Rozner: Apparently Bears have a lot to learn

It's now been 10 years since the Bears won a playoff game.

The locals are among a special group of only seven teams that can say the same, the rest being such NFL stalwarts as the Bengals, Lions, Jets, Dolphins, Raiders and Washington.

That's some solid company.

But when you do something like Anthony Miller did Sunday in New Orleans, it explains in part how little coaching is impacting this team, and brings into question the character of the players on the roster.

Matt Nagy made the startling admission postgame Sunday that last week he brought up the Javon Wims ejection from 10 weeks ago, when Wims also punched Saints safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson.

"We spent some time on Wednesday morning as a team, literally showing it and explaining a particular player's actions in games, and teaching it," Nagy said Sunday night. "That's taking 10 or 15 minutes out of your day, which is precious, right?"

Right. Precious prep time spent telling your players not to take the bait, which apparently went in one ear and out the other.

"When you do that," Nagy said, "I think it's a valuable lesson for our guys."

Of course. Every game offers Bears players valuable lessons. We know this because we hear it after every game.

"We already knew going into this thing about some of that," Nagy said of how Gardner-Johnson can get under a player's skin. "It's a valuable learning experience."

Yes. Still valuable. Still learning.

"Especially when we're low with numbers at the receiver position and the value of the zebra position for us, our guys all have to understand we have to be stronger and we can't have that happen," Nagy said. "That's two times that it happened and we just can't have it."

It shouldn't happen once, let alone twice.

When it happened the first time, Wims should have been immediately removed from the roster. That's the correct message. That's how you ensure it doesn't happen again, but the most penalized team in the league instead gave Wims a stern lecture and kept him on the squad.

"We've talked to him and told him that it's not how things go here," Nagy said after the Saints game in November. "One of Javon's strengths is his character and who he is as a person."

Character. Got it.

"He has since apologized, but there's no part of that in this game," Nagy said. "That's not how we roll here. We'll be talking to him."

The message in that is there are no real consequences, so when Nagy delivered his talk last week about what would happen Sunday, Miller clearly ignored the head coach.

What does that say about Nagy and his influence? He just lectured the team and it happened precisely the same way again.

That does not paint a pretty picture as the Bears go into an offseason looking to improve on consecutive 8-8 seasons, with salary cap issues, an aging defense and a terrible offense.

"For us to get better and be the team that we need to be ... is to make sure that wherever there's a weakness, we make it a strength, and that's gonna take everybody," Nagy said, repeating something he has said in the past. "We have to be better in a lot of different areas and my job is to make sure that it happens."

Wims rewarded Nagy by dropping a touchdown pass, which seems absolutely appropriate given the circumstances.

"That (trick play) has been sitting in the playbook for weeks," Nagy said. "We've been practicing it. We've been waiting for the right time."

It all worked except for the catching part.

"Another learning tool," Nagy said. "Against a team like this, when there's an opportunity to be made, you have to make that play. We all need to learn."

Yes, learning, learning and more learning.

It speaks to the depth of the team that the play was specifically designed for Wims, who should have been cut the night he threw the punch.

And it magnifies the incessant talk of learning and improving and teaching.

Is that how Super Bowl teams talk?