Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears…

…and after a few weeks in the darkness of Quitsville, I’m back!

The Stakes

The Bears are 6-7. And this might be the most important game ever played by a 6-7 team.

If the Bears win Sunday, they’ll be 7-7, with Jacksonville on deck. (8-7) That’ll bring the Packers to town, with Tim Boyle likely starting, and a playoff spot likely on the line. If the Bears win Sunday they will be playing meaningful football for 17 weeks at a minimum. That’s how the late Giants owner Wellington Mara defined a successful season. And knew a bit about football.

But winning, especially with another superior offensive effort, would also continue to change the narrative around the head coach. Nobody is firing a head coach who is eight games over (minimum) in his first three years. And if the quarterback pitches another triple-digit quarterback rating? How could the narrative around him not alter slightly as well? Wouldn’t the Bears have to start considering a 2021 prove it deal?

Now if the Bears lose Sunday, their season ends. If they lose Sunday and deliver another lackluster offensive effort against the Vikings, Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky go back under the bright interrogative lamps of media and fans. (Hard to imagine Ted Phillips and Ryan Pace won’t be there regardless of these final games.) A loss flips the fourteen-day hourglass and the sand shuffles through on January 4th. That’s when we’ll find out who among the leadership is coming back in 2021.

It’s all at stake Sunday.

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As the Chicago Bears offense had roared back to life with Mitch Trubisky under center, some Bears fans are getting excited about what his play can mean for his future and the future of the franchise.

The numbers over the past two weeks have been promising.

• Two straight games with a passer rating over 100.
• Averaging eight yards per attempt.
• Completing about 75% of his passes.

Trubisky is finally playing the way the Bears hoped he would entering the season. But it’s still not good enough. And the most likely scenario remains that Trubisky becomes a compensatory pick for the Bears this off-season.

Lost in the hype of his three-game surge have been four catastrophic turnovers. They could’ve at least been in a shootout against the Packers if not for two horrendous interceptions and a lost fumble. Who knows what would’ve happened without Trubisky’s fumble against the Lions, but when he lost the ball, he made it very difficult for his team to win.

While Trubisky is nearing a 3-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio and playing the best football of his career, the totality of what we have seen isn’t enough for the Bears to even consider investing in him long term.

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Bears blow a game they had no business blowing.

The season is over.

Now what?

[Note: The thoughts below were written in REAL TIME. So as things change, thoughts change. That’s life.]

Quarter One

• Cordarrelle Patterson’s opening kickoff return told me something: the Lions have not realized that kicking to Patterson is a terrible idea with this offense.
• Television perfectly frames the sport of football. Why on earth would Fox move the camera off the line of scrimmage?
• On the second first down of the opening drive, Mitch could have run for 20 yards. But instead throw a ball into Cole Kmet’s crotch. Can we officially stop calling Trubisky a running threat?
• Would I have gone for it on that first fourth down? Yes. But Matt Nagy is coaching with a different mindset than I would be. Nagy is coaching to make the playoffs this year and field goal is the clear percentage play.
• The thing I miss most about watching the Bears in a bar is not listening to broadcasters. Did Spielman just refer to Roquan Smith as RAEKWON Smith? Like the rapper?
• The back-to-back tackles from DHC and Buster Skrine on third and fourth down were exactly the kinds of plays Nagy was looking to see from his defense after Sunday night’s debacle.
• Bears first TD drive: no third downs faced, ran it down their throats, brilliant David Montgomery drive to finish. Can the Bears play the Lions every week?
• The pass rush is officially non-existent. Mack is invisible. Quinn continues to be invisible. No lead is safe if you’re completely unable to pressure the quarterback. Stafford did not have to complete a difficult pass on the quarter-closing touchdown drive.
• A blocked and doinked extra point in one quarter. It’s not surprising that neither of these teams have winning records.
• Trubisky actually throws the football away on first down, instead of taking a ten-yard sack. But why is he so opposed to getting a few yards with his legs? At this point it is malpractice for him not to use what is his most unique asset.

Bears 9, Lions 6

Quarter Two

• There is nobody in this Lions secondary that can cover Allen Robinson. He should have 150 yards today.
• One positive thing about Mitch is he does have a good hard count. And for this offense, the difference between 1st & 5 and 1st & 10, is miles.
• Cordarrelle walks in for an easy touchdown and makes the game 16-6. This is the best performance by the offensive line and backs all season. And it’s not close.
• Mack sacks Stafford and Skrine commits an illegal contact, giving Lions life. Just feels like a moment the Bears will rue. (On replay, the call is abysmal.)
• 3rd & 10, 4:36 remaining in the half: Mitch throws a ball over the middle that should have been intercepted. Slow read, slow delivery, tight window. It is simply a throw he can not attempt in that spot. And it’s those kinds of decision that hold back his development. When it’s not there on 3rd & 10, dump it off to Mooney in the flat and let your playmaker try to make a play.
• Roquan “Don’t Call me Raekwon” Smith just defended a screen to Kerryon Johnson about as well as a linebacker can. Sniffed it out, the ball got completed, tracked down the back for a two-yard gain. Brilliant, brilliant stuff.
• Then on 3rd & 13, no pass rush. Zone defense. Easy completion for Stafford. Then a bomb touchdown on the next play. What has happened to this defense? Why is there zero pass rush? How much money has to be poured into that position to make Stafford mildly uncomfortable? On both of those big completions, per Adam Hoge, Mack and Quinn were in one-on-one situations. Nothing.
• Every time I watch Stafford I think the same thing. Put him on a contender next year and he’s winning playoff games.
• Anthony Miller performing on the first-half ending drive like he’s expected to perform. Tough catches. Tough runs. If this kid showed up weekly, he’s be a viable second option for this club. But he doesn’t do that.
• David Montgomery played his best half as a Chicago Bear.
• With time winding down, Skrine gives Jones the inside leverage for ANOTHER long completion. No, the pressure did not do its job, but with safety help over the top, why are the corners giving this kind of space?
• The Hail Mary could easily have been caught.

Hard to see a scenario where the Bears don’t hit the 30 mark in the game. So if this game is lost, it falls entirely on one side of the ball: the defense.

Bears 23, Lions 13

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With the 12th pick in the 1999 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Cade McNown, quarterback, UCLA.

QB rating through 25 total games with the franchise: 67.7.

__________

With the 22nd pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Rex Grossman, quarterback, Florida.

Best QB rating during his Bears tenure, 2006: 73.9.

__________

With their first-round picks in 2009 and 2010, the Chicago Bears trade for Jay Cutler, quarterback, Denver Broncos.

Number of seasons with a QB rating over 90: 1.

__________

With the second pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears select Mitchell Trubisky, quarterback, North Carolina.

QB rating ranking league-wide in 2019: 28th.

(This year he would be around 26th, only because Nick Foles is on the list.)

That’s it. That’s the post.

Foles: “When we were in the huddle, I had explained to Anthony that if I do happen to kill it, I’m going to throw it to the L. So get to the L and it’ll be a pretty stiff ball, so I knew just in case I didn’t have time to get it off cleanly, he would be there.”

— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) September 27, 2020

Read this Tweet. Now, read it again. This quote from Nick Foles illustrates why many, including myself, argued he should have been the starter from day one. He is a smart, competent quarterback. The sham quarterback “competition” could have cost the Bears wins. Thankfully, it didn’t. Foles is now the quarterback. And the Bears are undefeated.

Rapid fire.

• Tarik Cohen’s loss can’t be understated. But one would think Cordarrelle Patterson will see a significant increase of offensive snaps and Anthony Miller will assume the punt return duties full-time. Question. Why not use Ted Ginn as the punt returner? He was electric in that role at Ohio State.
• Two of the more telling moments of this broadcast were sideline cuts.
  • After Mitch was benched, Kyle Fuller made it a point to go over to him and give him a fist bump. Mitch wanted nothing to do with it but the moment mattered. Mitch will still be needed by this time at some point this season.
  • As Nagy and Foles were scheming later in the game, Mitch was seated on the bench, alone. Yes it sucks getting benched but Mitch needed to be right up beside them, listening to everything, devouring the concepts, learning. It’s great that he did the Zoom conference call with reporters after the game but the Zoom conference call isn’t making him a better quarterback.
• Don’t have the snap counts yet but Danny Trevathan played more than I expected. And not particularly well.
• Did Mitch Trubisky throw a single deep sideline route in bounds?
• Trubisky’s interception was awful but from all reports the Bears were considering making a QB change at halftime. That tells me Nagy was infuriated by the Miller deep miss late in the second quarter. Nagy had been setting it up the entire first half and Miller had three yards on the secondary. That’s an easy touchdown for most, if not all, starting quarterbacks in the league.

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The advantage of being a home subscriber to Sunday Ticket for the first time is the brilliance of condensed game broadcasts. (These are rebroadcasts of the game with everything but the plays themselves removed.) After several re-watches of Bears/Lions, there are a few clear adjustments Mitch Trubisky can make from Week One to Week Two to keep the chains moving and get this offense into the end zone.

Adjustment #1: Footwork

Whether it be general anxiety or indecisiveness, Mitch’s feet are an absolute mess at times. Not at all times, mind you, but still too frequently for a quarterback in his fourth season. This has to be the focus of the quarterback room all week as several misses…

• Fourth down shank to Ted Ginn
• Air ball to Demetrius Harris in the end zone
• Way-too-short floater to Robinson down the right sideline in the fourth quarter

…were directly attributable to messy mechanics. Set your feet. Release the football.

Adjustment #2: Take What’s There

Two plays stood out to me.

2nd Quarter. 11:08 Remaining. 2nd and 12. When Mitch drops into the pocket, he has Darnell Mooney wide open on a shallow cross.

What did Mitch do? He threw a deep ball five yards by Allen Robinson, who was blanketed in coverage. If he dumps this ball to Mooney, it’s 3rd and 5 at the worst! 3rd and 5 opens the entire playbook for Matt Nagy.

But what about the next play? Now, 3rd and 12. Here’s what Mitch has in front of him when he delivers the football.

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After visible training camp practices concluded Saturday, nearly ever beat reporter had Nick Foles ahead of Mitch Trubisky in the team’s quarterback competition. That tells us all we need to know about Trubisky.

(In fairness, those on the Bears beat are hardly experts when it comes to judging quarterbacks and nobody has any actual idea what the Bears are looking for. But all reports have indicated that Trubisky has yet to grow out of the maddening inconsistencies that led to Foles being acquired in the first place.)

Whether it’s running out of bounds for a two-yard loss instead of throwing the ball away, making questionable decisions or throwing scattershot incompletions and interceptions, Trubisky has seemingly looked exactly like the player he has been throughout his career.

That might be surprising to some because there was at least a portion of the fan base that thought Trubisky’s faults weren’t actually his in the first place and blamed his shoulder injury, which came after he already had three mostly bad showings, as well as his offensive and his skill players and the moon and the stars. Even for the more realistic fans, there was at least some hope that Trubisky would be more motivated this year. In a contract year, with a challenger looking him in the face, how could Trubisky not be at his best?

Well maybe we’ve already seen his best.

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With a week of practices almost in the books, I’ve actually started doing some “work” around here again, texting folks around the club to find out what’s happening. Here are some of their thoughts, and a lot of mine, in these early days.

The Lady’s Got Potential

Several people around practices have noted improvements in Mitch Trubisky’s footwork but let’s hit the breaks a bit. Does anybody care what a quarterback’s mechanics look like in practice sessions? Mitch can set his feet and throw at Halas Hall, I’ve no doubt about that. But can he set his feet and throw when those Smith boys from Green Bay are coming around the edge? If his mechanics are improved it’s undoubtedly a good thing. But nobody will know how improved until they start keeping score.

A New Argentina

Jimmy Graham was the best player on the practice field this week. Cole Kmet made his presence known immediately. There’s no reason to get overly excited about practices but it sure seems like the most improved position on the 2020 Bears will be tight end. Kmet is a stud. His early success won’t surprise me at all. Graham? As someone deep inside the organization told me this spring, “Ryan believes Jimmy is going to have a big season in this offense. So does Jimmy.” Soon, there might be some other believers around the league.

[Side note: I haven’t played fantasy football since Shaun Alexander was in the league but Jimmy Graham is someone I’d be looking at were I to play this season.]

The Art of the Possible

Note from a scout friend: “I think Tulane kid.. Mooney is going to be really good.“

Darnell Mooney can fly and the Bears think they stole a real player in the fifth round. Will he have major impact this season? Well, the truth is he doesn’t have to. With Teddy Ginn on the roster, the rookie can grow into the season and watched a seasoned speedster go about his work.

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• Who provided the most in-depth look at Mitch Trubisky’s competition preparation? Unsurprisingly, it’s a guy I used to drink with in bars when that kind of thing was allowed: Adam Jahns. And in his piece for The Athletic he gives plenty of reason for Mitch loyalists to believe the young signal caller is capable of finally turning a corner. My two cents? I just don’t understand what he’s done to earn another shot. If I’m the Bears, I tell Mitch that Nick Foles is starting the opener but to keep his arm warm in the bullpen.
• This spring I got into a somewhat public Twitter spat with Stacey Dales for having the gumption to challenge an opinion of hers. Now full reporting shows that Aaron Rodgers (a) was pissed at the selection of a first-round QB and (b) is openly discussing the end of his tenure with the organization. I get that some in the sports media get overly protective of those they cover to protect access. But this was dumb argument by a smart reporter. You’d have to know absolutely nothing about Rodgers to think he wouldn’t be offended by the pick.
• Kelly Stafford went a bit ballistic when it turned out Matt Stafford’s Covid-19 test was a false positive. “I have been losing my mind because of how my Family has been treated since my husband was put on the Covid-IR list,” Kelly, who has four children with Matt, said. “Even after we knew it was a false positive, I was approached in a grocery store told I was ‘endangering others,’ my kids were harassed and kicked off a playground, I was told I needed to wait in my car when trying to pick up food, and people closest to us had to get tested just so they could go back to work… and that’s just to name a few things.” Kelly has battled significant health issues and I understand her frustration. But all the things she suggests here are the PROPER PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE with a positive test. If it’s false positive, great. But before that is known, you can’t just pretend it’s life as usual.
• IN ACTUAL BEAR NEWS: Here are some bears “pole dancing” in West Hartford.