Week 10: Packers at Bears Game Thread
Player: Isaiah Oliver, CB, Colorado
Game: home vs. USC (#15), 3:00 PM CT
I love this player. And Ryan Pace, who looks for athleticism above all other things, will get a kick out of seeing Oliver compete in the decathlon. Kid is an athletic freak and one hell of a corner.
Because Oliver is facing USC’s Sam Darnold. Darnold is turning the ball over way too much in 2017 (11 picks) but he’s also completing passes at a 63.6% clip, with nearly 3,000 yards and 22 touchdowns already. This is going to be a prime opportunity to evaluate Oliver against a solid professional prospect who gives defensive backs a chance to make plays on the football.
Where’s John Fox’s left hand?
I always like the Chicago Bears. And it’s goddamn Packers Week!
This has been an ongoing Twitter conversation, picked up by Jahns and I on the podcast midweek. But it’s worth restating what I know as the Bears embark upon the second half of their schedule.
94% of Americans (93% of gun owners) want background checks on every gun sale. Retweet if you do too.
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) November 6, 2017
The Chicago Bears probably aren’t going to have a new coach in 2018. At least, not if they continue on their current pace.
Before the season I wrote that if the Bears won seven games, John Fox would be a lock to stay. Through eight games, they only have three wins, but have played the third-hardest schedule in the league, according to Football Outsiders. The last four games particularly have been really interesting.
It isn’t just that the Bears have gone 2-2. It’s that they really beat the crap out of one good team, should’ve won by a lot more against a mediocre team and were close to beating two of the best teams in the entire league.
It seems like the majority of the fan base still isn’t happy. They don’t just want to win, they want to look good doing it. But that wouldn’t matter no matter who the coach is. Hell, a large percentage of those people want Jim Harbaugh, the master of the ugly wins, as the coach.
On this week’s EARLY episode:
On to play-calling tendencies.
There have been many, many complaints voiced about Chicago’s offensive play-calling this year, especially since Mitchell Trubisky took over at quarterback. With that in mind, I’m going to look at trends by down and distance in those 4 games. All statistics come courtesy of the fantastic NFL play finder from Pro Football Reference.
This should surprise absolutely nobody, but the Bears have been comically imbalanced on 1st down since Mitchell Trubisky started playing. They’ve had 95 first downs and called runs on 68 of them, good for 72% of the time (if you look only at the 1st 3 quarters, when game situations don’t impact calls as much, those numbers change to 54 runs on 70 plays, running 77% of the time).
Despite the predictability, they’ve actually been fairly successful running on average, picking up 4.5 yards per attempt, though it’s worth noting that drops to 3.0 when you remove two Jordan Howard runs of 50+ yards. 12 of those runs (18%) have lost yardage, and 20 gained 1 yard or less (29%). This has left the Bears consistently behind the chains, a problem that we’ll see compound on 2nd and 3rd down.
Now the defense.
Chicago’s defense has generally been good so far in 2017. They’re 8th out of 32 NFL teams in yards per game and 14th in points per game. They have been pretty solid both against the pass (10th in yards per game, 16th in passer rating, 15th in yards per attempt) and run (11th in yards per game, 14th in yards per carry).
These basic stats are easy to look up, but there’s a lot of information that they don’t tell you. In order to break it down a little bit further, I used the NFL Game Statistics Information System to look at Chicago’s defensive stats in a bit more detail. I broke down rushing and passing success by areas of the field to see both where they are targeted the most and how successful they are. Let’s have a look.
Here’s the data for Chicago’s rushing defense so far in 2017. The line at the bottom is the line of scrimmage, runs are split into 7 zones, and attempts and yards per carry are listed for each zone, with ranks relative to the rest of the NFL in parentheses (all ranks through week 8 only). The height of the bar is proportional to yards per carry, and bars are colored green for top 10, red for bottom 10, and yellow for middle 12. Note expected yards per carry varies by region, so the colors are relative to their peers in that region.
With the extra time over the bye, this is a good chance to take more of a big-picture look at how the Bears have done so far this year. Thus I’m going to be looking in-depth at both their offense and defense to see what lessons we can learn and areas for improvement in the second half.
Today we’re looking at the offense.
Chicago’s offense has generally been bad so far in 2017. They’re 29th out of 32 NFL teams in yards per game, 31st in passing yards per game, and 28th in points per game. The one area where they are not bad is running the ball, where they are 4th in yards per game and 8th in yards per attempt.
These basic stats are easy to look up, but there’s a lot of information that they don’t tell you. In order to break it down a little bit further, I used the NFL Game Statistics Information System to look at Chicago’s offensive stats in a bit more detail. I broke down rushing and passing attempts by areas of the field to see where they target the most and how successful they are. Let’s have a look.
Here’s the data for Chicago’s rushing attack in 2017. The line at the bottom is the line of scrimmage, runs are split into 7 zones, and attempts and yards per carry are listed for each zone, with ranks relative to the rest of the NFL in parentheses (all ranks through week 8 only). The height of the bar is proportional to yards per carry, and bars are colored green for top 10, red for bottom 10, and yellow for middle 12. Note expected yards per carry varies by region, so the colors are relative to their peers in that region.
Photo by Chris Landsberger, The Oklahoman [Cropped]
Player: James Washington, WR, Oklahoma State
Game: vs. Oklahoma (#5), 3:00 PM CT
From Lance Zierlein at NFL.com:
Washington has been one of the most consistent vertical talents in college football over the last three seasons with a career average of 19.2 yards per catch and 26 career touchdown receptions. He’s a long strider who can rip into cornerback cushions and climb on top of them quickly. Washington is a sensational ball tracker who is able to go up and come down with the deep ball with the best of them in college football. He also flashes runaway speed after the catch and can take a slant the distance if a safety makes a mistake. Washington tends to fight some underneath throws as a pass-catcher and will need additional work with the route tree once he gets to the league.
From Blogging the Boys, a Dallas Cowboys blog:
Through just five games in 2017, Washington has tied his freshman season in catches (28), is over halfway to 1,000 yards (647), and is already halfway there in tying his career-high in touchdowns with five. He is averaging 129 yards per game this season with a high of 153 against TCU and a low of 98 against South Alabama in a game that was over before halftime (and he still found the end zone).
His most impressive stat is that Washington’s season low in yards-per-reception is 16.3(!). The speedy deep threat averaged 16.3 yards on 28 receptions as a freshman, 20.5 on 53 as a sophomore, 19.4 on 71 as a junior, and is currently averaging 23.1 yards per catch on 28 catches this season. Needless to say, big things happen when you get the ball in 28’s hands.
