Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Poor Matt Nagy

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris wondered what's next for former Chiefs offensive coordinator and former Bears head coach Matt Nagy after Kansas City let him go.

Listen to Rahimi Harrison Grotty on the Odyssey and IHeart radio apps. Arrogance by Matt Nagy. I had listened to Mark Grody say that so much in his impression of Wayne Larravee's voice that I had forgotten what the real version sounded like. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 670 to score. And the nice part about not being involved in these coaching searches for once is that you just need to kind of like sit back and sit pertine. and watch everything unfold

chaotically ahead of you knowing that you've been a part of the process but this isn't your problem this year it's a very interesting feeling it's very Wilson from home alone just looking over the hedges into your neighbor's yard I think he was in home improvement and we never knew who Wilson was

home improvement yes I keep saying by Neggie's name over and over again when I mean Mattie Rufluse recently because I always revert back to the previous person I covered if there's a similarity Whenever I think about Wilson, it also takes me back to Mr. Wilson and Dennis the Menace. And so, yes, you're right. The links are strong and real.

Yeah, the original link is the one your brain will default too many times. Unfortunately, the original link for me and the mats was Matt Nagy. And he has been a focal point, but that's because we had to live it. And I remember the, oh, he's so transparent time. And then the, oh, these plays are fun. And then the, oh, how neat a trick play. And then somewhere along the way in the 2018 season, about to see. December is where I started to think, oh, you sure have to use a lot of trick plays to get into the end zone.

You're giving me a little PTSD because now I'm thinking about Ben Johnson because every time you describe something, it's something Ben Johnson is doing currently. So yeah. Well, the difference is, and how many times do we get text on the score text line? Oh, he's just Matt Nagy 2.0. No, he wasn't. The two, just like what we talked about with the Declan Doyle discussion and, frankly, some of the candidates for the Brown's job. Shee-Hoss being one of them. there's a difference between interviewing for head coaching jobs as an offensive mind, but not calling your own place, which was the difference for Matt Nagy here.

The Bears had had a different head coach in John Fox. They rebounded, and it felt like very much a rebound type of hire, getting a younger coach with an offensive mind, which all of that was the right thing to do. They just settled on the wrong individual. They didn't do that this time. That's the difference. Johnson knows how to build a playbook. He didn't rely on all this trickery to get into the end zone by the end of it because the NFL had figured out what a lot of the plays were. And that's my issue with this. So when the alarm bells started to sound when the Chiefs wanted to hire Eric B. Enemy was then we realized, unlike, say, Todd Munkin, who has a job with John Harbaugh, even if he doesn't get a head coaching job, they put up the Matnaggy thank you graphic yesterday. And then you, and then you are, you

hear Andy re-talk about how direct Eric B. Enemy is and how much he likes having somebody direct who communicates. There were stories about how this fell apart here. Go back to the athletic. Go back to the Adam Johns and Kevin Fishbane's story

talking about how Mitch Trubisky and wanted to meet with Matt Negi after the season and brought his playbook and Negi didn't show according to that story. And that's where things really turned for me. In that moment, I thought we owed Mitch an apology because he was at least trying. So we talked about this in our pre-show meeting.

And Ray, you and I feel like are a little bit on the same page when it comes to the, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You can revise history to an extent. But you can't do it to this extent. Yeah, you know, Matt Naggie is walking around basically like, woes me when he reflects on the time in Chicago, in my opinion. And it's just, you know, this is unfair maybe to him. But I just think the guy's a jerk.

Look, Mitch Trubisky was overdrafted. Mitch Trubisky was never, never amounted to what he was drafted to be, but it was kind of an impossible position for the guy that he was put in. But Matt Nagy, the reports of what happened at the end of his tenure and the way he kind of, at the end of Trubisky's tenure with the Bears, was included like a meeting, a postseason meeting in which Mitch Trubisky showed up and waited for his head coach Matt Nagy, and he never showed up. So that for me has kind of colored how I feel about Matt Nagy. Like, look, I wasn't a fan of Mitch Trubisky, the football player, but he seemed like a nice guy.

I mean, that's it. Yeah, he did not draft himself. And nobody deserves that kind of treatment. And Matt Nagy just, ever since then, you know, that, and between his attitude, like, where he was getting questioned about not running the football enough, and he was telling reporters, I'm not an idiot. Like, I don't know, I've just, this guy, I haven't liked him for a while, and I still don't like him.

I mean, that's it, right? There's a famous quote by Buddy Ryan saying, like, Chicago and Philadelphia doesn't suffer fools. I don't know the direct quote. But basically, you might be able to pull this off elsewhere, but you can't do it here. Like, people will see through it. And I think that that's what happened. So we were talking about this and just the way Andy Reid was talking about Eric B and me.

And then Ray was telling us about this article that had come out by, he's a fabulous reporter, Nate Taylor. He's covered the Chiefs for a long time. He's now with ESPN. And then there was the quote in the Nate Taylor article that we have on tape from Matt Nagy about his time with the Bears and how this is going for him in that coaching cycle. Listen to how he addresses it. The last three years for me have been a little bit. bit more unique where I don't have the quarterback position. It's more of an organizational standpoint structure-wise. Being there from a former head coach helping coach readout, you know, anytime you look

at what went on this year as an offense, you're frustrated, you're disappointed because in the end it's your job as a coordinator to make sure that everything's done the right way and that you succeed and that you win. And that didn't happen. So that drives me, though. That motivates me. And I don't run from that. I think it's very important. I've been through a lot in my life and coach. And so this kind of stuff is when you do it with good people like we are right now, it makes it easier. But it doesn't make it fun. And it's an emotional sport that we all play in coach. And for me, it's motivation.

I can just say that. Ideally, this question will come next week, but we won't get you, I guess. I just want to gauge your desire and readiness to become a head coach for a second time. Sure. I really feel good about where I'm at. And again, here we are at the end of the season. And so this is the time where this stuff comes up. I've prepared for several years since I went through it at the right time.

And everything that I went through in Chicago, it all happened for a reason. And be able to come back here in Kansas City and be here with Coach Reed and all these players is special. So we'll just continue to work through all that and see whatever happens. But it's fun and it's just that time of the year, so be ready for it. So you don't have a quarterback position. So you're not coaching the centerpiece of your team and arguably the NFL. And everything that happened to you here? Everything that I went through in Chicago was a, it, it all happened for a reason.

Oh, poor Matt Naggy, everything he went through here. He didn't do anything wrong. Everything just happened to him as a head coach. Is that what I am to understand? It's no one's fault other than everybody's. What in the hell are we doing here? So when I... Like you're in charge of what would you say you do here if you weren't the head coach here

and you weren't in charge of a lot of the decisions that were made? Because I remember when you gave the play calling duties away and then the offense started working and then you took them back. Was that everything that happened to you? He clearly made decisions that were bad in the long term, well, really the short term to the long term. He even contradicted his general. manager's decision and quarterbacks.

Yes. I think the biggest thing is in a position where you need to have even more accountability because in theory you're far enough away from the situation to do some true not only reflection but some introspection. That seems to be lacking here? Very much so. And that's the thing. Like I would have so much more respect for Meggi in 2026 if he, and maybe it exists

out there at some point. Maybe he said something like this and I haven't seen it, but I just haven't seen it. There was the potash article, right? That's true. Where he went into the things that he would do differently, like delegate. But you need something to do if you're delegating.

Well, my thing is it doesn't strike me at any point since his exit and really during his time here because I was only here for the tail end of his time here. It didn't seem like he was a leader of men at any point. It did not work.

That was the direct quote that they wanted in a coach. Now, granted, that was more said, you know, after Iber flus. But that's what players want. I just, it's a lot of, like, it's all the right things, but they're just not in order. Like, he says the right stuff. But the responsibility has to be taken. If you're a head coach, you have to take some responsibility. I think he tried with the initial article that came out.

But this is, in being transparent, you're telling people what actually happened. The idea, though, that he was powerless here could not be farther from the truth. This was a man who won head coach of the year. And they tried to replicate that 2018 season success. And thank God for Antoine Randall L earlier today to tell you that simply getting to the playoffs isn't enough. Like your job is to get in. and then once it is, then we cook. And this man's still trying to get into the end zone.

And the fact that he openly admitted that quarterback is not part of his purview. When quarterback is Patrick Mahomes, when arguably that's how you got this particular job here to begin with. It's rich. It goes beyond that, though. And here's why. I think part of the problem is, Matt Nagy does view himself as coach of the year.

And so if that's the lens through which he's looking, like I was at the top of the, you can't, you got to throw that away, be like, I had a good season. We can argue about why I had a good season. But the ultimate thing is I was it not able to maintain, grow it, evolve on that. And so that year shouldn't be the focus,

because that's not the peak. or at least it shouldn't be. And if that is the peak, that means everything since then has been downhill and not in a good way. I just don't know who he is. Well, I know who he isn't. He's not a good head coach. And so when this all started, you'll remember a couple months ago, I was like, why would you hire Matt Nagy to be your coach? What is he proven to you?

I was like, maybe he should just go somewhere being an offensive coordinator where he actually calls plays. And if he does well in that job, then you get the right to maybe be concerned. for a lot of these head coaching. So when he came out of the gate, when the offseason started, and people were like, Matt Negi, well, what? I can find better candidates. Well, I do appreciate him putting himself out there, and I did think he needed to talk.

And I would have liked to have heard what he thought he learned. But I'm not sure I heard anything of the like there. This is a man who told us he wanted to find the whys. Where was the why in there? Where it made sense? The whys. And to that, end. Nate Taylor has written

articles about why the chiefs wanted to hire Eric the enemy. And in there was a discussion about the lack of a counter, which has always been a concern of this station in particular on this head coach. That Matt Nagy didn't have a counter punch

when in game or during the season the league would make adjustments to him. I do not feel that way about Ben Johnson. I think they will adjust in play because he knows how to, he knows how to design a playbook. But the idea that everything happened to him,

you don't want to hear a head coach say that. You want to hear a head coach take responsibility. For Andy Reed to tell you all the reasons why Eric Biennamy is now the offensive coordinator and not to pretend like it's not an indictment of why Matt Nagy is no longer the offensive coordinator. Come on.

574 makes a good point here in our text line. Look at the difference between the two coaches. Negi never held himself accountable. Johnson owns his mistakes after every game. Which one shows actual leadership. Do you think Matt Nagy would ever say that it's on me when that final play that we were talking about with DJ Moore and Kayla Williams is discussed?

No. And frankly, neither with the previous head coach. They'd tell you how it was supposed to go or some other stuff. Didn't execute. The difference in between getting to a playoff game and then winning one was monumental for this team in this franchise. and therein lies the difference. Coming up next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie,

we have an interesting paragraph that has been published by our friend Seth Wickersham. Don't worry, the bears aren't involved. Until they are. Reader's Theater is next. It's just that time of the year, you know, so be ready for it.