CHICAGO -- Chicago Bears coach Matt Nagy passionately defended his decision to forgo running another play and have quarterback Mitchell Trubisky take a knee on first down with 43 seconds left to set up a 41-yard field goal by Eddy Pineiro that sailed wide left as time expired.
"Yeah, I'm not even going to get into that," Nagy said following the Bears' 17-16 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers. "I have zero thought of running the ball and taking the chance of fumbling the football. They know you're running the football, so you lose three, four yards, so that wasn't even in our process as coaches to think about that.
I'll just be brutally clear: Zero thought of throwing the football, zero thought of running the football. You understand me? That's exactly what it was. It's as simple as that."
After squandering a fourth-quarter lead -- thanks largely to a pair of Trubisky turnovers -- the Bears' offense managed to move the ball with under a minute left to play as they reached Los Angeles' 21-yard line after Trubisky scrambled for 11 yards.
Trubisky said he didn't think twice when Nagy called for the kneel down with so much time left on the clock.
"No, not surprised. ... I mean, it's coach's call," Trubisky said. "He knows what's best for this team. Whatever he calls, that's what we're going to do. We're going to stick behind it. And we know -- I felt like if we crossed the 40, no matter where the ball was at, that Eddy was going to be able to put it through, so we've just got to have that faith, and you can question it all you want, but whatever he calls, that's what we're going to do, and we're going to believe in it."
Pineiro entered Week 8 as one of Chicago's most consistent offensive weapons. The 24-year old kicker had missed just one field goal all year prior to facing Los Angeles. On Sunday, Pineiro went 3-for-5, including a misfire from 33 yards that bounced off the right upright.
"I really like where we're at with Eddy," Nagy said. "I have ultimate faith in him. I do. It just happens to be in our situation, it just gets completely magnified because of where we've been before. But I have ultimate trust in him. He's going to be the one that wants another opportunity at that shot, at that kick. So that's all we can do is next time he gets that chance, he puts it right down the middle."
Pineiro won the Bears' highly-publicized offseason kicker competition to replace Cody Parker, who missed seven regular-season field goals in 2018 and the infamous double doink from 43 yards with no time left in Chicago's playoff loss to the Eagles.