Bears Blitz

Published by Bear Heiser on October 21, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears laid an egg in Sunday’s loss to the Miami Dolphins.

Few things went right for Marc Trestman’s Bears. The Jay Cutler-led offense gained only 224 yards on the day while turning the ball over three times. Mel Tucker’s defensive unit allowed a very inconsistent Ryan Tannehill to complete 78 percent of his passes for 277 yards and two touchdowns.

Sunday’s performance is reflective of where this Bears team is at offensively. The defense is actually allowing 1.4 fewer points this season than its 2013 total of 29.9. The defensive output to date is something we all expected. What’s ailing the Bears is a struggling offense.

To top it all off, frustrations boiled over in the Bears locker room after the game while the media listened from the hallway. Brandon Marshall is the guy who could be heard yelling inside the locker room. He later told reporters that the Bears’ 3-4 record is “unacceptable.”

Trestman, in his postgame press conference, said, “Today was an unacceptable performance by our football team.” Now rumors of “dysfunction,” as reported by David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune, are currently swirling around the Bears.

And time is running out for Chicago to establish itself as a credible threat to make the postseason. While every game is important, this week is a must-win against the New England Patriots. The Bears can’t fall to 3-5 with eight games left. If that happens, Chicago would have to win seven of the last eight just to get to 10 wins. Dan Pompei used a “roller coaster” as a comparison for the Steelers‘ performance:

Trestman only has a few days to diagnose what’s ailing his offense and then circle the wagons. We’re going to take a look at the two biggest factors that could be making the Bears’ locker room “sick,” as Trestman said Sunday.

Don’t be concerned with Brandon Marshall’s outburst; be concerned with his catch rate

Marshall had an average game by Marshall’s standards. The receiver caught six passes for 48 yards on 10 targets. His long of the day was 15 yards on a day when the Bears offense was seemingly helpless.

ESPN Chicago’s Michael C. Wright reported Sunday that Marshall’s locker room outburst was spurred on by unhappiness with his role in the offense and wanting of more touches. Sounds a lot like the Marshall we’ve all come to know and love. He wants the ball more. There’s nothing wrong with a man’s desire to put his team on his back.

Marshall’s 31 catches ranks fourth on the Bears. So it’s understandable for him to want more catches when looking at that number alone.

Now let’s look at targets:

The No. 1 receiver on the depth chart is fourth in catches and third in targets. His frustration makes sense. Here’s where his argument falls flat. Look at catch rates: 

Marshall and his 10 targets led the team in Sunday’s loss. He registered two yards after the catch. Marshall struggled to create separation in coverage against Miami’s cornerbacks and caught all of his passes in traffic, which is evident when you see that he only had two yards after the catch.

Marshall is on pace to have 71 catches and 797 yards this season. Those aren’t Brandon Marshall-like numbers. His role in the offense is what it is because he’s not winning his battles. Despite Marshall’s performance, though, he “called out” Cutler, per Wright, according to Pompei:

Jay Cutler is having to rely on small ball

Cutler’s performance Sunday likely had a lot of folks scratching their heads after his franchise quarterback-like performance in the previous week against Atlanta.

Cutler threw for 381 yards with a touchdown in a turnover-free game against the Falcons. Sunday against the Miami Dolphins was a much different story, as Cutler was responsible for two turnovers—one interception and one fumble—to accompany his 190 passing yards on 34 attempts.

Trestman’s game plan didn’t work against the Dolphins, because, well, it was predictable. It was a screen-based plan that the league has seen since Trestman took over as head coach a mere 23 games ago.

Here’s a detailed look at where Cutler finds success this season in the passing game, per Pro Football Focus (subscription required).

The common theme is the Bears offense is most efficient when it moves in small chunks. The Bears’ 5.96 yards–per-play average, per PFF,  is reflective of the distribution of passes. It has to be tough to score touchdowns when the offense is dinking and dunking down the field.

Cutler even talked about it after the win in Atlanta:

It wasn’t frustrating. It’s just hard to go 80 or 90 going dink, dink, dink, dink, dink because sooner or later you’re going to miss one and you’re going to be third-and-8. Just to keep the flow of our offense, we kind of have to (go downfield).

The Bears’ offensive game plan did not set up well against the Dolphins. It seemed to be exactly what Cutler talked about above. The quarterback had little trouble completing the short pass, but moving the ball downfield was another issue entirely.

The Dolphins were willing to gamble and allow Matt Forte to beat them using the screen game. It seemed like Miami didn’t believe that Cutler could put together enough turnover-free plays to get the Bears offense into the end zone.

Just like Cutler talked about, “because sooner or later, you’re going to miss one … .” And the opponent has been ready each time Cutler has missed one, whether it be his seven interceptions or the three fumbles lost.

The regular-season numbers as a whole demonstrate the Bears’ inability to move the ball downfield, as do the numbers from Sunday’s loss to Miami. After gaining just 54 yards in the first half, where Forte carried the ball twice, the Bears came out in the second half with three straight Forte runs that led to an 80-yard touchdown drive on 12 plays. The Bears ran 21 plays after that drive, only four of which were Forte runs.

Bleacher Report’s Matt Eurich provided his assessment of Trestman’s game plan:

Trestman didn’t appear to make any in-game adjustments to combat the Dolphins’ success in disrupting the Bears’ passing offense.

The single drive in which the Bears showed the Dolphins something different, Cutler led the team into the end zone. Every NFL team now has seen Trestman’s NFL offense in motion for 23 games. Perhaps it’s time to switch things up. The Bears could start using the run to set up the play-action pass. Cutler could move the pocket around, giving his receivers more time to create separation.

An argument could be made for high-percentage Forte or Martellus Bennett screen passes for seven to eight yards being more effective than a Forte run of four or five yards. That argument holds water. It really does. A coach would rather have a high-percentage gain of seven yards over a four-yard gain on the ground.

The high-percentage pass isn’t working for the Bears anymore, though. Cutler has become too reliant on the short route, because he’s accepted the fact that guys aren’t getting open downfield with the opponent playing safer coverage.

When the Bears play the Patriots on Sunday, the first time Forte breaks one for 10-plus yards, you had better believe Bill Belichick will take notice and slowly start to shift his defensive coverage. And those slight adjustments could be the deciding factor in whether Marshall or Jeffery get single or double coverage.

Look, when something is broke you fix it. We talked yesterday about how the Cutler-Trestman relationship is failing the Bears. This team has too much talent to be sitting at 3-4. Couple that talent with “wildly fluctuating” performances and Dan Pompei believes a win over the Patriots is possible:

Now it’s up to the maestro to orchestrate some magic in New England. Well, this is Trestman’s first true test as an NFL head coach. All eyes are on the coach and the quarterback, who seemingly are tied at the hip, and the vocal receiver. This week against the Patriots could be the beginning of a very ugly slide or a much-needed bit of confidence for the Chicago Bears.

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