Bears Offense Nowhere Near as Hot as Sideline Exchange

Bears quarterback Nick Foles called his exchange with Matt Nagy during Thursday's game merely a discussion, as coaches and players try to find a way to ignite a dormant attack

Bears quarterback Nick Foles thinks the offense will benefit from self-scouting coaches accomplished during last weekend's mini-bye.

Coach Matt Nagy thinks the offense will simply benefit from a full week to get Foles ready to play a game, rather than two days like last week against Tampa Bay.

Regardless, something has to improve because the Bears on offense have fallen almost all the way back to where they were before Nagy made his coaching changes after last season.

"I don't think we're where we want to be in the passing game right now," Foles said after Wednesday's practice. "We want to be a lot more efficient, a lot better.

"But I also know there's a progression. It doesn't just happen overnight. It's never happened overnight ever in my career."

For Foles it seems overnight, but it's been a long night for Bears fans who have seen the offense begin at a so-so level in Nagy's first year, regress to near the bottom of the league his second year, rise for a few games and now drop to a bad situation heading into Sunday's game at Charlotte, N.C. against the 3-2 Carolina Panthers.

The Bears have fallen to 27th in offense. They finished 29th last year. They are 27th in scoring, and were 29th in scoring last yer. They are 23rd in passing and were 25th last year. They are 27th in rushing, exactly where they were at the end of last season.

It was all part of why Nagy went on a tirade Friday about a lack of attention being paid to details.

"I would say with the details, the players truly understand what our standards are here, with this offense and obviously you look at the lack of production right now and the lack of scoring and where we're at," Nagy said. "We know.

"We're trying to figure out the answers of where things are and how we can get better and score more points and be more productive to make it easier on our defense."

Nagy said Foles is getting better with his own receivers this week after having little time to know them and work with them in the offense.

'I think it's really helping us as coaches to get a nice feel for where he's at within this offense," Nagy added. "Because it is a little different and there's things that he likes that Mitch (Trubisky) didn't like and vice versa, which is OK."

Foles and Nagy had engaged in an "animated" discussion on the sideline after the two disagreed on a course of action in the red zone at Thursday's game, and on Wednesday Foles said he's working so everyone gets in agreement on such matters.

"In football, everybody's got to be on the same page and execute at a certain level," Foles said. "When we go practice, I felt like today we went out there was everything perfect? No. But I felt like there was a lot of good conversations and we were able to work through different things and different looks."

As for that sideline discussion?

"There was nothing heated at all," Foles said. "It was just him and I in the game trying to get better, pushing forward. We were just having a good conversation.

"I saw something out there and I just really wanted to take advantage of it."

Considering the offense's lack of productivity, more discussions should be forthcoming.

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