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Eddie Royal improvement a future key for Jay Cutler?

By Kevin Parvizi

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The Chicago Bears gave the Green Bay Packers a scare in yesterday’s regular season opener at home, but Aaron Rodgers proved to be too precise in what ended up being a 31-23 loss for the Bears. All the post-game talk has naturally been focused on Jay Cutler and whether or not he played well in his first game under head coach John Fox and touted offensive coordinator Adam Gase.

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Cutler completed just 50% of his passes and had a ghastly interception to linebacker Clay Matthews, but teammates and some analysts have come to his defense, pointing out the fact that he made several key plays on third downs, which helped his team convert on an excellent 11 of their 17 third down opportunities.

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Alshon Jeffery may have been hobbled, but Cutler looked to his No. 1 receiver often on Sunday, throwing  11 passes on his direction. Jeffery turned all of those opportunities into five receptions for 78 yards with an average of 15.6 yards per reception.

What I liked about the offense in Gase’s first game as a coordinator is the fact that he allowed Cutler to take more shots than Marc Trestman did, because the lower yards per completion average hurt Cutler’s efficiency. All of the shorter passes to Martellus Bennett and Matt Forte last season increased his completion percentage substantially to a 66.0% career-high, but Cutler averaged his lowest yards per attempt since his first season in Chicago (2009). The decision to go with shorter throws didn’t help Cutler make better decisions either, so it’s good to see that Gase is allowing him to cut it loose.

The problem is that the Bears pass-catchers deserve as much of the blame as Cutler does for his 50% completion percentage and 6.2 yards per attempt. I don’t understand why so many people are defending Cutler for his performance against the Packers, because it was poor. There’s no hiding the fact that the numbers he put up simply weren’t good enough, especially when you look at the massive 141 yards of support he received from Forte on the ground.

Jay Cutler, per stats on Pro-Football Reference, averaged 12.5 yards per completion and was more aggressive as a passer, but he didn’t complete a single one of his four deep attempts (three of them were to Jeffery). The positive takeaway is that his interception came when he was fooled by a fake Dom Capers blitz and not an aggressive vertical pass, but the larger takeaway is that the Bears big plays came from yards after the catch and not Cutler’s deep ball.

The Bears passer was also an awful 1-for-9 when targeting wide receivers on the right side of the field, missing all four of his attempts to Jeffery and going 1-for-5 when trying to pass it to Eddie Royal.

Based on the amount of guaranteed money the Bears paid Royal this offseason and the fact that his career-year as a rookie (91/980/5 line) came with Cutler at QB, most of us are expecting him to have a big first season in Chicago, especially with No. 7 overall pick Kevin White injured.

Royal’s brief absence from the game likely impacted his ability to make a mark on yesterday’s game- even if he did return from the injury- but it was still troubling to see that he could only muster eight yards on five targets. Every single one of his targets came on the short, right side of the field, and it seemed like the Bears were using him more as a decoy for Jeffery instead of involving him in the gameplan as a true chain-mover.

Since the Arizona Cardinals are the Bears Week 2 opponent and have a corner who can lock it up with Jeffery, the Bears will have to seriously consider getting Royal more involved as an actual receiver. He didn’t exactly play well in his debut game, but, like Cutler, better days are ahead for the Bears newest veteran addition. After all, he is coming off of a combined 15 touchdowns in two seasons with the San Diego Chargers, efficiently racking up 62 receptions for 778 yards in the 2014 season.

There’s no doubt that Eddie Royal is the No. 3 target in this offense at best, and he was fourth on the target totem pole against Green Bay with Jeffery, Bennett, and Forte all earning more looks from Cutler. I wonder if that will change in the future, because Royal is supposed to be the guy who can make plays (13.4 and 12.5 yards per completion and a copious amount of TDs in the past two seasons) and take pressure off of Cutler in the underneath game. The Bears didn’t make many passes over the middle of the field, nor did they really get Royal involved as much as we thought in that area of the field.

Royal is supposed to be a versatile No. 2 wide receiver for this team, so a potential key for this offense against the Cardinals will be whether or not his role changes or if he can step up. Yesterday’s concussion scare won’t be an issue going forward, so the Bears will hope that both he and Jeffery can be a dynamic duo for this team and help Cutler complete more than just half of his passes, which will put less pressure on him to be as clutch on third downs.

Next: Is Cutler The NFL's Most Overpaid Player?

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