GLENDALE, Ariz. – As it is with every Super Bowl, there are a few people with Chicago ties that had the opportunity to raise the Lombardi Trophy when their team wins the big game.
That was the case for a former head coach of the Bears, who got to do so just a year after being fired.
Matt Nagy won his first Super Bowl title on Sunday as the Chiefs defeated the Eagles 38-35 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. He’s in his first year as the senior assistant and quarterbacks coach in his second stint as an assistant under head coach Andy Reid.
This comes just 13 months after Nagy was fired as the Bears’ on-field leader after four seasons. After being named NFL Coach of the Year in 2018 after the team went 12-4 and won the NFC North, inconsistency plagued the rest of his tenure as the team failed to finish over .500 again.
After back-to-back 8-8 seasons, with the team sneaking into the playoffs in 2020 as the last Wild Card, Nagy’s tenure ended went the team went 6-11 in 2021.
Joining back up with Reid, whom he coached with in Philadelphia from 2008 through 2012 then in Kansas City from 2013-2017, Nagy jumped right back into a successful system with the Chiefs. He had the chance to work directly with quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the NFL’s MVP for the 2022 season, as they went 14-3 to clinch the top seed in the AFC for the playoffs.
Kansas City defeated Jacksonville and Cincinnati in the postseason to reach their third Super Bowl in four years, then knocked off the Eagles in a tight battle on Sunday. The Chiefs’ offense scored on all of their second half possession, including Harrison Butker’s 27-yard field goal that won the game with eight seconds left.
This was the first Super Bowl that Nagy had coached in, having only gone as far as the conference championship before the 2022 season. In his first year as a coaching intern with the Eagles in 2008, the team made the NFC title game but lost to the Cardinals in Glendale.
As head coach of the Bears, Nagy’s teams were defeated in the Wild Card round by Philadelphia (2018 season) and New Orleans (2020 season).
