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Checking the Tape: Bears’ Offense vs Green Bag

| September 12th, 2023

All-22 Breakdown Stream:

If you’re into All-22 film breakdowns, I stream every Tuesday Night during the season to talk through the ups and downs of the game! Come check it out!

I watched the Packers-Bears All-22 tape so that you don’t have to — here were some of my notes:

Getsy Gets Ahead of Himself:

Luke Getsy and the Bears started this game off strong, but as the contest wore on Getsy displayed a strange habit of telling on himself with the Bears’ formation — below is a screenshot of the infamous D’Onta Foreman screen pass that lost 7 yards, and if you look at the personnel that Chicago split out wide you too will see the screen coming.

But that wasn’t the only moment where it seemed as if Green Bay read Luke Getsy’s mind — here’s another example of the Bears’ formation tipping a play and resulting in a massive start to the second half. With Blasingame (a fullback) out wide to the left side, the Packers send Devonte Wyatt straight upfield in anticipation of a Justin Fields bootleg that Blasingame would usually block for. Wyatt ends up on top of Fields before the quarterback fully turns around.

I’ve heard speculation that Khari Blasingame might’ve replaced Robert Tonyan (injured early) in the game plan, but if you ask me that doesn’t make much sense considering the Bears could’ve simply activated ESB and used him in all blocking scenarios.

One more note on Luke Getsy’s gameplan — we discussed Cole Kmet’s strengths and weaknesses earlier this offseason, but on a key play near the goal line I was surprised to see Cole Kmet drawn up as an isolation target given that, well, Cole has never been particularly strong in contested catch (let alone red zone) situations. Cole initiates contact here so Douglas’ PI is legal and the Bears are forced to kick.

In a game where Green Bay had no trouble featuring Romeo Doubs and Aaron Jones at will, it felt strange to watch Luke Getsy allow the Packers to remove DJ Moore from the game’s key moments. One side dictated the pace of the game with their offense, the other side spent the whole game reacting to their opponent’s defense. The results of each attitude were unsurprising.

Darnell Wright:

In the lead-up to the season, we discussed how 1st round pick Darnell Wright might start the season inconsistent and that’s exactly what he did. Frankly, I thought he looked great as a run-blocker and as a pass-blocker I thought he held up well against everyone not named Rashan Gary. Plus, for all my concerns about Wright’s anchor at his new playing weight, he looked plenty strong against Lukas Van Ness in the play below:

Wright’s troubles came when facing Gary, who did beat him quite a few times around the edge. Wright’s footwork along his arc struggled to keep up with Gary’s speed rush, so keep an eye on that over the next few weeks as Darnell looks to improve. All in all, I thought he had as strong of a debut as a rookie tackle could ask for.

Chase Claypool:

The former 2nd round pick was rough all game long, and to make matters worse his effort on run plays became a legitimate issue. It’s hard to believe that a player in a contract year would play like this as early as Week 1, but here we are.

I consider myself a relatively moderate person, but it’s hard to overstate how abysmal Claypool’s effort looked on Sunday. I have to imagine that an old-school coach like Matt Eberflus will take particular exception to that, though he may have enough effort issues to deal with already (Nate Davis).

The Justin Fields Part:

I’m always shocked at how quickly Justin Fields does gets written about, regardless of what he does — by Sunday evening, Derrick Klassen had written about Fields. By Monday Morning, Tim Jenkins had a video out. If you’re the kind of Bears fan that reads this far into a tape-based blog post, you’ve already heard about what Fields did & didn’t do on Sunday so I’ll spare you a few of the details: while the score was still close, Fields hit checkdowns, didn’t take sacks, and also passed up opportunities to push the ball down the field.

Fields’ biggest issue right now is throwing with anticipation — Matt Bowen posted a great clip early yesterday that shows Fields seeing Darnell Mooney after 3+ seconds of protection before ultimately taking a sack. Had Fields gotten the ball out of his hands before Mooney’s route had resolved, Chicago would’ve had a chance at a completion. It’s tough to play Quarterback in the NFL without some level of anticipation.

If you’re interested, I wrote a fairly long review of Fields’ performance and the offense’s showing in general — I’ll link it here.

The Bears have a lot to prove in Tampa Bay this weekend. With an aggressive Todd Bowles defense likely looking to make a statement, I can only imagine what Luke Getsy will cook up in an effort to score. The entire offense needs to step forward, from play-caller to quarterback to offensive line play — as hyperbolic as it may sound, the season may hang in the balance. A loss to Tampa would not portend good things for the rest of the year.

Your Turn: What did you think of the Bears’ offensive showing?

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