Ryan Pace had the right idea. Nobody should forget this. He understood that the Chicago Bears have long been a franchise held back by their inferiority at quarterback. So he made it his mission to do everything possible to fix that problem. He invested heavily in new weapons and went out and hired a head coach with a deep offensive background. Then he spent four draft picks securing what he felt was a franchise-caliber quarterback. None of these moves were wrong in principle.
However, this obsessive pursuit to break a longstanding curse on the organization may have had an unintended side effect. It caused the Bears to lose their identity.
What is this identity? When anybody thinks about “Bears football” it always comes back to a simple formula. Run the ball and play great defense. Most call that old school and not in line with the forward-thinking NFL. Then one sees that two of the teams in the conference championship games, the 49ers and Titans, ranked 2nd and 3rd in rushing attempts. They also ranked 8th and 12th in points allowed. These are “old school” teams now one win from the Super Bowl.
They’re also doing it with pretty good quarterbacks too in Jimmy Garoppolo and Ryan Tannehill. This should serve as a reminder. It’s possible for a team to be the kind of team it wants to be and have a good quarterback at the same time.
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Chicago Bears should not be afraid of who they are
This is not just some random statement born out of frustration from this past year. There is significant evidence to back it up. Since 2000, the Bears reached the top 10 in rushing attempts for a season seven times. They were a combined 73-39 in those seasons, making the playoffs four times. In a span of 20 seasons, the Bears had a winning record just once when they didn’t rank in the top 10. That’s a pretty glaring stat.
People criticize Mike Ditka for how he handled his offenses during his tenure in Chicago. Some of that is fair. However, the man at least understood the Bears’ identity. They ranked top 10 in rushing attempts eight times under his watch. Six of them ended with winning records. The one year he got consistent quarterback play? They won the Super Bowl.
The thing is Matt Nagy had the right idea in 2018. His offense ranked 6th in rushing attempts and committed to protecting their great defense and their young quarterback. In 2019 though it feels like he tried to rush the transition. Like he wanted to show everybody that Trubisky was ready. He wanted to shift the Bears’ identity.
It didn’t work.
This doesn’t mean the team should abandon trying to get better at quarterback. That remains a priority. However, an equally important question is whether they are willing to get back to what this organization does best. Not having a QB is bad. Not having an idea of who you are is even worse.
