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In many ways, this year has felt like two different seasons for the Chicago Bears. In their first six games, they won five — even ugly games. But these last four games have felt like a complete collapse, as the Bears have dropped four straight.
While football is ultimately a team game, the blame falls solely on the offense for Chicago’s four-game skid. After all, the defense and special teams put the Bears in a position to win games — four times over the last month.
The offense has looked like an absolute mess, impressively managing to look worse with each passing week. Even changing play callers from Matt Nagy to Bill Lazor didn’t work.
The Bears went from flying high at 5-1 to rock bottom at 5-5, which can certainly cause frustrations to mount. But Bears receiver Allen Robinson says the bye week allowed for this team and himself to regroup following a rough month.
“It’s the NFL,” said Robinson. “I’ve been in this league for seven years. I don’t think there’s been a time where players or teams haven’t been frustrated at some point with something. It was good to get the time off to get the body healed up in many different ways.”
Still, Robinson remains optimistic that the Bears offense can ultimately get going because of the talented cast on the roster. The key remains execution, something that has been hit or miss through most of this season.
“With Darnell Mooney, Anthony Miller, myself, Jimmy Graham, we’ve got the guys,” said Robinson. “We’ve got the talent to be able to do it. We’ve just got to execute and we’ve got to execute when those times come.”
Robinson’s right — the talent is there. But it’s the execution — or lack thereof — from the entire offensive group that has held them back.
The Bears desperately need a spark, and they might get just that with the potential return of quarterback Mitchell Trubisky, who has been nursing a shoulder injury for the last month. Trubisky was benched midway through a Week 3 game against the Atlanta Falcons for Nick Foles, who led a miraculous fourth-quarter comeback. But since then, Foles has underwhelmed, and he’s been one of the problems on offense.
With Foles nursing a hip/glute injury, Trubisky will likely get the starting nod against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday night. Even if Foles is healthy, Matt Nagy didn’t rule out a switch at quarterback following Foles’ disappointing outings in the last seven games.
If the switch is made back to Trubisky, Robinson said he’ll be ready.
“I don’t think it’s rocket science,” he said. “It would just be me going out there, being myself, trying to make the quarterback’s job easy, like I’ve been trying to come here to do from Day 1. So it’s just the same. Maybe fine-tune some different things, maybe post-practice, but I don’t feel like that would be too difficult in any way.”
While Trubisky most likely won’t save this Bears offense this season, he could provide the kind of spark they need to get something going in these final six games. And with Robinson on your side, there’s always a chance for a big play.
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