This is the first time in ages I’ve felt like writing about the Bears, and the first time in even more ages I’ve actually written about the Bears.

Last week’s nightmare against the Browns almost left me as hopeless as when Trestman was coaching. Almost. Idiot coach? Check. Horrible performance? Check. Losing the locker room? Perhaps. There was a shot of Nick Foles on the sideline clearly saying that Nagy’s offense wasn’t working, and there were other hints–body language, effort, postgame tweets– of the team starting to give up.

But this week, Nagy had the good sense to let Bill Lazor call the plays. Either that, or someone in the front office had the good sense to force Nagy to do it. We now have statistical proof that Lazor runs the offense ~8 times better than Nagy (47 yards on offense last week), and the passing game 185 times better than Nagy (…one net passing yard last week). Fields had great run support, had enough time to throw some midrange and long dimes, didn’t screw up on short passes a la Trubisky, and didn’t spend half the game getting slammed into the ground. This week, a crumb of hope appeared at the bottom of Pandora’s box. Granted, it was against the Lions, but there’s hope nonetheless.

And yet, Nagy must go. The Bears cannot afford to take the chance that he’ll start calling plays again. It’s happened before; last year he gave the play-calling duties to Lazor, but took them back during the offseason. That cannot be allowed to happen again. Let Lazor, or Desai, or even Pettine take over.

Maybe you let him keep his job if they win the Super Bowl this year. I was going to say “if they win a playoff game,” but given the expanded playoffs, that’s not enough progress and too great a risk of keeping him for my taste.