Chicago Bears: Storylines to follow in Week 16 matchup vs Arizona Cardinals

Luke Gesty's conservative approach may be perfect against the Carolina

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has been hammered this season over his overly conservative game plans. In the second game against the Minnesota Vikings, he called 22 of 37 passing plays of five yards or less. Of those, 16 of them were screen plays.

Those screen plays and short passes could come in handy for the game against the Cardinals. As mentioned previously, the Cardinals struggle mightily against the run. Calling screen passes are basically an extension of the run game. That could mean that we will see plenty of screen passes to go along with the running plays.

Despite all of the criticism Getsy receives for his conservative play-calling, he continues on the same path. He has not changed his philosophy of running a dynamic offense on the first drive then act like he is trying to milk the clock from there on.

Even his own players have criticized Getsy's game plans. Darnell Mooney, who has not been a big part of the offense as of late, spoke about the conservative way and feeling comfortable with a lead so much that there is no plan on building it.

In spite of having his job on the line, don't expect a much-different game plan this week. This matchup was made for Getsy's offense.

Fields should have a good day passing the ball

Last week, Fields did not have the passing statistics that jumped out at you. However, a few drops by the receivers were a big part of that. Tight end Robert Tonyan dropped an easy 75-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter. He was open and could have walked to the end zone and Fields placed the ball perfectly.

In addition, Fields had a 30-yard pass to Mooney that he dropped. It led to a punt. Mooney was not done, however. On the last play of the game, he had a 45-yard Hail Mary pass in his hands. However, he bobbled the ball and it went into a Browns defender's hands to seal the loss.

Fields had 19 completions for 166 yards and a touchdown. If his receivers don't drop those three passes, he has 22 completions for 316 yards and 3 touchdowns. There would be no talk about how he had a bad game. However, we cannot change what happened. The team just needs to move on to this week's game.

The Cardinals are not much better against the pass than they are against the run. They rank 13th in passing yards allowed but 29th in passing touchdowns allowed. Additionally, they rank just 21st in interceptions. They also rank 23rd in sacks. Their 21.4 percent blitz percentage ranks 27th. Lastly, their 6 percent quarterback hurry percentage ranks 26th.

This means that Fields won't have the pressure he was under against the Browns. Arizona won't blitz a lot and won't get to the quarterback much. Fields should have enough time to make throws. Hopefully, his receivers cooperate and make the catches Fields throws to them. Furthermore, let's hope that Getsy allows him to throw deep passes in between all the screen passes.