The Chicago Bears will be without their head coach when they welcome the San Francisco 49ers to Soldier Field on Sunday.
The Bears announced Saturday that Matt Nagy remains in the league’s COVID-19 protocol and will not coach the team’s Week 8 game. He will be replaced as head coach by special teams coach Chris Tabor.
Tabor began his NFL coaching career as an assistant special teams coach for the Bears from 2008 to 2010. He was then the special teams coach for the Cleveland Browns from 2011 to 2017, before returning to Chicago to take over special teams in 2018.
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It’s not the first time this season that a team will be forced to play a game without its head coach. Earlier this year, Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury sat out the team’s game against the Cleveland Browns after testing positive for COVID-19. He was replaced as head coach by the combination of defensive coordinator Vance Joseph and special teams coach Jeff Rodgers. The Saints also played a game without seven assistant coaches.
Nagy’s game-day role has been the subject of intermittent controversy this season as he has repeatedly either refused to specify whether he or offensive coordinator Bill Lazor would call plays, or else refused to answer questions about the topic at all. There will be no such controversy on Sunday: Lazor will call the team’s plays in Nagy’s absence, as he reportedly has over the past several weeks.
