The Bears limped into the open date on their schedule with a respectable 3-2 record that has them in the thick of the NFC playoff race. But there’s no denying concern in Chicago outweighs optimism about a team that boasted Super Bowl expectations all offseason.
Coach Matt Nagy’s offense ranks in the bottom third of the NFL in most of the main statistical categories. The breakout season Nagy and the Bears envisioned for quarterback Mitch Trubisky hasn’t materialized. And the championship-level defense has been saddled with a minuscule margin for error each week.
As Nagy leads the Bears forward, what do the first five games say about his oversight? What share of the offensive problems should be attributed to him? And what can he do to make sure the Bears turn this season into a success?
Tribune Bears writers Rich Campbell and Dan Wiederer shine the bye-week spotlight on the head coach in this edition of “Real Talk.”
Rich Campbell: As we’ve gotten to know Matt over the last 22 months, we can say he is, above all, a positive person. I thought he struck a productive tone in his Monday media session after the loss to the Raiders when he said of his players: “I just really trust and appreciate who these guys are as people. And I trust them. I trust that they’re going to figure out a way, along with us (coaches), what the answers are. And we stick together. We’re 3-2. We’re at a point now where we’re going to be OK, and we’re going to get answers.”
In other words, Nagy recognizes the offense is failing and stuck. He said it: “The numbers don’t lie.” The Bears are 28th in points per game (17.4) and 30th in yards per play (4.48). But Nagy will remain solution-oriented. He’ll stay focused on how the offense is supposed to look and will push his players toward that vision.
All that said, we’re 22 games into Nagy’s tenure and still waiting for his offense to show signs of consistent, sustainable life. We’re waiting for Trubisky to respond to Nagy’s coaching and elevate his game. We’re waiting for Nagy to push all the right buttons in the play-caller’s seat.
Nagy is gifted and established as a team leader. But as an offensive strategist and coach, he remains unproven. And the Bears need the latter to catch up to the former. Fast.
Dan Wiederer: You know what’s crazy? Had the Bears made two or three more plays against the Raiders, committed one or two fewer penalties, turned the ball over one less time, they could have easily escaped London with a thrilling comeback victory that would have allowed Chicago to spend Weeks 6 and 7 focusing on a 4-1 record and this team’s impressive persistence and competitive spirit.
You and I have been around this league long enough to understand how little it takes to tip the emotional scales. And there’s no doubt it would have been a more relaxing and enjoyable bye week for Nagy if he was running his magnifying glass over a team with the momentum of a four-game winning streak.
You know what else? That “all is well” feeling also might have created a misguided sense of comfort. Because what we’ve seen through five games is exactly who this team is. They’re a 3-2 bunch with some impressive traits to build around but also many, many flaws that will sink this cruise’s voyage to the playoffs. The biggest flaw? An offense that is discombobulated and has been for most of Nagy’s time here.
Campbell: That’s why 3-2 is a fair record. The defense is very good. The offense is not. And if that means they’re a .500 team, then their season depends on finding a way to tip the scale toward the nine-win side.
Two factors, in particular, weigh heavily on that: turnover margin and quarterback play. Entering Week 6, the Bears were tied for third in the NFL in turnover margin (plus-6). That explains their winning record. Because the second factor — quarterback play — hasn’t been a consistent positive.
To that point, there’s no separating Trubisky’s current plateau (or regression?) from Nagy, the quarterback-centric coach who was hired as a central piece in the construction effort around Trubisky. Given that Trubisky didn’t begin this season demonstrating the advanced command—or even the incremental improvements — the Bears expected, what can Nagy do six weeks into the season to suddenly elevate Trubisky’s play?
Wiederer: It starts with creating a mindset, a fearless, attacking, self-assured mentality. To that end, Week 3 in Washington was supposed to provide a major confidence trampoline for Trubisky and the offense. And it did — for a half. Trubisky threw for 173 yards and three touchdowns before halftime that night, and the Bears built a 28-0 lead, the kind of go-for-the-jugular outburst that quickly pulls quarterbacks out of slumps.
But then in the second half, the offense went stagnant again. The Bears scratched out only three points. Trubisky passed for just 58 yards and threw one of the ugliest interceptions of the entire NFL season, a bad-read, bad-decision, bad-throw giveaway that halted so much of that positive vibe. And then on the first series of the next game, Trubisky was injured and it has been seven-plus quarters of Chase Daniel since. As it turns out, that trampoline launched the Bears right into a brick wall.
So now Nagy has to get his QB1 right again. First and foremost, Trubisky has to be healthy. Then he needs to string together a bunch of strong practices. Then he needs to get back on that train of being aggressive and confident and consistently making winning plays within games. It’s Nagy’s duty to unlock all of that with necessary X’s-and-O’s adjustments, sharp game plans and attentive behind-the-scenes teaching.
Have at it, Coach. This is the biggest reason you were hired.
Campbell: Trubisky has played some of his best ball within pared-down game plans. Against the Buccaneers last season and against the Redskins, for example, Nagy dialed back the volume of personnel groupings and motions to help Trubisky think clearer, play faster and let his athleticism shine.
An educated guess is that those simplifications don’t come easily to Nagy. At least, it’s somewhat difficult for the self-assured, high-energy coach to fully embrace them. He wants his scheme to operate at full capacity. He wants to keep the defense guessing as much as possible. But my sense is Nagy’s eyes are open on this. He’ll do what’s best for the team and whatever he can do to position Trubisky to succeed.
If that means simplifying the plan each week, maybe that will help Trubisky generate that mentality you mentioned, plus get a player like Anthony Miller going. Because it’s not just Trubisky who needs the lift.
Wiederer: No doubt. Numbers don’t lie, right? Nagy said so himself. So how about a few more to add to the pile of damning evidence against this offense? This entire offense.
We’re about to hit mid-October and Daniel has as many touchdown passes as Trubisky. (That wasn’t in the plan.)
Miller, fully healthy for all five games, has yet to record his 10th catch, ranking 157th in the league in receptions with eight, tied with Bisi Johnson, Damion Ratley and, yes, Dontrelle Inman.
David Montgomery has yet to have a 100-yard rushing game and has a 3.3 yards-per-carry average.
Left tackle Charles Leno headed into the open date as the league’s most penalized player.
Tight ends Trey Burton (an expensive free-agent signee) and Adam Shaheen (a second-round draft pick) have combined for 18 catches, 107 yards and zero touchdowns.
As a whole, the Bears offense has scored touchdowns on just eight of 52 possessions. Three of those touchdown drives — including two against the Raiders — started inside the opponent’s 20-yard line. In all, 37 of the Bears’ 87 points have come immediately after a takeaway.
The Bears also have only three offensive touchdowns of longer than 5 yards, and their longest touchdown all season (37 yards) came from safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix on an interception return.
Those are all signs this offense requires way too much assistance to get going. It has been an equal-opportunity disappointment with every position group partially responsible and an offensive-minded head coach still searching for a cure. So how quickly can he find it?
Campbell: That’s an overwhelming to-do list, one that will sour a week off. With Nagy’s Repair Shop working extended hours at Halas Hall, it should help that many of those shortcomings are interconnected. In other words, he can address one area on which many others depend: the offensive line.
If quarterback play is the biggest disappointment, the O-line’s collective struggles are the biggest surprise. The starting five is back from last season, albeit with center James Daniels and left guard Cody Whitehair transposed. But as Nagy has said, they’re losing too many one-on-one blocks, particularly in the running game.
It was a stunning contrast in London how the Raiders O-line consistently displaced Bears defenders, while the Bears O-line did not. Montgomery’s yards-per-carry average is suffering as a result.
How about this: Jordan Howard was dealt in the offseason after averaging a career-worst 3.7 yards per carry in 2018. In five games with the Eagles this year, he’s back up to 4.7. Maybe the Bears’ blocking difficulties aren’t surprising after all.
I’ll be interested to see if Nagy makes any changes to the line and if he starts calling more outside runs to try to outflank defenses instead of run through them.
Wiederer: Here’s the worst part of this entire discussion. The Bears still don’t know what they do well. And Nagy continues to talk about the ongoing search for an offensive identity. We’re five games into Season 2. Whoa.
This wasn’t supposed to be a lingering issue. In fact, Nagy promised that this year would have a whole different look to it on offense. This was Nagy in February at the scouting combine in Indianapolis, where he swore the Bears’ time in the flight simulator was over and they were ready to take a real plane out on the runway: “Now we’re at a point where we kind of know a little bit of the direction of what we like and what we don’t like. Now that enables us to get better at the things we like and throw away the things we don’t like. Which, all in all, is going to end up really helping out our players.”
In fact, if you sift through all the things Nagy said over the offseason — from the combine to the owners meetings to organized team activities to his pre-training camp chat in Decatur — what you find are a bunch of confident promises about the offense that have proved, thus far, to be hollow. And what we see on the field is an offense grasping with a young quarterback who is struggling to clear even the lowest of hurdles.
Campbell: Remember what general manager Ryan Pace said July 21 about Trubisky’s third NFL season: “As long as he just keeps on that pace with steady incremental improvement, we’ll be happy.” That was a modest standard for a quarterback who was drafted second overall and has an elite defense capable of opening a championship window.
To this point, though, Trubisky hasn’t achieved even that. His completion percentage, yards per completion and TD-INT ratio are worse than last season.
To be clear, there are personnel shortcomings in Trubisky’s supporting cast. But great quarterback play helps mitigate those. And until Trubisky starts consistently lifting those around him, skepticism about Nagy’s ability to draw that out of him is only natural.
Wiederer: Nagy’s positive energy is fuel for the correction process. Now he has to match that with sharp and practical fixes. If the Bears can handle their business over the next few weeks and win two of their next three games, they’ll hit the season’s midpoint on pace for 10 wins.
So it’s incredibly premature to start casting this as a lost season. Just as it’s ridiculous to have all these extreme conversations about finding a new starting quarterback midseason.
Eli Manning? Colin Kaepernick? Nick Foles? The knee-jerk mention of those names is merely a symptom of a fan base having an October anxiety attack. A significant level of worry is fully justified. But to your earlier point, Nagy’s focus on being solution-oriented requires a realistic approach.
So now we circle back to his ability to bring out the best in his offense and produce at least a trickle of incremental improvements from his quarterback. After all, the Bears offense doesn’t need to become explosive overnight to re-establish this team as a Super Bowl contender. It simply needs to make a jump from second-rate to average. That’s not a big ask.
