After a disappointing loss in Week 6, the Chicago Bears lick their wounds before going on primetime once again against the New England Patriots. The Chicago Bears had a lot to deal with over the last 11 days. They had a chance to get their offense on track against a struggling Washington Commanders team.
Instead, they laid another egg and suffered another disappointing loss. It raised a number of new and old questions about this season.
Chicago Bears facing a bunch of question marks as midway of the 2022 season draws near
After a nice 2-1 start, Chicago has now lost three straight games. They now stand at 2-4 heading into Week 7 NFL action and the negativity surrounding them is growing. The offense is still struggling, the defense still hasn’t played a complete game, and the special teams unit has had blunders that helped cause two losses. It’s been a downward spiral for nearly a month.
Now the Bears travel to Foxboro to take on the New England Patriots. The Pats have had their own troubles, but it looks as if they are figuring things out. They are winners of two straight games and their record now stands at an even 3-3.
New England’s starting quarterback Mac Jones hurt his ankle and has missed the last three weeks. Brian Hoyer was the backup but he struggled in his only start. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick then decided to go with third-string Bailey Zappe and found some success. Zappe is undefeated in both of his starts.
It looks as if Zappe is starting this game. With a struggling Chicago Bears team, Belichick figures he can give Jones another week off and not pay for it. Additionally, it delays a big decision — whether he stays with Zappe or bench him and play Jones again.
The Bears played the first game of Week 6 and now play the final game of Week 7. Let’s hope they took the mini-bye to heart and made adjustments in play-calling or personnel so they have a chance at winning this game. Here are some things to watch for in this game.
The Chicago Bears defense has to get to the quarterback
One of the disappointing things about the Chicago Bears defense is their lack of pressure on the quarterback. After ranking fourth in the league in sacks last season Chicago ranks 26th this season.
The defense has to pressure the quarterback to have some success. They don’t necessarily have to sack the quarterback all the time (though that would be nice) but they have to put pressure on him so he could make mistakes.
The Bears have a tougher secondary than they had last season. They rank 12th in interceptions and 14th in overall turnovers forced. That ranking was higher earlier in the season but without much pressure lately, the opportunities for turnovers are few and far between. Against a struggling Washington offense, Chicago failed to force a turnover.
The Bears’ front has to do its job. No matter who the quarterback is, if he has all the time in the world to look at the field he will hurt the defense.
Robert Quinn, who broke the Chicago Bears’ single-season sacks record, has been a disappointment this season. Last season, he has 18.5 sacks, 49 tackles (17 for loss), and 4 forced fumbles.
This season, however, he has just one sack, 7 tackles (one for loss), and zero forced fumbles. We could hardly tell that he is on the field.
Trevis Gipson, who did a great job in Khalil Mack’s absence last season, is having just a so-so season. He has 2 sacks, 11 tackles (3 for loss), and 6 quarterback hits.
Defensive coordinator Alan Williams needs to shake things up. He could perhaps use Dominique Robinson a little more. He has played in about half of the snaps that Quinn has yet has more sacks (1.5), more tackles (12), and more tackles for loss (2).
Robinson is supposed to be a project this season. The rookie is a converted wide receiver. However, he is doing a good job so far. He has earned more opportunities. Besides, the purpose of this season is to develop the young players. Quinn is not in the Bears’ future so why not give Robinson a longer look?
At any rate, the Bears’ front seven needs to pick it up and get to the quarterback. They need to force Zappe into making mistakes.
Montgomery needs to be more involved in the offense
One of the biggest head-scratching aspects of the Chicago Bears offense is the fact that with a new regime we are still talking about getting David Montgomery more involved in the offense.
There were times during the Matt Nagy era in which it appeared as if he completely forgot that he had a very good player in the backfield. He went stretches without having Montgomery involved.
In addition to running the ball well, Montgomery does a good job of catching passes out of the backfield and pass-blocking. While some fans are praising Khalil Herbert for his running in Montgomery’s absence, he still struggles in the passing game and pass blocking.
Montgomery was instrumental in the Bears’ comeback against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 5. He was Chicago’s leading receiver. He took some screen passes and took them for big chunks of yards. He had one of 30 yards and another (on the final drive) for 21 yards.
For some reason, however, the Bears’ game plan went away from Montgomery in Week 6. He only received one target in that game.
In order for the offense to improve, Montgomery has to be more involved. He needs to be given more than just one passing target. On the ground, he and Herbert can be a good duo. They can split the snaps on the ground and wear down the defense.
In the passing game, Montgomery could be a safety valve for quarterback Justin Fields. Fields can dump off a high-percentage pass to him and know that Montgomery can take it for big gains.
The Bears’ coaching staff needs to find a way to give Montgomery more touches so they have a chance to win this week.
Special teams has to help, not hurt
The special teams unit has done a good job, for the most part, this season. After letting veteran punter Pat O’Donnell leave via free agency, general manager Ryan Poles went with a rookie to replace him, Trenton Gill. Gill has done a good job replacing O’Donnell so far, however. He ranks 10th in the league in punt average. With more seasoning, he will only become better.
Cairo Santos is his own dependable self. He has made all seven of his field goal attempts, including a 51-yard boot. Even in his absence (he missed Week 4 because of a personal matter), Michael Badgley stepped in and made all four of his attempts. The problem has been with the return game. On kickoffs, they rank just 20th with 21.3 yards per return. They rank 30th with an average of a paltry 4.4 yards per return.
Velus Jones Jr was drafted in the third round. In addition to his wide receiver duties, the Bears wanted him to uplift the return game. He has failed to do that thus far. Jones has blazing speed but hasn’t shown it in the return game. His college film is filled with great returns but we haven’t seen that in Chicago yet. He has to get back to that.
Also, Jones has to work on holding onto the ball. He has two fumbles late in games that helped cost the Bears two games.
In Week 4 against the New York Giants, the Bears were down 20-12. The defense forced a punt with 2:13 left in the game and had a chance to tie the game. Instead, Jones muffed the punt and New York recovered, ending the comeback bid.
Last week against Washington, with eight minutes left in the game and the Bears up 7-6, the defense again forced a punt. Again, Jones muffed the punt and Washington recovered. On the ensuing drive, the Commanders scored the go-ahead touchdown.
Both fumbles weren’t forced by the opponents. Jones was alone and just dropped the punts. He has to stop the muff punts so the team has a better chance to win games.
Fields has to show more faith
Fields has struggled so far this season. He’s been sacked 23 times so far. The offense is on the way to giving up 65 sacks, which is more than last season’s total of 58.
Some of those sacks aren’t on the offensive line, though. Fields has a tendency to hold onto the ball too long. In college, he constantly had receivers who were wide-open. they had three or more yards of separation on most plays.
That doesn’t happen in the NFL as often, however. The margin of error at the professional level is much smaller. If Fields keeps waiting for his receivers to have four or five yards of separation on every play then he will continue to struggle.
There were times when Fields’ receivers had some space but not a lot. Fields has to trust that he could make the throw in that coverage and that his receiver can make the play. Perhaps the lack of talent in the wide receivers corps has something to do with that. At any rate, he needs to make those throws so he doesn’t hold the ball too long and save himself a lot of unnecessary hits.
Getsy needs to keep using what is successful
As I mentioned earlier, the Chicago Bears went away from Montgomery when the offense did well involving him. This is something that offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has done when calling plays this season — go away with what has worked.
In the Vikings game, Getsy called a nice number of curls, slants, and screens. Additionally, he called more rollouts that bought FIelds some time and utilized his ability to throw on the run. He is deadly accurate when throwing on the run and using that ability only helps the offense.
With the Bears also playing well in the rushing game, the play-action is a good weapon. For some reason, we just didn’t see enough of them in Week 6.
Getsy had great success helping Aaron Rodgers. In Chicago, however, he has a quarterback who needs to be developed. He seems to want to try to mold Fields into a pocket quarterback. That isn’t the type of quarterback Fields is.
Fields is a mobile quarterback. That’s not to say that he looks to run first, though. He needs to get out of the pocket and see the field better. As I mentioned earlier, he is great at throwing on the run. He is also great at throwing the deep ball.
When Fields is in the pocket he isn’t the same. there are times when he has trouble getting the ball to his receivers. We saw that when he threw an interception off a Commanders’ player’s helmet. Additionally, he overthrew a receiver in the end zone while in the pocket on another occasion in that game. If the Bears come away with points in those series they win.
Hopefully, Getsy and head coach Matt Eberflus take a closer look at what has worked so far. Then they need to call those plays more. What is happening now is threatening Fields’ health. The team may have a successful offseason next year but Fields will have trouble to still be standing when that time comes.