-4 record with the four losses coming by 1, 3, 7 and 3 points, victories in 9 of their last 10 regular-season games, an NFC North title, and a last-second Wild Card loss to the defending Super Bowl Champion Eagles.
Formerly a quarterback at the University of Delaware, Nagy was 30 years old, working in real estate and ready to move on from football when the Eagles reached out to him a decade ago and offered him a chance to come to training camp, for the most part as a camp arm.
Then-Eagles coach Reid offered Nagy a chance to try out coaching, and he began as an offensive assistant before graduating to offensive quality control, quarterbacks coach and finally offensive coordinator of the Chiefs when Doug Pederson left to take over the Eagles.
In November 2017, a month before the Bears would hire their new head coach, Reid - who has become known for a coaching tree that includes Childress, John Harbaugh, Ron Rivera, Sean McDermott and Pederson - said Nagy was likely to be the best head coach he'd trained of all his assistants to date.
It seems he knew exactly what he was talking about.
From the moment Bears General Manager Ryan Pace hired Nagy in January 2018, he appeared to be a perfect choice.
Nagy's first task was to convince defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who had also interviewed for the job, to agree to stay. Displaying virtually no ego, Nagy basically made Fangio the head coach of the defense, and together they ended up overseeing the NFL's top-rated group.
He further excelled assembling an all-star coaching staff by adding former Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich, past Vikings head coach Brad Childress (who departed after training camp), offensive line coach Harry Heistand, special teams coach Chris Tabor and secondary coach Ed Donatell.
Certainly the acquisition of Khalil Mack a week before the regular season began was a pivotal moment for the Bears and Nagy, but the rookie head coach was already well on his way to directing the Bears' dramatic turnaround.
Key to Chicago's success last season was the development of second-year quarterback Mitch Trubisky, Nagy's top priority assignment, and it didn't take long for Trubisky to become a believer and prize pupil of his new boss.
What's next for the now reigning NFL Coach of the Year?
"Our guys, one of the powerful things I took from our exit meetings was they came away telling me truly how convicted they were in their feelings of us this year and where we could've really gone," Nagy said. "That's why I'm so excited - and it keeps you going - because we started something. Everything we did this past year? Throw it out the window. It means nothing. Now we're 0-0, and that's the challenge. That's the new challenge."
• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.