Bear Need More Explosive Plays On Offense

[soulman]

Mathematical Proof the Bears Need More Explosive Plays on Offense

Posted: 04 Mar 2019 01:00 AM PST

https://dabearsblog.com/2019/chicagos-offense-needs-more-explosive-plays

I recently ran across this Tweet from NFL Matchup on ESPN – a terrific account you should definitely follow on Twitter if you want to be a better educated football fan. It got me thinking about Chicago’s offense and explosive plays.

These offenses generated the most EXPLOSIVE PLAYS this season.
#ChiefsKingdom #FightForEachOther #LARams #GoBucs #Browns #49ers #GoSaints #Steelers #Bengals #Seahawks #Panthers #Falcons pic.twitter.com/fTqyVPKckr

— NFL Matchup on ESPN (@NFLMatchup) January 2, 2019

 

Seeing as I’ve already written about Mitchell Trubisky’s struggles throwing the ball deep and Jordan Howard’s lack of explosive runs, I figured the Bears probably ranked towards the low end in this area. Using Pro Football Reference’s fantastic Game Play Finder, I was able to track these stats for every team in 2018 (full data here, slight discrepancies for the 17 teams shown in Tweet above, but all were within 1 or 2 plays).

As you can see in the table below, the Bears did indeed not do very well when it came to explosive plays.

We can see here that the Bears were slightly below average in every category, meaning there is need for improvement in explosive plays across the board. I’ll also note that percentages are calculated simply: (explosive plays/total plays)100; I figured this might be a useful metric since there is a some difference in how many plays teams run, especially when you split it up into run and pass plays.

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Why They Matter

I couldn’t help but notice the Bears’ explosive play rankings pretty closely matched some of their overall offensive rankings. Outside of points scored, which was buoyed by defensive touchdowns, Chicago’s offense was generally below average in most categories. Thus I wanted to look and see if there was any correlation between explosive plays and overall offensive performance. I looked specifically at explosive plays or explosive play % vs. points scored or Football Outsiders’ offensive DVOA, which are two general metrics to measure the offense as a whole. The four graphs can be seen below.

Don’t worry too much about the numbers, just focus on the general trend. All four graphs show a clear trend such that more explosive plays leads to better offensive performance. This can be quantified with the correlation (r²) values on each graph, which range from 0.58 to 0.67. That can be loosely interpreted to mean that roughly 60-65% of offensive performance is based on big plays.

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Explosive Players

Since explosive plays are so important for a good offense, it makes sense to look at what Bears players are and are not producing them. The table below shows that information for Chicago’s main weapons, with their complementary skill position players (and defensive linemen turned skill position players periodically) grouped into the “other” category.

A few thoughts:

• The explosive pass % for non-QBs is a little wonky, as for teams and QBs it includes sacks under total plays, but for other players can only include target information, removing sacks from the equation. Thus those numbers are a bit higher than the team totals.
• With that said, Trubisky produced explosive passes through the air at a league average rate. The Bears were brought down by 2 games with Chase Daniel, whose explosive pass % was only 7.1%. As previously noted, Trubisky struggled to throw deep balls efficiently, but he also tried to throw them a lot, so overall he still got a decent number of them.
• This should come as no surprise to anybody, but Tarik Cohen is an explosive play waiting to happen. He was excellent at producing big plays on the ground and through the air.
• Jordan Howard, on the other hand… oof. I can’t think of a better stat to explain why the Bears need to upgrade him than the fact that he only had 10 explosive plays in 276 combined carries + targets. If you remove Howard’s plays from the offense, the Bears were actually above average producing explosive plays on the ground and through the air. Upgrading Howard this offseason has to happen for the offense to take a significant step forward (as I have said is likely).
• Taylor Gabriel has a bit of a low explosive pass % here, but with a somewhat small target number he was basically 1-2 plays short of average. Likewise, his high explosive run % is from 1 explosive run out of 9 total. You’d think somebody with that kind of speed would make more big plays. Maybe the Bears didn’t use him quite right, or maybe Trubisky just missed him too often. I’d like to see his total targets decrease next year, probably in favor of Anthony Miller. I think shifting Gabriel from a primary receiving role into more of a WR3/deep shot specialist would be a better way to use him.
• The Bears did a decent job of getting some big passing plays out of their role players, but didn’t get a single explosive run from that group. Most of that falls on Benny Cunningham and Taquan Mizzell, who had 20 combined carries for 36 yards, with a long of 7. I think it’s safe to say better depth at RB is needed.

[soulman]

This analysis tells us much about why it's imperative to take a different approach offensively in 2019.

That obviously begins with either replacing or supplementing Jordan Howard with a RB capable of more big plays as well as finding ways to get Tarik Cohen more touches.  In fact it seems the entire RB position with the exception of Cohen should be overhauled.  By far this seems to be an area that could hold us back from adding more points scored offensively.

Of course it's easier said than done but it indicates one of Pace first moves in FA may be to attempt to sign a vet RB who is a better fit for Matt Nagy's offense and who at the very least can supplement Jordan Howard if not replace him.  I'm equally certain Pace will attempt to trade Howard if he can sign the right back but we won't see it 'til that happens.

Once he's secured an experienced vet RB I can see him adding a few more via the draft and UDFA with those backs competing to replace Cunningham and Mizzell and hopefully a starter emerges eventually as well.

The other issue would seem to be recasting Taylor Gabriel's role as more of a deep ball threat and gadget play specialist using Miller and Wims more in traditional flanker and slot roles.  For what we're paying them we should be getting more big plays and scoring from him and from Trey Burton.

[dll2000]

Bears left a lot of explosive plays on the grass last year.  They were there to be had, but they didn't execute.  

[Madmike90]

I think a lot of the lack of explosive plays was down to Nagy keeping the training wheels on Trubisky for most of the season...we saw when he was allowed to be aggressive we could move the ball down the field and if we add a big pass catching TE that would only be helped more...

Where we do clearly need to improve is in the running game...we need a quicker "lead back" who can get more chunk plays...we also need the OL to step up and improve as run blockers...Long being healthy will clearly help with that.

[Sugashane]

2 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Bears left a lot of explosive plays on the grass last year.  They were there to be had, but they didn't execute.  

How many times did we watch the Bears player just have one player to beat and they would have 20 yards of open field in front of them? But it seemed like 9/10 times we we brought down in the one on one situations. I know we are going against pro defenders but I feel like we were winning way fewer of these individual battles than usual.

 

Then of course there were some issues to be expected. Mitch overthrowing when trying to make sure not to throw it short for an INT, a few routes that seemed to be effort/mental error issues, etc. I have a lot of faith those can be cleaned up, but we need to win more single match ups in space.

[soulman]

I didn't post it but DBB Blog did a study on Mitch's passing as well and he did not have a great year throwing the deep ball.  His completion % was down and his interception ratio was up compared to 2017 when he was even more restricted.

But their analysis of other passers indicates this normally cycles and that often a poorer year is followed by a much better one as QB and coaching staff study and workout where the problems came from.  I trust Nagy will do this with Mitch as well.

Two factors stood out to me; 1) a lack of familiarity with an entirely new receiving core, and 2) flawed mechanics some of which I believe was caused by his lack of confidence in himself and his new receivers.  He improved as the year went on.

So I believe we will see more explosive pass plays in 2019 than we saw in 2018.  Mitch's confidence won't be as lacking and Nagy will have installed another level of his offense that may depend less on gadget plays to create explosion.

I'm beginning to feel that if at all possible Pace will reconstruct the RB position this year much like he did the WR/TE position last year.  I expect to see a lot of new faces later this spring coming from FA, the Draft, and UDFA.  Lot's of competition.

Fortunately this should be a much less expensive process since even good vet RBs can make half or less of what a top TE or top WR makes and rookies will be even cheaper.  If Howard is traded very likely we'll see an entirely new backfield in 2019 just as we saw a new receiver core in 2018.  Tarik Cohen being the exception of course since he's a little of both.  I think we'll see more RBBC this year.

[Epyon]

If explosive plays are a requirement you can basically entirely write Montgomery off the RB board... And likely underline, highlight, and star Henderson.. The latter had the highest % of explosive plays in college last year if memory serves, and the former had exactly zero career tds from outside the red zone. 

Granted there where also massive differences in the blocking each received... But even so... Grading for explosivity really limits the options for this year's class. 

[WindyCity]

We need more explosive plays.

Trubisky needs to be more consistent down the field, which would help.

Jordan Howard provides 0 explosion in the running game.

[dll2000]

4 hours ago, Epyon said:

If explosive plays are a requirement you can basically entirely write Montgomery off the RB board... And likely underline, highlight, and star Henderson.. The latter had the highest % of explosive plays in college last year if memory serves, and the former had exactly zero career tds from outside the red zone. 

Granted there where also massive differences in the blocking each received... But even so... Grading for explosivity really limits the options for this year's class. 

 

[dll2000]

 

[dll2000]

I think in Henderson highlights he is always clean to secondary.

Hill had some holes too, but I think a lot more was him creating.