Bear Digest

Shane Waldron Doubles Down And Won't 'Shy Away' from Doug Kramer Run

The Bears offensive coordinator acknowledged it didn't go well with his backup center carrying from the 1-yard line in a close game but says he won't "shy away" from the trick play.

Gene Chamberlain

Shane Waldron goes over a play with Caleb Williams during the Bears' win over the Rams earlier this season.
Shane Waldron goes over a play with Caleb Williams during the Bears' win over the Rams earlier this season. / Matt Marton-Imagn Images
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Shane Waldron has gone to the well twice and come away thirsty, or probably it's more appropriate to say with water spilled all over the Bears.

There's no clear admission coming from the Bears offensive coordinator that they'll scrap the run by Doug Kramer at the 1-yard line in the future, although he certainly has felt or heard or read the ramifications of a fumble by a player who has no business carrying the football.

"I know I could have done a better job of getting us prepared in that moment, having a better play call in that instance," Waldron said.

The play call was giving it to a fullback on the play, Kramer, who is really a backup center or guard. It was with the game on the line and 6:25 left to play with the Bears trailing 12-7.

When Kramer fumbled, it seemed a familiar situation because earlier in the year from the Indianapolis 1-foot line they tried an option pitch outside on fourth down and wound up losing 12 yards.

"I try to learn from it," Waldron said. "I felt moving forward here, hey, we have different plays that are not all vanilla and when's the right time to use those (trick plays)? I felt confident. I always feel confident in our guys' ability to execute those. And then, I've got to reflect and look at hey, when the next scenario comes up, what can we all do better to execute in that situation?"

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It seems encouraging that he at least admits they might want to worry less about a flavorful play and more about six points.

Then again ...

"It's a balance just like you said. And you look at the risk-reward. I think, looking back earlier in the season, you’re probably referring to the Colts game there on the fourth and 1," Waldron said. "And I won't shy away from these things."

Bears fans, after Sunday, might say "shy away, please."

The play call resulted in criticism from DJ Moore, if not others. He did it during a regular spot on AM-670, and while admitting the team would rather he kept that thought to himself, he also said on Wednesday at Halas Hall he said what he thinks is right.

"I think there's always valid criticism when things don't work out," Waldron said. "We'll work inwardly. We'll wrap our arms around each other and work to look forward and execute better and call better plays the next situation that that arises in."

Asked the inevitable, would he call it again if he had the chance all over again, Waldron probably didn't endear himself to many Bears fans.

"In that moment? Yeah, I was confident. I had trust in it," he said. "And looking back at it, all the things that go into any call throughout the course of the game, whether it's early calls in the game that lead to stuff not working out or calls in the middle, calls in the end, critical calls, I'll always assess those and go forward."

As for the actual execution, at least Waldron didn't sidestep that issue too much.

"It just wasn't a clean handoff," he said. "Those guys (Caleb Williams and Kramer) and we looked at it, and moved forward from it, and it didn't work out, obviously the ball ended up ricocheting forward.

"Something that hadn't come up but did come up, and we're looking forward to clean it up."

So they need to clean up the handoff from Williams to a player who normally is giving the ball to someone else between his legs rather than taking it from someone while trying to figure out where to run with 11 angry men bearing down on him.

It could be better to simply come up with another play much less risky and forget about it, like giving it to Roschon Johnson, who has scored four times from the 1-yard line this year. D'Andre Swift has done it twice. Rome Odunze caught a pass from the 1 once. For that matter, Khalil Herbert, back when he used to get to play, scored on a 2-yard run.

So there are ways to the end zone from 36 inches and in that don't require trickery.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.