Staley Da Bear
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- Mar 16, 2019
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Not a grudge match: The Eagles handed the Bears a crushing loss in last season’s NFC playoffs. But with Matt Nagy’s team limping into Philadelphia with a three-game losing streak, there hasn’t been much talk this week about avenging that defeat,
“It hasn’t really been talked about by anybody,” Nagy said. “That was a big game for us, a big loss for us that we used (as motivation) in the offseason. I think internally everybody knows the feeling of what we felt, but we haven’t turned this into any type of revenge game: ‘You’ve got to do this or do that.’ We’re just focused on going 1-0 with where we’re at this year.”
Nagy prefers not to use the word “revenge” in discussing Sunday’s matchup.
“You just have to be a little bit careful of that because then maybe it takes you out of your element for this game that matters this year,” Nagy said. “It’s a different year. You can use it in the offseason because you haven’t got to the season yet.
“Now we’re in the season, that’s last year. We don’t want to live in the past. We don’t want to live in the past last week. That’s just kind of where we’re at. We’re trying to stay moving our feet forward. That’s probably why it hasn’t been brought up as much.”
Staying focused: Nagy urges his players to put horse-blinders and earmuffs on to avoid seeing or hearing outside criticism. But the coach understands that in this era of social media it’s unrealistic to expect them not to know what’s being said about them.
“The Twitter thing in this day and age, it’s like impossible,” Nagy said. “That’s hard to do. It’s more so all of us just generically speaking, let’s just focus on what we can focus on, let’s not let other things derail what we think. Everybody has their opinions; we understand that. We have our own opinions. That’s the way we want to attack this.”
Keeping the faith: Despite high expectations, the Bears are in last place in the NFC North with a 3-4 record. But players have not given up hope.
“I would not say it’s shocking,” said cornerback Prince Amukamara. “I was going to use the word disappointing. But we’re not at the end of the season yet. You never know how things are going to play out. There’s so much parity in this league. Things never go the way you want it or the way you intended it.
“I remember A-Rob (Allen Robinson) saying this last week, and I still believe it, what we want to accomplish is still out there. We still control our destiny. A win is the best solution right now.”