Better, yes, but Chicago Bears still a work in progress

A sleepless and exhausted Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy met the media Tuesday in the wake of his club's 31-15 victory over Washington on Monday night often appearing more juggler than coach.

Yes, a win is a win, and clearly it is a lot better to be 2-1 than 1-2.

But after the early reviews from Bears Nation dialed in on dissatisfaction with an elite and dominant defense, well-managed offense and a halting rout of an awful Washington team not being satisfying enough, Nagy was careful to find the "good but we still need to get better" in almost every answer.

As one might expect, the majority of the Q&A focused on Nagy's embattled field general, Mitch Trubisky, and the bulk of the questions awakened the ghosts of Jeff Hostetler, Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson.

Asked about Trubisky's comments after the victory that the game plan had again been simplified, one curious scribe wanted to know if that would be the norm and if it is the best way to go with Mitch.

"Probably a little bit of both," Nagy offered. "I think for us it goes back to that we're trying to find exactly what our identity is. How do we help these guys out on offense? How do we help ourselves out as coaches?

"I felt like - again, I told the guys after the game last night - offensively there is steady, incremental improvement. We're slowly getting better. Are we where we want to be? No.

"There are some plays in that game where you look back and say, 'Dang, just if we would have.' But then there's also some great plays and drives in there where you're really happy with the way the offense performed."

Clearly, the head coach was watching the same game the rest of us were.

Not just on the other hand, but perhaps in a different ZIP code, Nagy did take exception to the idea that his defense is anything but perfect.

Questioned about his level of concern that the defense appeared gassed at the end of the Denver game and again nearly worn out late in the third and early in the fourth quarter Monday as Washington went on two long drives, Nagy wasn't having it.

"Yeah, there might have been a little bit of that," he said, "but I go back to when they gave up that touchdown, I put that on the offense. We were in a position, we had good field position, we were in the red zone, we were in a good spot, and then we ended up missing that field goal.

"We came back the next possession, so they were out there quite a bit I felt like more, and (Washington is) kind of playing catch-up, so they're dinking the ball left and right and you're out there and they're getting first downs. So that might have been a little bit of it.

"But that's the one part of the game where I felt like we had a chance to really put them away, and we let them kind of get back into it."

What did Nagy think of Trubisky's quarterbacking, specifically his reading downfield and making plays?

"He was good," the coach said. "We had a couple opportunities there where they kind of played soft and off looking for that and he was able to bring his eyes back down to the intermediate level and make a couple throws over the middle of the field, so I thought that part was good.

"We talked about over-communicating clarity, and they did that."

Nagy was particularly pleased with the third touchdown toss to Taylor Gabriel. "To throw an off-balance throw with that accuracy down the field like that was one of those plays we've been looking for. It was nice to get that."

But does Nagy believe the team he has been looking for fully arrived Monday night? "You always get into that mode where at one point it was 28-3 right?

"We were right there to really be able to put that thing away. We feel like that's where we can take that next step."

Notice he said next step, not last.

Everyone seems to agree this Bears team is still very much a work in progress.

• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.