How Bears Break Trend of Defeat
The Bears have established a modus operandi of defeat.
They fall behind early—they've led only 10 minutes and 24 seconds this season and it all came in Week 2 against Tampa Bay.
They've trailed in every game at halftime.
There is no running game to speak of after they fall behind, and their passing attack isn't up to bringing them back from deficits of two touchdowns or more.
Last week was a little different because the deficit was so large, but offensive coordinator Luke Getsy found a way they could have after he reviewed film.
"There is probably seven or eight plays that we felt like should have been explosive plays and for whatever it was, just the lack of execution and a lack of particular detail to a number of different situations that were different parts of it, and when you're playing a really good team like that, you can't let those opportunities slide by and we did," Getsy said.
While missing those opportunities, they commit presnap penalties like delay of game coming out of timeouts or false starts, or they hold in the face of strong pass rushers now freed up to tee off with the lead. So as they try to rally, they make things worse.
Against a good team like Kansas City they were blown out. The Packers and Buccaneers look like average teams and they stayed with the Buccaneers until the final two minutes, while getting blown out in the second half by Green Bay.
This was only the offensive end of it, but the pressure is on their offense because their defense lacks a pass rush and is unable to stop teams on third down.
They faced three separate opponents yet three similar styles of defeat.
The Bears need a way to break this trend, and doing it against a team more in line with their own misfortunes to date will help.
Here are the three keys to victory for the Bears against the winless Denver Broncos and they involve ending this trend.
1. Establish the Running Backs
How is a team playing to its strengths when it led the NFL in rushing last year and then gives the ball to running backs 21 times for 90 yards in the first half of its first three games? That's an average of seven carries a game in the first half by the running backs in the first half. This isn't a case where they gave it to backs once or twice on game and then a normal amount in the others.
The Bears trailed by three and four points at halftime against Tampa Bay and Green Bay, so those were not like Kansas City where they were out of the game by halftime.
They gave it to backs 10 times in the first half against Green Bay, which is closer to what's necessary but still not there. They only averaged 2.2 yards a carry in the first half from those backs against Green Bay, so obviously the runs need to be executed better.
This offense will never go anywhere with running backs carrying seven times in the first half against Denver or any other opponent. It needs to be in the hands of Roschon Johnson, Khalil Herbert and even D'Onta Foreman if active.
In the second half against Tampa Bay they also abandoned the run all together when they trailed 20-10, which made no sense because it was still the third quarter.
2. Blitz Early and Cover Late
The Bears blitz 14.8% of the time according to Sportradar. This is the lowest percentage in the NFL. Their pass rush is not getting home with one sack in three games and a 16.7% pressure ratio on pass plays. That's 28th in the league. You want rush and cover, but not if you can't rush.
"We're going to continue sending four guys and playing some coverage," coach Matt Eberflus said. "We obviously got to send five some time, send six. But again, we just got to do a good job. We've gotten home some and we've missed some sacks in the pocket."
They've missed very few sacks and have very little pressure.
The numbers don't lie. It's time to try something else, like surprise the opponent early in the game with blitzing and be prepared to cover up the exposed defense in the back. If they try this and can't succeed at gettting pressure, then there truly is no hope.
What coaches want to do is sound. Detroit is blitzing only 17.5%, the second lowest amount. But the Lions don't need to blitz more because they get to the quarterback with their four-man rush.
The Bears need to admit to be honest with themselves. They don't have a pass rush. Their plans for an interior rush haven't worked. They have to blitz.
3. Passing Mix
Denver's defense isn't simply bad against the run. The Broncos have been susceptible to passes of all kinds, but particularly shorter throws that allow for yards after the catch.
The Broncos have given up more yards (441) after the catch than any team except Jacksonville. They've given up even more than the Bears defense (415), which is 30th at stopping yards after the catch.
So how do the Bears get shorter throws blended with runs and pull off opportunities for bigger yardage?
No one will want to hear it after the first game when it flopped, but the receiver screen game and screen game to backs can do this.
One way to do this is better blocking from tight ends and wide receivers.
The best pass blocker the Bears have in the receiver corps hasn't been active for any game this season and that's Equanimeous St. Brown.
Asked if EQ was going to be active for the game, Eberflus hardly gave the green light but didn't seem opposed to it. At that point, however, he wasn't saying anything about it anyway.
"Yeah, we'll see where it is," he said. "There's definitely an opportunity there. We'll see where it is.
"We'll make those decisions here in the next few hours and, yeah, we certainly like the way he practiced."
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