Da Bear Cast Blog

It seems to me that everyone and their mom that is a Bears fan wants to fire Bob Babich. I really don’t know if I could agree or disagree with that sentiment. I can, however, suggest another change that I don’t understand why it hasn’t already happened. That is on offense. The offense that the Bears currently run is just that, offensive. It is offensive to watch at times.

You may right now be saying to yourself, geez, what’s so bad about our offense, after all it was the defense that seemed to fail us so much this year. Well…let me attempt to explain why I feel so strongly about the subject.

If there is a side of the ball that can still function at least a medial capacity, it is the offense. On defense, if you don’t have personnel that can get to the quarterback, or stop the run, let’s say, then you are just plain screwed. However, on offense, things can be done to trick the defense, make them stay honest in their pursuit, or catch them off guard. That being said, let me talk about the offense the Chicago Bears had this year.

Here are just a few observations that I believe most people would say are indisputable about the Chicago Bears offense this past season:
1- The run blocking was below average this year, especially on plays when defenses believed that the run was coming and keyed in on it
2- The pass blocking was better than almost everyone thought it would be coming into the year, nowhere near elite, but was not a glaring weakness for most of the year
3- Matt Forte was a goldmine. I believe that at the pick he was taken, he was the best offensive value of the entire draft
4- Kyle Orton showed some real promise before badly spraining his ankle, then was erratic since
5- The Bears receivers, especially towards the end of the season couldn’t seem to catch a cold

Ok, now I have laid out what I believe are points that I don’t think anyone would argue with about this year. Based upon that framework, let me make a few assertions about what needed to be happening, and what did happen with the offense this year.

The playcalling was an enigma. I am being as nice here as I can possibly be. There were so many games where the Bears ran, and ran, and ran some more. It would get to be 3rd and long, and then there would be a throw. That was painful. Also, I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but I guarantee anyone that has the games on tape(thanks to my DVR erasing on me, I don’t), that the Bears on 2nd and 10 after a play action incomplete pass would run through the non-existent 1 or 3 hole(or at least some semblance of up the middle) at least 80% of the time. I am not exaggerating with that number. On the face if it anyone could say, what is wrong with that? Well…I’ll tell you what. It almost never got more than 2 yards. When your offense is struggling to move the ball you need to give as much of an opportunity to get 5 or 6 on 2nd and 10 as possible. Yet the Bears stubbornly ran.

Then in games where teams were playing the pass, the Bears would abandon the run. Think back to the Thursday night Saints game. Chris Collinsworth on NFL Network actually said, “The Saints are begging the Bears to try and run the football.” Yet the running game was benched for nearly the entire game.

One more point about the run and I will stop talking about the running game(not that I don’t have more points that I could convey about it, but I have to sleep or eat eventually. How many times did we see Jason McKie be used on a fullback dive on 4th and 1 and get stuffed at the line. Let me explain why this is unwise. If you go back to my uncontested points about the Bears O this year you will see that I said the offensive line was not good at run blocking, especially when defenses were looking for it. Now, that being said, have short yardage situations where it still makes sense to try and “punch it in” if you will. That’s all well and good, but lets remember that with no push from the O-line, a runner has nowhere to go in the middle. So, if you want to go quickly you need to go with a qb sneak. If you think you can get a guy over the top, or squeezed through the middle, you have a running back. The last person who should get the ball in this scenario is the fullback. He is a guy you use when you get a quick push and he can punch it in the endzone. But, with no push up front, you will simply have the least agile player on your offense getting stonewalled a mere foot or so from paydirt. Thus, we had that scenario with Jason McKie…once, twice, thr- well, you get the picture. Yet, there was never an observation about this made, it just happened over and over again. How many times can a play fail before it gets scrapped?

Ok, if you still are able to stomach the subject…I’ve got more. The passing game. How many games was Kyle Orton put into a terrible situation…uh, all of them maybe just about. I just talked about the play action and then the run up the gut. It seems like every 3rd down the Bears had was at least 3rd and 8. That is hard for a good NFL offense to continually overcome. This was not a good one. However, instead of calling for some, intermediate throws, to get Orton into the flow of the game, it seemed that every pass play called for a route of at least 12-16 yards. Even short out routes would have to be throw to the far side of the field, making them 20-25 yard throws in essence. That is no way to get a struggling qb confident, or involved in a game. Also, can a guy get a screen pass please? Possibly the best way to slow down a good pass rush is a screen pass. Early in the year screens were implemented, and succeeded. I guess success is the kiss of doom for play calls on this team. The screen pass disappeared, much like Orton’s successful midyear play.

Don’t think that’s a big deal? I heard commentators, and even Lovie Smith say that one problem was Kyle Orton’s receivers weren’t getting open for him. One theory I have is that it was because they only ran about 3 routes all year, the go, the deep comeback on the sideline, and the quick slant. If your receivers are having trouble getting open there are things that can be done to get them open. The Bears did not. Let me ask you this, have you seen any of these things in the past tow years from the Chicago Bears offense: trips formation with criss-crossing routes, trips formation periods, a short drag route, an intermediate drag route, a double move on a route with a pump and go(and I’m not talking about the semi-stutter step go route that is one of the worst fakes I have ever seen, we run that one), a wide receiver pick play, which can be done legally, or crossing routes in the middle. I firmly believe that the biggest reason why the Chicago Bears receivers weren’t often open was because of the fact that there were only a couple of routes that DBs had to look for with them. That makes a defenses job a heck of a lot easier.

On to my next point, the trick play. If you are having trouble scoring and defenses are keying in on your plays, you need to try to manufacture points however you can get them. This can be done with misdirection or trick plays as well. When is the last time you saw any of these plays from a Bears team: the flea flicker, the double reverse with the quarterback getting the second pitch and then throwing the ball, the toss sweep with the throwback to the quarterback, or the halfback pass. I’ll tell you when. The last time any of these plays happened was in the Saints game in week 17 last year with nothing on the line, and no reason to bust out a play like that unless you want to see if it can be used in a meaningful situation down the road. Adrian Peterson did it, it worked like a charm, and we haven’t seen it since. What sense does that make???

Ok, final point, really. Personnel. Why was Rashied Davis played soooo long? Why was Mark Bradley so viamently dispised that he never saw the field, but in KC he is a great looking complement to Dwayne Bowe? Why are guys like Earl Bennett never given a shot when clearly guys like Davis aren’t getting it done? Why does Brandon Lloyd make a great catch and then not see the field again???? The personnel evaluation is a monstrous failure at this point.

All of these things, coupled with the fact that this offense is soooo predictable, force me to believe that Ron Turner must be replaced, and the new offensive coordinator must be allowed to feel free to try and win games for the Chicago Bears, not just manage them if there is any chance for the Bears to succeed in the near future.

-Bearsaddict

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 8:06 am and is filed under Bears. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.