The Organizational Failures Behind the Chicago Bears’ 3-5 Start
Published by Zach Kruse on October 28, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
When a football team many expected to win double-digit games enters their bye week at 3-5, with failures emanating from every corner of the operation, there is no such thing as a vacation.
That was the message Monday from Halas Hall, as the Chicago Bears attempt to figure out how such a promising season turned into a first-half nightmare, leaving the Bears just one or two more losses away from thinking about another long offseason.
“Our guys know this bye week is not a vacation, and our coaches know it as well,” head coach Marc Trestman told reporters. “It’s not really going to be time off for them, or for us. We’ll look at our players hard.”
Trestman spoke at length about his staff’s extensive plan for self-evaluation. And he’s fortunate the Bears have an extra week, because the issues staining the first half cannot be whittled down to just one or two things. Sure, the Bears have failed on the micro level, but the breakdowns are also of the macro variety.
Pick any part of the Bears’ enterprise and you are certain to find issues.
Offseason miscalculations. A defense that is nearly as porous as the historically bad unit of 2013. An offense that can’t get out of its way despite the building blocks of cohesiveness and the security of enormous salaries. Disastrous special teams. A coaching staff that isn’t motivating anyone in the locker room or out-scheming anyone outside it.
“We know we’re 3-5, and we’re not happy about it,” Trestman said. “None of us here are. Our players aren’t. Our coaches aren’t.”
You’d hope not. The Bears have lost four out of their last five games.
“The solution to win games are in this building, with the people in this building,” general manager Phil Emery said, sitting alongside Trestman on Monday.
Let’s start there.
The Bears have won just 11 of their last 24 games dating back to the start of 2013. Is the talent needed to take the next step really there?
Emery made a number of significant offseason moves this past spring. He jettisoned Julius Peppers, who is having a career renaissance of sorts for the Packers in Green Bay. He lured free agents Lamarr Houston and Jared Allen to Chicago with a combined $30.5 million guaranteed. He also drafted cornerback Kyle Fuller in the first round.
The Peppers move was made out of necessity. No blaming him there, although Peppers playing well in Green Bay is salt in the wound.
What about Emery’s two high-priced defensive ends?
Houston tore his ACL celebrating his first sack—eight games in, mind you—down 25 points in New England. He’ll miss the rest of the season. Allen, 32, basically admitted Sunday he’s lost half a step.
“I’ve got to try to find half a step,” Allen said, via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune (registration required). “I’ve got to find a way to get the quarterback on the ground with the ball in his hands.”
Add that half step Allen admits to losing to the full step he clearly lost a year ago, and he’s now just a guy. He has 1.5 sacks in seven games.
Fuller, while banged up at times this season, has been the best rookie cornerback by a mile.
Are the Bears significantly better off today than they were at this time 12 months ago?
At the very least, the 2013 team had an identity. Defense was optional week to week, but an offense with so many dangerous and versatile weapons could score with just about any club in the NFL.
In 2014, the Bears still play cover-your-eyes defense, and now the offense has joined the sputtering party.
No longer are teams gashing the Chicago defense at a record pace, but the Bears are still allowing 27.8 points per game, which ranks 29th overall. Chicago is 25th in yards allowed per play (6.0), 28th in passing yards per attempt (8.2) and 20th in rushing yards per carry (4.2).
The wheels have come off the last two weeks. The Bears allowed 78 points and 880 yards to the Dolphins and Patriots. Chicago made Ryan Tannehill look like Tom Brady just one week before allowing the Patriots quarterback to transform into the 2007 version of himself.
Combined, Tannehill and Brady threw seven touchdown passes and just 12 incompletions against the Bears.
And when looking at the construction of the Bears defense, it’s not difficult to understand why.
A highly paid defensive line is hot and cold rushing the passer. The temp has been near freezing over the last month, and it won’t get any better without Houston the rest of the way.
No NFL team has a worse collection of linebackers and safeties. Not even close. There is some youth potential in both groups, but as a whole the Bears couldn’t be any worse down the middle of the defense. As a result, defensive coordinator Mel Tucker has had to scramble different player combinations seemingly every week. Much of that reality should rest at the feet of Emery, who has provided Tucker with the shaky personnel.
It’s not surprising career backup Ryan Mundy is a below-average starter at safety. Position-lacking Shea McClellin is a lost cause. D.J. Williams is 32 and near the end. Emery banked on the health of Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs—one is out for the year, the other can’t stay on the field.
On Sunday in New England, the Bears started with Darryl Sharpton (cut by Washington in September) and undrafted free agent Christian Jones at linebacker, and Mundy and Chris Conte at safety. Could any defensive coordinator in the history of football take on Brady and Rob Gronkowski with that kind of talent handling the middle of the field?
The rebuilding effort on defense still has quite a ways to go. Emery’s handling of it so far leaves much to be desired.
The search for answers on offense goes on.
The Bears brought back all the major pieces of an offense that scored 445 points last season. Chicago is on pace for 360 in 2014. How is that possible with Pro Bowlers at receiver, running back, left tackle and right guard, and a veteran at quarterback?
The explosive plays are lacking. Brandon Marshall is on pace for 68 catches. Alshon Jeffery isn’t winning down the field consistently enough. An offense that should be built on the talents of Matt Forte and the vertical passing game is mostly just a pass-heavy, dink-and-dunk operation.
And then there’s the quarterback. Despite being paid like Peyton Manning, Jay Cutler is still the same inconsistent, turnover-prone player he has been his whole career. Most expected him to change at age 31, to become a different player in his ninth season. The Bears paid him to take the next step. He hasn’t evolved, and he’s still searching for that step.
His numbers in 2014 look good on paper: 67.1 completion percentage, 2,093 yards, 17 touchdowns, 95.8 passer rating.
But then you look at the first half against the Patriots, when Cutler led the Bears to three straight punts to begin the game and a disastrous late-half stretch that sealed the game, and you remember he’s still the football equivalent of the No. 8 seed in the NBA playoffs.
Cutler is good enough to make you relevant. He’s going to put up some big numbers, make some big throws. But the proximity to the final goal is still a deception.
Eight seeds in the NBA don’t win the Finals. They get bounced in the first round and then miss out on the draft lottery.
Chicago is 47-41 since 2009.
Stuck in that tricky spot between paying a quarterback and starting over at the game’s most important position, the Bears decided to give Cutler $54 million guaranteed back in January, tying him to Chicago through at least 2015.
Cutler shoulders much of the blame when the Bears do poorly. More should be reserved for Trestman this season.
A week after going on the road and beating the Atlanta Falcons, the Bears came home to Soldier Field—where Chicago hasn’t won since early last December—and laid an egg against Miami. The Dolphins throttled the Bears. The 14-point final wasn’t representative of how thoroughly Miami beat the Bears in Chicago.
A team coming off such an embarrassing effort should, in theory, play with emotion and urgency the next time out. Right? It didn’t happen in New England, where the Bears were blasted from the first whistle on by the Patriots. Chicago went down 17-0 early and eventually gave up 38 first-half points, a franchise record.
Either the Bears were completely incapable of competing on an individual basis, or Trestman had his football team completely unprepared.
The 51-23 loss dropped Trestman to 11-13 as the Bears head coach.
On Monday, he essentially admitted that he has failed his primary task as a coach: Putting his players in the best position to succeed.
“We gotta do a better job with our matchups,” Trestman said. “Finding the right matchups offensively, in terms of getting all our players the football in the manner we want them to.”
The offense’s inability to find matchups over the first eight games is stunning, given the versatile talents of Forte, experience of Marshall, explosiveness of Jeffery and sheer size of Bennett. Excuses are hard to find.
Also, points of emphasis haven’t stuck. Trestman has continually harped on the importance of turnovers—both in terms of avoiding them on offense and getting them on defense—this season. Yet the Bears are minus-five in the take-give column over the last two games and minus-three overall, which ranks 26th in the league. The message hasn’t gotten through.
Neither Trestman nor Tucker have out-coached anyone this season. It’s typically been the opposite. In fact, take away San Francisco‘s second-half collapse in Week 2 and New York’s red-zone follies in Week 3, and the Bears could very easily be 1-7 at the break.
The special teams have followed suit.
The Bears rank in the bottom third of punt and kick return average, starting field position and opposing punt return average. Opponents have an average starting field position of the 33.8-yard line against the Bears, which is dead last.
Clearly, Chicago’s 3-5 start has been a top-to-bottom failure.
Nothing after the bye gets easier. The Bears will first go on the road to Green Bay, in what could be a make-or-break game for Chicago’s season. Home games against Minnesota and Tampa Bay provide an opportunity to stack a couple of wins, but a four-game stretch against Detroit (twice), Dallas and New Orleans could serve as the dagger that ends the Bears in 2014.
Realistically, the Bears need to go 7-1 or 6-2 to have any chance at making the postseason for the first time since 2010 and just the second time since 2006.
“We will not quit on the season, we will not quit on ourselves and we will not quit on each other,” Emery said.
No one expects the Bears to quit on 2014. But it’s certainly fair to wonder if there’s enough time—vacation or no vacation over the bye—for the Bears to mend all that has ailed this team this season.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
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