Bears Looking for a Few Good Plays

Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy defends Justin Fields' play against criticism and sees better production a few plays away.

Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy might have the toughest job in the NFL this week.

It might be only slightly more difficult than what Denver offensive coordinator Vance Joseph faces.

Somehow Getsy has to show the game film of Denver's 70-20 loss to the Miami Dolphins to his players and convince them about the need to execute properly.

He can always point out the 70 points are not like the first two efforts Denver's defense had.

"Yeah, I think it's one of those things, like you said, it probably just got away from them in the end," Getsy said. "You could see the first couple weeks how talented they really are.

"The two edge rushers (Frank Clark, Randy Gregory) they have are really good. They have probably one of the best corners in the league (Patrick Surtain II). That game got away from them. Obviously, Miami, they're clicking on all cylinders right now, too. So, that part of it just became a little bit much."

He probably should keep the film from Denver's game with Washington away from the Bears offense, too. The Broncos defense couldn't hold a 21-3 lead in a 35-33 defeat. Denver gave up 32 points in the last three quarters, so in the last seven quarters it has allowed 102 points.

So perhaps a better way to explain the task at hand is to simply remind the Bears offense how their own production probably is more on par with what Denver's defense has been. Scoring 47 points in three games is no way for an offense to start. When they rank 27th in scoring, 29th in yardage and 31st in passing, it's looking like a repeat of last year. It might be worse because at least they ran the ball well last year but they're so-so at 17th in rushing while only rushing it the 22nd most times.

Getsy isn't throwing blame at quarterback Justin Fields for the start. It's a shared responsibility and he says he's not necessarily disappointed in Fields so far despite the heat on his QB.

"Our expectations have always been the same," Getsy said. "It's about him getting better each and every week and making sure he's mastering what we're doing from our perspective and being the leader of that unit and I think he's doing a really nice job in the midst of a lot of (excrement) right now going on. He's manning up and he's taking a leadership role for these guys. It's been good to see him be able to put it on his shoulders and be the guy that wants to help make this thing get right."

He's not even seeing a lack of confidence on Fields' part, even with a worse passer rating than he had at the end of his rookie year and a passing attack averaging 4.4 net yards per attempt—next to last in the NFL.

"Justin has a tremendous amount of confidence," Getsy said. "There's a lot of moving parts when you're playing on offense. It's 11 as one, and right now we're not clicking as 11 as one.

"I know it's easy to pinpoint it on one person, but it's not. So, we got to make sure that we go out and we get that synchronized a little bit better, and we'll go get some points."

The shocking part of the Bears start on offense is how poor their running game has been after leading the NFL last year. They abandoned it when they fell behind but struggled when they did use it.

Ranking 22nd in rushing attempts is the surprise because last year they ran it at a higher rate than any NFL team since 2004.

"I think we talked about, it's two weeks in a row we've only had 50 cracks at it too," Getsy said about their total number of offensive plays in a game. "So that part of it hasn't been favorable to get those cracks at it, but it always is going to come down to the way we match up against a defense, right? So whether that's a passing or running, the types of passes or the types of runs, I think that's always going to come on a week to week basis for us."

It's more than the play totals and opportunities, though. They haven't executed blocking and runs as well.

"Yeah. I think that’s the biggest difference from what kind of carried us through the beginning of last season was the explosive run opportunities we created," Getsy said. "And we just really haven’t created those right now."

When they broke down film of the last game, Getsy said he found only seven or eight plays where execution issues of all types made the difference between a big play and negative play or small gain.

"Whether it's sustaining a block, whether it's a correct track by the back, a correct read by the back, whether it's a right alignment by a tight end or a receiver, whether it's a right decision by the quarterback, all facets," Getsy said. "We're not going to play perfect. It's never happened in the history of ball. But when you have that many to your point, that's losing opportunities to go get those points.

"So, if you cut those opportunities down to just one or two a game, that means your successful on five or six, now you're doing exactly what you just talked about and we're where we want to be. So, the part that we're talking about being close, that's the part that's exciting about, the opportunity that we have in front of us. We feel like it is right there for us to go take, we just gotta go take it."

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