Why the Offense Lost the Game

[WindyCity]

-Trey Burton not playing was a huge issue. Jim Schwartz was able to focus on taking Tarik Cohen out of the game. Whener Cohen moved he was being blanketed by the Eagles best safety [Jenkins], or LB [Bradham]. Schwartz showed Shaheen less than 0 respect.

The Bears need a serious backup to Burton if he is going to struggle to manage his anxiety to the point he does not play the night before a game.

-Nagy was too conservative early. Schwartz new early on our OL could not hold up so the Eagles sat on all the underneath routes and screens and Mitch was throwing into tight windows because of it.

-Mitch was off early. His throws were not as accurate as they needed to be based on how the Eagles were covering. He missed a couple of wide open deep shots, specifically to Ben B who would have scored in the 1st quarter. His throw into the endzone that was almost picked, and then almost caught by Miller, was on a special level of bad. If Mitch could only have hit 1 of the deep throws in the 1st half perhaps Nagy would have opened it up.

Mitch was too conservative early on. He needed to push a couple of throws just to get into Schwartz's head. 

-Cohen needed more than 5 targets/touches. 

-Mizzell and Cunningham are wasted reps.

-Shaheen looks like a big, lumbering, blocking TE, and the Eagles treated him that way. It made it much easier to have 2 guys devoted to Cohen.

-Robinson has to get his feet in bounds, it would have been 1st and goal at the 4.

-Miller has to hold on to that ball, again would have been 1st and goal at the 4.

-The OL was nothing short of horrendous on many plays. They were credited with giving up pressure on 30% of passes, I think they were 18% on the season. In the run game they got nothing going in critical moments. 

-Daniels blew multiple assignments.

-Long missed a key block on the drive before the bad punt and Eagles final TD.

-On the 2 point conversion Leno gets DOMINATED and Daniels goes to block a ghost on the 2nd level. Leno's guy makes the tackle all the way from the far backside end spot.

 

If I was assessing blame for the game on offense

1. OL

2. Burton Injury

3. Nagy

4. Trubisky, would be higher if they had caught those picks

5. The WRs

[Nads786]

What did you think of the WRs? I was at the game and barely saw any separation or them running good routes.

[Heinz D.]

To call Nagy's play calling "too conservative" is sort of off the mark. "Not good"--at least in stretches--would have been more apt. Practically every time Howard got the ball something good happened. Cohen only getting four touches is unacceptable, even though he was struggling at first. And you're right, no reason for Mizzell and Cunningham in a playoff game. 

[beardown3231]

I believe #2 and #3 go hand in hand. I think the Burton injury last minute effected the gameplan significantly.

[WindyCity]

I think the WRs were running short routes into coverages called to stop short routes.

To me that is more on Nagy and Mitch for having the 1st half dictated to them.

[Nads786]

Watching the Rams and Chiefs- we really need a running game that is consistent. We put it all on Mitch with no PA ability.

Nagy has to figure this out next year.

[JAF-N72EX]

Does everyone see what the Rams did to the Cowboys tonight and see the difference between their offensive game plan and ours? They ran the damn ball!

[Sugashane]

6 hours ago, Heinz D. said:

To call Nagy's play calling "too conservative" is sort of off the mark. "Not good"--at least in stretches--would have been more apt. Practically every time Howard got the ball something good happened. Cohen only getting four touches is unacceptable, even though he was struggling at first. And you're right, no reason for Mizzell and Cunningham in a playoff game. 

How is it off the mark exactly? (Genuinely asking, not arguing) They tried a LOT of short routes, I don't remember (though I could have absolutely missed them) any double moves the first half when they were clearly covering short and safties were squatting on routes rather than showing concern of a deep ball. I saw little aggression (as they didn't challenge deep and barely in the middle of the field even) for most of the first 3 quarters and it seemed from just some of the timing that they were intended to get the ball out of Mitch's hand ASAP, like they were relying YAC that our receivers really just don't get much of.

 

Not feeding Howard and Cohen more was a poor choice. If they were going to focus on Cohen so much then use him as a damn decoy! Pair him with Robinson on one side and run complimentary routes to take 2 defenders out of the play

With Cohen in the slot and ARob out at the Z

- Fade with Cohen + deep in with ARob

- deep out with Cohen  + ARob running a slant or in

- bubble screen out with Cohen  + fly or post with ARob

 

Or flip and have ARob in the slot and Cohen out at the Z

ARob a slant + Cohen a fly (if they want to take two players out wide then take them away from all other receivers

ARob post + Cohen quick out (may get Cohen in space or ARob can get inside of the CB for an easy 10+ yards

If Cohen has two guys on him run a shallow wheel route with ARob and use the 2 guys defending Cohen (on a slant) to catch ARob's guy in traffic

 

There were ways to take advantage of Schwartz's decision to force Cohen to not be a weapon against them. Nagy IMO completely failed to do that, and he was too conservative to me. He seemed to try and take what was given to him rather than force the issue at all. Of course I don't want Martz-style 7-step drops constantly or anything, but the gameplan seemed like he was relegated to being reactionary far more rather than aggressive.

[Heinz D.]

59 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

How is it off the mark exactly? (Genuinely asking, not arguing) 

Well...it's not exactly conventional thinking to call for running the ball more and have that be aggressive playcalling. They should have run it more, and not with Mizzell and Cunningham. 

[JAF-N72EX]

Man I'm out of likes, otherwise both of you would get one because you are both correct in your assessments in your own rights, imo. In fact, you are both essentially agreeing on the same thing but in different ways without even realizing it lol.

First let me preface by saying that even though this is a passing league, if you a good defense and a solid run game...you have a good chance to beat any team. If you have a historically good defense and a solid run game....there is no excuse to lose unless you decide to ignore the run game altogether and that is exactly what Nagy did. 

You are correct in that Nagy was very conservative in his play-calling. Which was the right game plan to have going into the game. The problem is, he didn't stick with it through the entire game (I think he panicked himself when he realized Gym Shorts was out-coaching him -- remember this was Nagy's first rodeo too).

He had a young team,  a great defense, a young QB playing in his first post-season game and so he wanted to try to slow down the game for him by running the ball and keeping the route concepts simple. Which sounds good on paper and he did that in the first half but to no avail. The problem was, Swartz was ready for it. He knew all he had to do was maintain the line to start the game by loading the box and trusting his 2nd level guys to play gap assignments in order to take away the run early while also being be prepared for quick hits without allowing to much YAC (which they were using different zone packages). 

He also knew that all he had to do was to get Mitch uncomfortable by using pre-snap disguises in order to take away the first read. Shorts was showing a cover 1,2,3 and even a 6 zone pre-snap and then dropping into another in order to confuse Mitch on who the was or was not blitzing which put him into a situation where he had to think on his feet (ironic term -- remember the ball thrown at Howard's feet? Great example of what I'm talking about.

Often times, Shorts was showing a 2-high safety coverage look pre-snap and then dropping into a cover-3 coverage (I counted 24 post-snaps using cover-3) and neither Mitch or Nagy knew what to do about it.

He basically forced Nagy's game plan to become one-dimensional which forced a young QB into making decisions on the fly. 

I'll finish this tommrow.

[dll2000]

You get better analysis here than anywhere else.  Some very intelligent posts.  

[WindyCity]

12 hours ago, JustAnotherFan said:

Does everyone see what the Rams did to the Cowboys tonight and see the difference between their offensive game plan and ours? They ran the damn ball!

Their OL was dominating. Ours was getting punked.

Those holes were enourmous.

[Heinz D.]

1 hour ago, WindyCity said:

Their OL was dominating. Ours was getting punked.

Those holes were enourmous.

The Bears had their two best runners carry the ball, what, eleven times? And Trubisky did well in the passing game. Hard to call that "punked", as far as I'm concerned. 

I get that this thread and the "defense lost" thread are all about laying blame, and to the degree that lets us dissect and discuss the contest, and its results--that's fine. But the whole truth of the thing has to be viewed in the context of a young team with a first year head coach, and a nearly rookie quarterback, playing their first playoff game against a talented Super Bowl defending squad. The Rams lost in the wild card round last year, too. And this year may get to the Super Bowl. 

[Nads786]

I think we would have been three and outting if we kept running it. I get that people want to run more than 11 times but we can’t just get 3 yards each carry and give Philly extra possessions.

[dll2000]

21 hours ago, WindyCity said:

Their OL was dominating. Ours was getting punked.

Those holes were enourmous.

Rams weren't blocking Fletcher Cox.