Some coaches trash the tape of a bad playoff loss, trying to get the team to move on from the heartbreak and focus on the future. Not Matt Nagy.
According to running back Tarik Cohen, the Chicago Bears coach has been showing clips of the playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles to remind them of the pain.
"He'll show it throughout team meetings that we have in the mornings so that the whole team can see it," Cohen told Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio.
The Bears' season ended on a double-doink miss that was grazed by a defender. The crushing loss to the Eagles came after Mitchell Trubisky marched Chicago down the field to set up what appeared to be a game-winning comeback.
"He just shows us the last seconds of the game," Cohen told Schein. "He shows us the crowd's reaction, our reactions from the sideline, and he just tells you 'never forget that hurt,' you know, and that we want to get back to that place and have a different outcome. So that drives us and motivates to get through practice every day."
The missed field goal gets all the attention, but the Bears' offense sputtered for most of three quarters and the defense couldn't stop Nick Foles on the Eagles' final TD drive. Chicago had plenty of chances to wrench the game away before the final drive.
Nagy hopes embracing the painful memories of that loss will motivate his players through the offseason.
"We definitely had a shortcoming we feel like we are a better team and we could have went further in the playoffs," Cohen said. "But that's definitely driving us, this year, and coach Nagy won't let us forget it. He shows us what happens often so we continue to be driven by that, and we're just getting ready to make that run again."
Many good stories begin with a miserable failure. The Bears hope the double-doink is the letdown to propel a 2019 story that ends with a Lombardi Trophy.
