Difficult getting to the bottom of Chicago Bears struggling offense
Bears coach Matt Nagy seemed a bit more testy than usual during his weekly Monday meeting with the media following a Sunday game.
But, hey, how would you be feeling after your team, in its own words, embarrassed itself in the final home game of the season?
Following the game, all-pro safety Eddie Jackson said:, "It's tough. It's our last home game, prime time. It's embarrassing. Guys kept fighting which is always a good sign, but it's still embarrassing."
Wide receiver Allen Robinson, arguably the team's best player all season, added, "I'm frustrated. I don't like losing. Keep fighting and keep playing. We understand we're in a tough situation, but we have to go out there and perform."
With what could very well be the most difficult off-season of their careers in front of them, it is easy to see how the coach and his players have reached the end of their ropes.
What happened?
The problem we're all having in trying to find that answer is another question, this one akin to what came first, the chicken or the egg.
Is the Bears' current state of affairs a product of overrating their talent?
Are we here because Mitch Trubisky just isn't the answer at quarterback, or has he failed to answer the bell yet because Nagy's offense is a mess without a clear plan or enough consistency to allow him to figure out what these Bears can do well?
Asked Monday about the sloppiness that has haunted his team all season, seemingly reaching a new low Sunday night against the Kansas City Chiefs, Nagy answered: "We're always up front and honest with everybody in regards to how we try to change that.
"To me, really, I always talk about details. When you think one play might be the play that affects a game, you want to try to be as perfect as you can. And so you look back, and early on in the game we're moving the ball a little bit and then we have the fumble on the (end) around.
"Now, all of a sudden, it's second-and-20. We had a couple penalties here and there offensively, didn't score in the red zone, gave up some long drives on defense, had an offsides, gave them a free first down on third-and-4 and then we had obviously the running-into-the-kicker (penalty)."
While all of that obviously is true, it leaves unanswered the question of why call that end around in the first place when you were driving to open the game?
Nagy's answer was the play was fine, the execution was the problem, which may be true, but was it the best call in that spot?
What went wrong in the red zone? Asked about each play, first, second and third down, the coach said his quarterback was fine on all three, did the right thing.
So does it follow that the play calls were wrong?
What really struck me though was when asked about Cordarrelle Patterson's play on offense, Nagy replied, "I think you guys saw yesterday what he can do when he is in the backfield."
No, I actually saw that last year when he was in New England and thought that was one of the main reasons he was brought here.
Nonetheless, Nagy continued, "He's able to make some - he's fast, he's big, and he runs the ball hard. And then he does good things in the pass game, too.
"That's, again, for somebody like him, me learning how to use some of the players, I think you'll see that that'll get better."
That's great news coach, but why did it take 16 weeks to figure out what should have been obvious on opening day?
Even if the Bears lose Sunday to the Vikings at Minnesota, Nagy will be 19-14 after two seasons, with one NFL Coach of the Year Award. By any measure, that's an excellent start in his business.
It's enough to convince me there still could be a very good NFL head coach hiding inside Nagy right now.
But one more season like this one and he could very well be the Bears' ex-head coach, and I'd hate to see that happen, especially if we never find out whether it was the coach or his players to blame for this one.
• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.