Luke Getsy is discovering the harsh reality of what happens when the Chicago Bears lose to the Green Bay Packers. It’s not a fun experience. Losing in general sucks, but it’s even worse when it’s to the same team over and over. Chicago has now dropped seven straight to Green Bay. Getsy has been part of three of them. His offense has produced an average of 16.3 points in those three games. The latest effort last Sunday might’ve been the most disappointing. While the Bears did score 20 points, the most of those three games, most of that came when the game was already out of hand.
Many couldn’t understand what the Bears were doing with a lot of their play calls during the game. It was felt too conservative and didn’t work to his players’ strengths, especially quarterback Justin Fields. Getsy finally sat before the media on Thursday to field those questions. He was adamant that the idea he was too conservative wasn’t true. He believes the offense did a lot of good things. The problems came from bad execution. Namely ill-timed penalties and missed blocking assignments.
He accepted responsibility for that and vowed to get on players about it.
“I think we did a lot of good things. I think our execution was obviously a little bit more reflective of Game 1 than we would want it to be. Felt like we left a lot out there…
…I don’t look at it as that way. I don’t think I ever have. We look for advantageous looks. I know it sounds like screens have been a conversation, but a poor motion landmark, and a couple of poor blocks. But if you watch the film and actually watch the film, we have everybody accounted for, and there’s nobody else out there. If we can just capture that edge, those are 15, 25-yard gains, and you guys are patting me on my back. And I get it. That’s part of it. My point of it is we’re gonna make decisions about what we feel is advantageous to our guys having opportunities. Now, we have to do better. We have to coach it better. We have to make sure that guys execute it better. That’s where we have to get better at it for sure.”
Luke Getsy offered a fair assessment.
A closer look at the game film showed the Bears’ play calling wasn’t overly conservative. Yes, they called some screens and horizontal plays. However, the perception was exacerbated by Fields taking a lot of checkdowns. There were several instances where Getsy dialed up plays that had receivers open down the field. Fields too often passed on those opportunities for dump-offs to the running backs. That, combined with poor blocking up front, made it easy for the Packers to stymie the Bears offense for most of the final three quarters.
This doesn’t absolve Luke Getsy from blame. It’s his responsibility to have the Bears offense ready to play. They weren’t. He owned up to that. Adjustments are already being made. Time will tell if they lead to the results everybody wants. Tampa Bay won’t make it easy. They annihilated Fields the last time they saw him in 2021. Todd Bowles figures to have all sorts of exotic blitzes ready to go. Getsy must craft a proper game plan to combat this. A bounce-back win would certainly quiet the growing unrest about his competency.
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Maybe Justin Field does not trust the offensive line
I’ll be curious to see who gets playing time this week.
Not even week F’n 2 and there is alot of finger pointing going on.
If Fields can’t see a guy coming open in the middle of the field in time, then he is too late by the time he comes open. This is his biggest issue, he won’t throw it unless they are obviously open. This offense, nor any offense can survive this.
If he can’t do it, get Bagent or Petermen in there, and turn JF into a Swiss army knife weapon.
One of the things I heard on sports radio, which makes sense, is that Fields is gun shy. He doesn’t trusts his receivers (which he had none last year).