Fans tend to overreact in regards to coordinators when things go wrong. It is always euphoria or misery. No in-between. However, Chicago Bears fans also aren’t stupid. They know when something doesn’t look right. After three weeks of watching the Shane Waldron offense, it is evident the new coordinator has zero grasp of things. His running game is the worst in the NFL. Caleb Williams is one of the most sacked quarterbacks in the league over the past two weeks. They have been terrible in the red zone. Nothing is going right.
It also appears players have noticed the same thing. Left guard Teven Jenkins subtly hinted at some coaching issues last week after the team’s embarrassing performance in Houston. Now, another has stepped forward. Center Coleman Shelton was asked about the disastrous 4th and goal call that saw a speed option to D’Andre Swift that was stopped for a 12-yard loss. Many watching the game said it was one of the worst play calls they’d ever seen. Shelton, despite choosing his words carefully, couldn’t help but agree.
Shane Waldron is squarely behind the 8-ball.
The Bears brought him in with the belief he could elevate Williams and succeed where Luke Getsy failed. While Getsy may have been a failure, he at least gave the Bears offense an identity. They were a good running team with him in charge. Waldron doesn’t know what he wants his unit to be. He has a bad habit Matt Nagy used to where he throws different things at the wall to see what sticks. That rarely works in the NFL. The fact he’s doing it with a rookie quarterback makes it look ten times worse.
Look at teams like Green Bay and Minnesota. They’ve gone undefeated with Sam Darnold and Malik Willis. At some point, you have to accept that coaching is the problem. This team has looked unprepared and out of sorts for almost a month despite an entire summer to get ready. Shane Waldron bears the brunt of this. Matt Eberflus plays a part, but his defense has looked good from the start. He gave Waldron full control to install the system as he wanted. What the Bears got was a hot mess.
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These player comments raise major red flags about their belief in him.
The problem with today’s game is that the Colts are a very beatable team. The Bears had a duty to win today. All they had to do was figure out how to run the ball so they could control everything. They could have easily stolen a few run plays from last year. Instead it was chaos from a game plan perspective. It feels like the OC is disorganized when it comes to his personnel usage. Is Roschon fast enough to run from the shotgun? Is Herbert not going to be used because Swift got paid? Where were the Tight ends… Read more »
It’s the coaching
Lambert, Getsy’s “running team” had David Montgomery and Justin Fields and Khalil Herbert one year, and then Fields and Getsy’s collection the next year. That isn’t identity, it’s Fields.
This is exactly what I criticized Getsy for, chaos and incoherence. The coordinators are not DIRECTING their position coaches on coaching. So if they don’t know what is being coached, Waldron is simply scheming without knowing if anyone can actually implement his scheme.
Waldron had Kenneth Walker and Charbonnet as running backs last year. Both were power runners but Seattle critics found Waldron misused their skills badly. He inherited Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf and the underutilized Jaxson Smith-Njigma last year. What did he want to do with Chicago? I have no idea, but making a strong running team bad, a lack of interior offensive line coaching, and an under-utilization of receivers in these first three games, suggests he’s not following what they do well and building on it, but as Luke Getsy did, trying to define a “style.” Chicago is not a… Read more »
Really didn’t like this Offense until this game- now I hate it. How many 3 and outs before you admit your Offensive plan stinks? So I have been wondering why the past 2 weeks Herbert was not tried in order to establish some yards on the ground. I really expected to see a lot of Herbert today after Roschon wore them down a bit. Instead we got some extremes: Bears were completely pass happy, having a rookie QB let it all handout there, throwing risky passes with zero play action benefit and no trickery. Couldn’t even see any clear-out concepts… Read more »
Dr Sallie there’s a difference when a player that actually is invested in the team, and has put in the work, says something vs a random “Dr” on Sports Mockery. We know that you think highly of yourself, but it’s not 1 in the same.