Final Word: The Chicago Bears’ biggest issue is becoming the biggest threat to their future.
It is a communication issue. NRG Stadium was a hostile environment.
This week was going to go well.
It was not.
Now is the time to recognize that the most serious issue is the Bears’ greatest threat to their future.
That’s correct; it’s the Bears’ blissful ignorance.
“This is our third game, and there was some optimism to take away,” Bears Head Coach Matt Eberflus remarked. “We’re going to get better this week, and there was better production on the offensive side.”
The Bears need to address their offensive line. This has become painfully and clearly visible via
Choose any measure you want, and you have to wonder if it is fixable. Through three games, there were 13 total sacks (tied for third worst in the league), 3.0 yards per rush (second worst in the league), and only 63 rushing yards against probably the worst rushing defense in the NFL.
Where would you even start fixing it? The Bears have merely said that they need to solve the things that need to be fixed, which only skirts the issue.
This offseason was devoted reimagining what an offensive might look like in Chicago. Good offense was never meant to be this franchise’s strong suit, especially under Marc Trestman and Matt Nagy. Trestman left after two years.
The Bears tried to convince us that they had both, but they left out the bit about their offensive line.
One week ago, I wrote that the Bears’ offensive line may improve. There were opportunities for the unit to play confidently, progress, and become better. This squad did neither on Sunday against a Colts team that they should have outplayed.
Coleman Shelton has started games in the league previously. Nate Davis was a starter in Tennessee before signing a lucrative contract with the Bears. I’m willing to give Darnell Wright and Braxton Jones a break because they’re still younger than Davis and Shelton. The most difficult element is that this team can’t change it if they want to.
According to Bears General Manager Ryan Poles, the team’s offensive line is as deep as it has been in his tenure in Chicago. His last two teams had won a total of ten games, therefore the bar was not set too high.
The Bears are down! Ryan Bates and Kiran Amegadije are just getting back to health. This is the same team that allowed James Daniel and Lucas Patrick to walk. Both are among the three highest-rated interior lineman by Pro Football Focus. It seems unlikely that the Bears will be able to trade for or sign a top guard in Week 3.
All of this culminated on Sunday, with the lowest point being the fourth and one play from the one-yard line. The speed option play, which the guys claimed they practiced, went for minus 12 yards.
The Bears would have been better suited with the tush push off the cuff.
This brings me to the coaching staff, who were blissfully unaware in two ways on Sunday.
The first was a speed play on fourth and one. Without exaggeration, it could have been the worst play I’ve ever seen the Bears execute in my 25 years of following the franchise. It’s worse than Nagy’s tight end screens and some of Terry Shea’s offensive schemes.
This was a play.
It was a play that relied on the defense biting on the quarterback and the offensive line standing up to the challenge.On their own one-yard line, the Colts defense had little room to worry about being backed up that far. The Bears’ offensive line, which allowed four sacks on Sunday, had four of its five linemen on the ground quickly after the snap.
“At the end of the day it was a rough performance rather than bad talent,” Poles said of the line’s Week 2 performance in a pre-game interview with ESPN 1000; Week 3 simply reinforced the sense that it’s talent.
The second was calling a timeout on a two-point convert because the team was not properly informed that the plan was to go for two.
With the play clock running down, Eberflus chose a timeout over a game delay. In this situation, the timeout is more significant than any five yards. That timeout would have been crucial in the final minutes, when a depleted defense needed all the help it could get to stop Johnathan Taylor.
That defense also provided the Bears with everything they needed, forcing two turnovers and intercepting Anthony Richardson twice.
“Having two interceptions on their side is all we need on offense,” Bears quarterback Caleb Williams explained. “Those guys deserve to win.”
They do. So does Williams, who set a Bears’ rookie passing record with 363 yards passing on 52 passing attempts.
But the front office and coaching staff have had their blissfully ignorant moments throughout the first three weeks. Williams has had his struggles, but that’s expected out of a rookie quarterback.
“I think the offensive identity is brewing,” Williams said. “I think it’s a lot closer than it was the week before or weeks before, I think it’s right there. I think we were one small detail away on a lot of these plays and that includes me.”
It’s not all on the rookie, though.
Much of it lies on the shoulders of the decision-makers at Halas Hall, both on and off the field.If the offensive line and play calling concerns are not resolved, or if a strategy to address them is not in place, Caleb Williams’ development will be the most serious threat to the Bears’ future.
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