How To Fix A Broken Offense......

[abstract_thought]

I would take a shot on Mariota if he’s available for cheap. His upside is limited and I doubt he becomes a good QB, but he seems similar to a young Alex Smith in that he’s been completely miscast and may be able to turn his career around in a more familiar spread offense.

[beardown3231]

 

[beardown3231]

 

[soulman]

How do four former Bears all of whom have been to a Super Bowl feel about the prospects for the Bears fixing their offensive issues and salvaging their season?  Be ready for some brutal truth from Alex Brown.  He does make his point firmly and without equivocation.

 

[Heinz D.]

2 hours ago, soulman said:

And again on the OL.  How are you gonna replace two OTs we just extended who would have major dead cap hits if cut or traded?  All we can do is add some prospects to develop just as we have been but I would not spend a high pick on one in 2020.

At OG and OC we have two recent 2nd round picks who played well last year when their positions were reversed.  So....was doing that a mistake because Whitehair has been a find as far as an OL goes and Daniels has all kinds of talent and upside.  RG is the only question mark right now and we have two young prospects to plug in and try there.

We have reasonable OL talent and a top OL Coach so retooling the OL isn't the answer.  Fixing whatever the problems they're having is.

It's not a bad line. At all. Have they been performing badly? Sure. The problem lies elsewhere. I think probably the first offender is the utter lack of versatility in the run game. I was initially going to say "creativity", but when you can only call like three different run plays, all between the guards (often with a tiny, 5'6 running back) then you're most likely doomed in the NFL. 

Oh, sorry. Nagy isn't an "idiot", though. He said so himself. 

[soulman]

46 minutes ago, Heinz D. said:

It's not a bad line. At all. Have they been performing badly? Sure. The problem lies elsewhere. I think probably the first offender is the utter lack of versatility in the run game. I was initially going to say "creativity", but when you can only call like three different run plays, all between the guards (often with a tiny, 5'6 running back) then you're most likely doomed in the NFL. 

Oh, sorry. Nagy isn't an "idiot", though. He said so himself. 

I'm very much leaning toward your take on this.

Nagy's scheme changed our entire approach to the run game from more outside zone calls to inside zone calls and ever since this OL and our RBs have failed to handle it well. 

As a team we have seldom ever struggled to run the football even under Trestman and John Fox but we are now.  What changed besides the scheme Nagy brought with him?

The players are calling for a team meeting and they should have one.  Hopefully they'll be able to come up with some suggestions on their own and bring those to Nagy if they believe changes in his approach are needed.

But above all Nagy has to realize he can't establish a running game period when he calls only seven running plays vs fifty four passes.

[abstract_thought]

I don't think it's fair to pin the running game failures on the use of IZ. Teams have built successful running games around IZ. It's been used for a very long time and it works when executed.

The Bears' issues are with execution of blocks and with the number of stacked boxes they run into.

[soulman]

21 minutes ago, abstract_thought said:

I don't think it's fair to pin the running game failures on the use of IZ. Teams have built successful running games around IZ. It's been used for a very long time and it works when executed.

The Bears' issues are with execution of blocks and with the number of stacked boxes they run into.

Which are both of my points.

1) We've been accustomed to running an outside zone concept which we seem to have blocked well in the past but are somehow struggling to block the inside zone well.  Why?  It's not as if they're completely foreign to one another yet the facts are proven by the results.  What other teams may be succeeding with it a moot point.  We aren't succeeding with it.  Why?

This needs answers because without it we can't win games unless we somehow can acquire Aaron Rodgers to play QB and even he would and has struggled with an ineffective running game.

2) Eight men in the box is what you get when an opponent doesn't respect your QB and his ability to best them passing.  So for as long as Mitch struggles passing we'll be seeing 8 men in the box which stunts our run game and makes it even more difficult for him to succeed. So we have a Catch 22.  Can't run until we can pass effectively and can't pass because they know we can't run so a defense can pin it's ears back and rush the hell out of Mitch which causes even more problems because he doesn't read well and holds the ball too long.

It's beyond me why anyone would argue that we should not replace Mitch temporarily at least to get some semblance of balance back in the offense.  Daniel is no world beater but he know where to go with the ball and his timing and accuracy are far better than Mitch's right now.  Then at the very least defenses will have to respect the pass which should open up the running game a least to some degree.

If none of that works what are we left with?  One assumption would be that Nagy simply doesn't have much of an offense to offer without his trickery and gadget plays and that it lacks the kind of bread and butter stuff you need to control the ball and win games.  I'm unsure on the correct answer but what worries me more is Matt Nagy also seems to lack any clues about where to go from here.

That's not good.

Edited October 23, 2019 by soulman

[big_palooka]

It's interesting because if you remember that preseason thread and the defense of why this Bears team would not regress... they are checking all the boxes.

Attrition - Not as strong under Pagano as Fangio. Missing a guy like Amos and Callahan and even Jordan Howard

Historic amount of turnovers - ball isn't bouncing their way thus far as it did last year

Injuries - they had no major injuries a year ago. Lost a lynch pin like Hicks

QB - Did not take a step forward and in regressing thus fa

Exposure - eventually teams understand how to defend an offense and where they are vulnerable. How to attack the defense and where their weakness lies

Better division - Packers and Lions both showing noticeable improvement. Vikings about equal but arrow up the last 2 weeks. 

Finally, pressure. No playing a last place schedule with no expectations. Riding a jolt from a blockbuster trade. Teams know who they are and are prepared for them.

 

[topwop1]

For what it's worth I read a post on twitter yesterday from Warren Sharp who is an analytics guy (@SharpFootball recommended follow btw) and he said that Bears are among the top-5 teams who run the fewest pre-snap motions on both running and passing plays and points out that the overall success of these motions on running plays specifically league wide:

0 players (in motion): 45% success, 4.2 YPC

1 player (in motion): 48% success, 4.5 YPC

2 players (in motion): 51% success, 4.5 YPC

3+ players (in motion): 67% success, 6.8 YPC

Although Mitch has under performed pretty badly, simply put Nagy is not doing the offense many favors with his play selections.   It has become too predictable on what they are going to do and opposing defenses are able to key in on this pretty easily.

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, big_palooka said:

It's interesting because if you remember that preseason thread and the defense of why this Bears team would not regress... they are checking all the boxes.

Attrition - Not as strong under Pagano as Fangio. Missing a guy like Amos and Callahan and even Jordan Howard

Historic amount of turnovers - ball isn't bouncing their way thus far as it did last year

Injuries - they had no major injuries a year ago. Lost a lynch pin like Hicks

QB - Did not take a step forward and in regressing thus fa

Exposure - eventually teams understand how to defend an offense and where they are vulnerable. How to attack the defense and where their weakness lies

Better division - Packers and Lions both showing noticeable improvement. Vikings about equal but arrow up the last 2 weeks. 

Finally, pressure. No playing a last place schedule with no expectations. Riding a jolt from a blockbuster trade. Teams know who they are and are prepared for them.

 

Haha has not been a downgrade overall from Amos. His run game defense is not as good but he is better in coverage. Callahan was let go because he can't stay healthy and he hasn't played a single game this year. No way in hell was letting him go a bad deal. Howard wouldn't be getting to run here, Nagy has the Bears running the 4th least amount of times per game and the OL has been horrendous. The few positive runs have mostly been from M ontgomery making a few guys miss and getting YAC. They also boast the 4th worst YPC, Howard would be getting just as few reps.

Losing Hicks and Smith having whatever mental issues are the biggest reasons for the defensive collapse. Hicks is a top interior defender who consistently collapses the pocket vs  the pass game, and Smith was looking like a star out there last year. This year he has zero aggression, and even seemed scared to attack Bridgewater when he was scrambling. He looked like he wasn't confident that Teddy would juke him and gave up an easy 1st due to his complacency. In the run game he attacked OL last year, this year he is trying to catch blocks and toss them away 4 yards off the LOS. Now no one can win one-on-one match ups when Mack is double and triple teamed.

I don't believe teams didn't know who the Bears were last year after 4-5 weeks. That is more of a knock towards opposing HCs and OCs to say they weren't prepared. The Bears were simply healthy and opportunistic. Now they have Goldman and a bunch of pass rushing DL and can't stop the run since no one can keep the ILBs clean. There are less opportunities to create turnovers when you're facing 3rd and 1 or 2 compared to 3rd and 8.

Whole offense has been trash and Nagy is as much to pblame. Everyone here could easily say Tru wasn't an elite QB or anything, that he needs to move around, have simple reads (like levels concepts) and a good run game to thrive. Instead vs GB Nagy calls 33 pass plays in a row, no motions to help tip off on zone vs man, plays coming in late so they can't help with presnap reads (like LAR do so well), nothing. Just tells Tru to go win it. They are trying to make a pocket passer out of him, and that is the dumbest thing possible. You can't take Tru and expect him to pick apart defenses with 40 throws and 7 runs, but for some reason Nagy thinks he can. Until the presser at least, then he claims to not be stupid. lol

[SLCbear]

18 hours ago, abstract_thought said:

...but he seems similar to a young Alex Smith in that he’s been completely miscast and may be able to turn his career around in a more familiar spread offense.

This is a pretty good description of Mitch ha 

I think Nagy is the problem ....he has been LOUDLY outcoached the past 2 weeks Gruden and BlueSteel own his *** !!

Nagy seems unable to adjust much less create on the fly ! WTH ??! 

An offensive GENIOUS/qbWhisperer whatev HAS capacity to create in the flow of a game !!!!  and get something out of their QB ! 

[topwop1]

I like him as a head coach and motivational figure, I like him as a QB mentor because he both played and coached the position at the pro level but I'm starting to realize that Matt Nagy is not cut out to be an NFL play caller and should not have this responsibility moving forward. 

This goes back 2 years ago when he was the OC of the Chiefs and they played in the AFC divisional playoff against the Titans.  If you recall the Chiefs were up 21-3 at half and refused to commit to the run in the 2nd half (5 total runs) which ultimately led to them losing inexcusably 22-21 to a Mariota led Titans squad.

Throughout the first 1.25 years of his tenure with Bears I believe we are starting to see a troubling pattern here with Nagy's play calling script.

While he may not be much of an upgrade I am curious to see if Helfrich has the capability to call a better game the rest of the way for this offense.  We have to see what we have with him because if he's not a capable OC then the team should be looking elsewhere in the offseason.

I am personally hoping that both Marrone (OL) and Flip (OC) become available if Jacksonville decides to go in a new direction for next year.  Then we can get Nick Foles here and it will all make sense.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by topwop1

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

13 minutes ago, topwop1 said:

.  Then we can get Nick Foles here and it will all make sense.

 

I am so ******* depressed by this team

[dll2000]

I am telling you I went through a similar situation as a coach and it sucks.  I really feel for Nagy.  I know its low level and not nearly same, but in your own world it still sucks.  You put 40 - 50 hours a week into the game.   You sacrifice work and family.   Nagy has all that times 50.   At least he isn't sacrificing work and he is highly paid.  Still he gets a lot more people saying he is a bum.  

I had a number of really good players and thought I was going to have another great year, but two of my best players, my very best players, including my QB had mental issues and it sunk us.

Kid was lights out in practice when there was no pressure.  He was maybe most talented QB I ever coached and I coached two really good ones.  In a game he went to pieces.   He had extreme anxiety, the works, kid would spend all pre game in the port a let sick with anxiety and his dad would lie and tell me it was this or that, something he ate, the flu.  He ordered the kid not to tell me anything about how he felt.

 And we put pressure on him in practice, it was just that he knew his friends and it wasn't the same so he looked good.   It took me a few games to figure out that he wasn't really sick each game and I switched him to another position.  Kid was never happier from that day on, but I started a parent revolt with the move.  

I already had another couple of very vocal parents that weren't happy with positions their son were playing and QB dad joined the group.   It wasn't fun.

I did right thing though.  I was killing that kid playing him at QB.