The Chicago Bears suffered a disastrous loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday at Soldier Field. At home, facing a team without its Hall of Fame QB, top RB, and top TE, and getting their own starting QB back from injury, the Bears completely unraveled in the second half, getting dominated by Sean Payton & Co. while dropping to 3-3.
The offense, by far this season’s biggest concern, was awful. Mitch Trubisky looked lost, displaying poor judgment, slow field vision, sloppy footwork, and an overall inability to do anything right. Before garbage time, Trubisky was 14/27 for 84 yards. Eighty-four yards on twenty-seven attempts through three quarters. Those aren’t typos. And the running game crashed and burned, too — the Bears finished with 17 total yards on seven carries, and they lost two fumbles.
Yes, it looked every bit as bad as those stats say.
With a banged up 2-5 Los Angeles Chargers team coming to town next week, the Bears are absolutely desperate for a win. The NFC North is slipping away from them and they are buried in a tough NFC Wild Card race at the moment. They need a win in the worst way. If they get to 4-3 (and 2-2 at home), there’s still hope for the remainder of the season. If they drop to 3-4 (and 1-3 at home) … imagine the reaction in Chicago.
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With that, let’s reach into this week’s Bears Mailbag. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions; I always appreciate the participation. Follow me on Twitter @DhruvKoul to continue the conversation.
Mailbag
There are a few issues. First, the loss of Akiem Hicks is big for this defensive front. His importance in the running game can’t be overstated. The Bears miss him a lot.
Second, nobody is stepping up opposite Khalil Mack when teams scheme him out of the play. Leonard Floyd has been non-existent, Aaron Lynch hasn’t done much, and the blitzes aren’t getting home at the moment.
Third, Roquan Smith indeed looks a bit lost at the moment on the field. Out of respect for his situation, I won’t comment on what might be happening, but it might be good for the Bears to put in Nick Kwiatkoski on Sunday against the Chargers. Smith isn’t getting home on blitzes (like Chuck Pagano would’ve counted on) and is looking timid on the field. Kwiatkoski could be an upgrade while Smith sorts his situation out.
Fourth, the coverage in the secondary is confounding. Pagano has allowed Kyle Fuller to play off (his preferred method), but the game plan to give that much room (without help) to Michael Thomas against the Saints was indefensible. They need to play tighter than they are, especially with the pass rush not getting home.
Finally, you do need to credit Oakland and New Orleans. Their offensive lines are dominant and physically pushed around the Bears’ front. And Jon Gruden and Sean Payton coached brilliantly on offense. Sometimes, you just tip your cap.
I wouldn’t say it’s been figured out, per se. There is a blueprint to beating the Bears’ defense, which includes quick passes to render the pass rush useless and making the Bears tackle well. And while the last two weeks have had moments of that, there have been other issues at play. The Oakland Raiders just straight up physically dominated the Bears’ defensive front with their elite offensive line. Losing Akiem Hicks hurt the defense a lot, but there’s not much you can do when you’re getting blown off the line of scrimmage. Jon Gruden and Derek Carr used that to their advantage to sell play action passes well and find open receivers.
Similarly, New Orleans’ offensive line routinely bullied the defensive front — it was magnified because the Bears were missing Hicks again, and the Saints schemed Khalil Mack out of the game without anyone else on the Bears’ front (Leonard Floyd, Aaron Lynch, etc.) stepping up to make plays.
There have been miscommunication issues and crazy coverage cushions employed on defense the last two games, and the Bears have things they can clean up. It’s up to Chuck Pagano to find the answers there, and for the players to execute better.
I do think there could be some value in handing off play calling duties in order to spark the offense a bit. Of course, this question was rendered redundant because Matt Nagy said in his press conference today that he’ll continue to call plays (at least for Sunday’s game against the Chargers). But if they fail to move the ball well enough on Sunday, I think he should seriously consider it.
My vote would honestly go to Dave Ragone. Brad Childress is an offensive consultant but it’s not clear how much influence he’s had in the scheme or play development. I’m not sure he’d know enough of the details to call the right plays. And I’m not happy with any of Mark Helfrich’s influences on the offense right now. The Oregon level stuff isn’t working at the moment. If the Bears had Marcus Mariota at QB, I could understand it and perhaps even vouch for Helfrich to call plays. But it isn’t working.
Mitch Trubisky trusts Ragone, and Ragone had a pretty successful audition in preseason calling plays in a limited manner. He’s young and can grow into the role, if needed. But I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
There’s a lot of hate circulating for Matt Nagy right now. And while there is validity to *some* of the points made (namely related to the running game), Nagy is still doing an excellent job scheming receivers open. If you watch the tape, there are countless occasions where Mitch Trubisky fails to find an open receiver because he failed to get off of his first read. The Packers and Saints games were chock full of these instances. It’s infuriating, because the coach is doing his job — it’s up to the quarterback to make the throws.
There are arguments that the offense is too complex for many of the players, something that concerns me quite a bit — not about the offense, but about the players. Nagy has publicly stated twice now that he’s had to scale back the offense to get the players comfortable with what they’re trying to execute. It’s only a matter of time before defenses recognize the same personnel groupings, formations, motions, etc. being recycled because this is all that the Bears are comfortable running. And yet, receivers are still open!
I’d like for the Bears to be a bit more aggressive in their run schemes — ditch the motions and trickery and just line up and run the ball down the throat of the defense. That would be fun, and probably best for this offensive line and the running backs. But in the passing game? People are open. Frequently. Make the damn throw, Mitch.
There could be some legs to this. Interestingly, there are reports out of Philadelphia saying some players are murmuring that Doug Pederson’s offense is also too complex. Pederson, of course, is another Andy Reid disciple. And that team has been together for a while and won a Super Bowl together. It’s interesting, for sure.
But at the end of the day, even plays they’re executing in practice aren’t translating to the games. After the Saints game, Nagy said that Trubisky’s wide open miss to Taylor Gabriel was a throw he hit over and over in practice. But he missed it on the field when it counted.
What concerns me is Mitch is the one struggling the most. Yes, he has to keep track of *everything* because he’s the quarterback. Anthony Miller has certainly struggled at times, getting lined up in the wrong spot or running the wrong route. But when you go back and watch the tape, receivers are open. The scheme is working (in the passing game) and receivers are getting open — the quarterback has to find them and make the throws. If Mitch hits the wide open throws to Gabriel and Miller that he missed against New Orleans, we’re probably talking about an entirely different game and result.
