Could we see Cordarrelle Patterson line up more at RB in 2020?

The Bears need to find a way to get Cordarrelle Patterson more involved in the offense, and it sounds like that’s the plan in 2020.

Cordarrelle Patterson was one of the Bears’ biggest weapons last season. And he barely saw the field on offense.

Patterson was named a first-team All-Pro and Pro Bowler for his impressive performance as a kick returner. But those moments that Patterson was involved on offense, he made some impressive plays that kept the chains moving and led to points that were hard to come by in 2019.

But Patterson only played on 18.9 percent of Chicago’s offensive snaps in 2019. He had 11 catches for 83 yards and added 103 yards on 17 carries, including a 46-yard rush.

The Bears need to find a way to get Patterson more involved in the offense, and it sounds like that’s the plan in 2020.

“Yeah, that’s a guy Matt and I have talked about just making sure we’re maximizing his talent,” Ryan Pace told reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine this week. “Obviously he’s an explosive, talented player. That can be at running back, receiver, returner. We’re going to make sure we’re getting the most out to that player because he’s too talented not to.”

While Patterson is officially listed as a receiver, his versatile skillset cannot be defined by a single box. Patterson’s playmaking ability can come on special teams as a kick returner or on offense as a receiver or, yes, as a running back.

Patterson first saw action at running back during his time with the Patriots, where he started back-to-back games in place of the injured Sony Michel. During that 2018 season, Patterson had 42 carries for a career-high 228 yards and one touchdown.

One of the focal points for the Bears this offseason will be to fix their ailing run game. While they drafted rookie David Montgomery to kickstart the run game, it was anything but reassuring. Montgomery had a decent season, but the Bears didn’t trade up for decent.

How do the Bears fix their run game? Getting Patterson more involved in the run game is an option that the Bears are exploring.

“We like the group we have right now,” Pace said. “I think Tarik (Cohen), when he’s rolling, it gives us a scatback. We call it a joker back. And then David, with his ability to break tackles and run with power, and then as we talked, about, you know, maybe sprinkling in Cordarrelle Patterson some and his explosiveness. So, and Ryan Nall, we like Ryan Nall a lot. We like our running backs. That doesn’t mean we can’t continue to add to the room, but I think right now we have a lot of different flavors there that all feed off each other.”

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NFL.com gives Bears 2019 rookie draft class a C+ grade

It was an overall disappointment for the Bears’ rookie class during one of the more disappointing seasons in recent history for Chicago.

With no first or second round draft picks, the Bears had just five selections. They traded up 13 spots to take running back David Montgomery, who had 889 rushing yards and six touchdowns in his rookie season. But Chicago’s other four picks didn’t has big an impact.

NFL.com ranked the Bears’ rookie draft class third in the NFC North with a grade of a C+, which trailed the Packers (B+) and Vikings (B-).

Beyond the well-documented quarterback issue (SEE: next paragraph), the biggest culprit behind Chicago’s unexpectedly blah season was the offensive line. Bears GM Ryan Pace openly acknowledged the unit’s shortcomings in his end-of-season press conference: “We struggled in that area this year — that’s real.” And therein lies the problem in evaluating the rookie campaign of Montgomery, whose yards-per-carry mark (3.7) left a lot to be desired. But honestly, Chicago’s O-line hung Montgomery out to dry pretty routinely — and obviously, opposing defenses weren’t too worried about getting burned by the Mitchell Trubisky-led passing game on a snap-by-snap basis. Montgomery did his best to overcome these adverse circumstances, breaking the eighth-most tackles in the NFL (47) — which is how he finished second among all rookies in both rushing yards (889) and rushing touchdowns (6).

Montgomery was the only draft selection that made an impact for Chicago in 2019, which made the Bears’ draft class unimpressive considering just one of their five selections saw the field for a significant amount of time.

Besides Montgomery’s production, the Bears didn’t get much of anything out of the rookie class. This isn’t all that surprising, considering Chicago made just five selections last April, with Montgomery being the only player taken before Day 3 of the draft. Coming out of Georgia, Ridley was advertised as a polished route runner — like his brother, Calvin — but he couldn’t even crack the game day roster until Week 13. Adding insult to ineffectiveness: The very next two wideouts selected after Ridley — Hunter Renfrow and Darius Slayton — provided significant Year 1 contributions.

Receiver Riley Ridley and cornerback Duke Shelley saw little playing time. Then there was seventh-round picks running back Kerrith Whyte and cornerback Stephen Denmark that didn’t make any impact on the active roster. Denmark spent the season on the practice squad while Whyte was dealt the the Steelers.

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Three Bears among top-ranked fantasy players for 2020

The Bears offense was terrible in 2019. And yet, Allen Robinson was among 3 players that landed on ESPN’s list of top 100 fantasy players.

The Bears offense didn’t have much to brag about in 2019. They ranked near the bottom of most statistical categories. Simply put, Chicago’s offense was terrible.

And yet, the Bears have three players that landed on ESPN analyst Eric Karabell’s top 100 fantasy football players list for the upcoming 2020 season. Perhaps Karabell sees the Bears offense turning things around, although not necessarily for quarterback Mitchell Trubisky.

Receiver Allen Robinson landed the highest ranking at No. 22, while running backs David Montgomery and Tarik Cohen were ranked No. 41 and No. 91, respectively.

Robinson was the lone bright spot on Chicago’s inept offense. He had 98 receptions for 1,147 yards and seven touchdowns. Robinson notched the first 1,000-yard season for a Bears receiver since 2014, and that was in a struggling offense with questionable quarterback play.

There was a lot of hype surrounding the selection of third-round draft pick Montgomery, but he underwhelmed for the most part. Montgomery finished his rookie season with 889 rushing yards (which ranked 19th in the NFL) and six touchdowns. A lot of that comes from the Bears’ inability to get the run game going, which is no doubt a major focus this offseason.

Then there’s Cohen, who was expected to light it up in Nagy’s offense this season. That didn’t happen. Cohen rushed for 213 yards on 64 carries and caught a career-high 79 passes for 456 yards and three touchdowns. Nagy needs to decide how to best utilize Cohen, and perhaps he’ll see a similar impact that he had in 2018.

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Will Bill Lazor have his fingerprint all over Bears’ run game?

Arguably the biggest failure of the Bears offense last season was the run game. Chicago will be looking to fix it, starting with Bill Lazor.

There’s no doubt that the Bears’ focus for this offseason is fixing the offense that doomed the team in 2019. Not only were they one of the worst offenses in the league, but they had regressed in a season where they were supposed to show a better understanding of Matt Nagy’s offense.

Nagy wasted no time overhauling the offense hiring four new offensive coaches, including offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, offensive line coach Juan Castillo and tight ends coach Clancy Barone.

While we won’t know how these hirings ultimately affect the offense until the new season begins, there’s an excitement surrounding these hirings that bring a wealth of knowledge to a struggling offense with specific needs.

The Bears are bringing in Lazor as their new offensive coordinator, although Nagy will continue to call plays.

Someone that knows Lazor well is quarterback Matt Moore, who was in Miami when Lazor was the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator for two seasons.

“Man, I like Bill,” Moore said, via WGN. “Bill is a high energy guy. He’s going to hold you to the highest standard. He’s creative. He’s going to try to create speed and space just like anybody. When he was here, he had just come from Philly with Chip Kelly. When you talk about all that space with the bubbles and all that stuff, kind of how the game has evolved, and Bill was right on top of it. So we were doing all that stuff. They got a good coach in Bill Lazor, I know that.”

Arguably the biggest failure of the Bears offense last season was the run game, which was one of the worst in the league. Rookie David Montgomery had a decent season, but he wasn’t helped much by play calling or the offensive line.

Matt Nagy has brought in guys that will no doubt have a hand in fixing that aspect of the offense, including Juan Castillo and Lazor.

“(The run game) was big (with Lazor),” Moore said. “I think that was one of the big things that he brought with him from Philly. So I think he’ll have his fingerprint all over it for sure.”

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Bears’ 2019 rookie class ranked 8th in NFL

It was hard to expect much from the Bears’ 2019 rookie class considering that they had 5 selections. But where did they rank in the NFL?

It was hard to expect much from the Bears’ 2019 rookie draft class considering that they had just five draft selections, including no picks before Round 3 and three selections in Round 6 and 7.

The Bears’ rookie class was less than impactful. David Montgomery was the only rookie that saw substantial playing time in 2019, as he took over as the team’s starting running back.

Surprisingly, ESPN and Pro Football Focus ranked the Bears’ rookie class the eighth best in 2019.

The Bears have a strange class. They had only five picks, none before Round 3, with three of those five selections coming after Round 6. As a result, their expected return was low. Running back David Montgomery was really the only Bears’ rookie to play significant snaps, and he managed to provide enough return from his third-round selection to land them at No. 8.

While Montgomery showed flashes of potential in Matt Nagy’s limited rushing offense, you could argue that it wasn’t enough to garner the Bears’ underperforming rookie class in the top-10. Montgomery had 889 rushing yards and six touchdowns as a rookie.

Highly-touted fourth-round receiver Riley Ridley was shelved for most of the season, and it took injuries to the Bears receiving corp. for Ridley to get some playing time in the final three games. He finished his rookie season with six receptions for 69 yards.

Sixth-round cornerback Duke Shelley was confined to special teams in his rookie season. While seventh-round running back Kerrith Whyte Jr. was signed off the Bears practice squad by the Steelers, where he had 24 carries for 122 yards in six games. Then there’s seventh-round cornerback Stephen Denmark, who spent his rookie season on the Bears’ practice squad.

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Bears shut out from PFWA All-Rookie Team

The Bears 2019 draft class was disappointing, and they had no rookies selected to the 2019 Pro Football Writers All-Rookie Team.

The Chicago Bears had just five selections in the 2019 NFL Draft, and they didn’t pick until the third round, when they traded up 13 spots to take running back David Montgomery.

Given Montgomery was the only rookie that played meaningful snaps — on an abysmal offense — it’s not really a surprise that the Bears had no rookies selected to the 2019 Pro Football Writers All-Rookie Team.

The 2019 PFWA All-Rookie Team and rookie honors: pic.twitter.com/mmHVHWWQFx

— Pro Football Writers (@PFWAwriters) January 14, 2020

Montgomery would’ve been the only viable candidate to make the All-Rookie Team. He had 242 rushes for 889 yards and six touchdowns. In the passing game, Montgomery added 25 receptions for 185 yards and a score.

Not exactly stellar stats for the highly-touted rookie, although there was nothing impressive about Chicago’s offense last season aside from receiver Allen Robinson.

The Raiders’ Josh Jacobs and Eagles’ Miles Sanders represented the running backs on the list.

Simply put, the Bears’ 2019 draft class was a disappointing one. Aside from Montgomery, the rookies didn’t make an impression. Fourth-round receiver Riley Ridley barely saw the field, cornerback Duke Shelley played primarily on special teams, running back Kerrith Whyte Jr. found success with the Steelers and cornerback Stephen Denmark spent his rookie season on the practice squad.

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Grading the 2019 Bears by position: Running backs

The running back position was seen as the weak-link on the offensive side for the Bears heading into the 2019 season, and that proved true.

The running back position was seen as the weak-link on the offensive side for the Bears heading into the 2019 season. After trading running back Jordan Howard to the Philadelphia Eagles and drafting his replacement, did they do enough to improve the position not only for last season, but moving forward?

Here are the grades for each Bears running back for the 2019 season:

David Montgomery: B-

The crown jewel of the Bears 2019 draft class, the third-round selection was billed as the “missing piece” on offense whose skill set was the perfect fit in coach Matt Nagy’s offense. Montgomery’s rookie season, however, didn’t exactly take off like many hoped.

Taking over for Howard, who was traded last offseason, Montgomery struggled to get into a flow early in the season primarily due to his questionable usage, only carrying the ball an average of 12 times through the team’s first six games. When he did get the ball, Montgomery chose to show patience when finding the hole instead of bursting through, which burned him from time to time behind an offensive line ranked 29th in run blocking by Football Outsiders with 3.86 adjusted line yards.

Still, the former Iowa State Cyclone showcased his bruising running ability nearly every carry, refusing to go down on first contact and even carrying multiple defenders for five or more yards. His season was disappointing considering the expectations prior to the season, but a significant amount of blame falls on the play calling and offensive line woes. He finished the season with 242 carries for 889 rushing yards, averaging 3.7 yards per carry (ranked 41st in the NFL among players with 100 carries more).

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Bears RB David Montgomery among 50 highest-graded rookies in 2019

The Bears’ lack of an offensive identity, particularly in the run game, certainly didn’t help RB David Montgomery in his rookie season.

The Bears struggled to establish a running game — actually, any sort of offensive identity whatsoever — this season. Which wasn’t exactly an ideal situation for rookie running back David Montgomery, who the Bears traded up 13 spots to nab in the third round.

Montgomery had 889 yards on 242 carries, for an average 3.7 yards per carry, and six touchdowns. Which aren’t exactly spectacular numbers, but not surprising considering how the Bears run game never really got going.

Still, Montgomery was the 37th highest-graded rookie following the 2019 regular season, according to Pro Football Focus, ranking behind top-drafted rookie running back Josh Jacobs (4th).

The former Iowa State Cyclone broke 47 tackles on rushing attempts this year, the eighth-most among running backs. Despite this, it really wasn’t the best decision to trade up for him in the NFL draft considering the positional value and lack of breakaway runs (only 15.0% of his carries went for 15 or more yards in 2019, 45th among 50 qualifying backs).

Montgomery eclipsed 100 yards just twice in 2019 — an 135-yard performance against the Chargers in Week 8 and a 113-yard effort against the Vikings in Week 17. Montgomery had 20-plus rushes just four games this season, including those 100-yard efforts.

An important focus this offseason is fixing the ailing run game, which has been one of the downfalls on Chicago’s struggling offense. The Bears ranked near the bottom of the league in most offensive categories, including the running game, which was the sixth worst in the entire league. They averaged 91.1 rushing yards per game.

The Bears brought in offensive line coach Juan Castillo, who has experience as a run game coordinator, and have vowed to fix the run game — and offense — at all costs.

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Bleacher Report gives Bears “C” grade for 2019 season

A season that began with Super Bowl expectations ended in disappointment for the Bears, with a 8-8 record and no playoff berth.

The Chicago Bears are two days into a premature offseason following a season that began with Super Bowl expectations and ended with a 8-8 record and no playoff berth.

On the final day of the decade, it’s hard not to think back about how miserable these last 10 years have been as a whole for this franchise. And yet, the 2019 doesn’t rank near the bottom.

Bleacher Report gave the Bears a “C” grade for their 2019 season.

Trubisky’s subpar play isn’t the only issue. The Bears didn’t find much success running the football with their rookie third-rounder David Montgomery. He averaged 3.5 yards per carry behind an offensive line that ranked 31st in run-blocking adjusted line yards (3.71), per Football Outsiders.

Defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano took over the top-scoring defense. Although the Bears listed fifth in the category, the unit lost a bit of its edge. In comparison to the 2018 campaign, Chicago’s sack and takeaway totals dropped under its new play-caller.

The Bears took a step back, but they have enough playmakers for a better showing in 2020 if the coaching staff can optimize its roster talent.

The 2019 season was one of wasted opportunities and shattered expectations, which is why it feels even more brutal than it actually was. This was supposed to be the Bears’ year — the year where they finally made it back to the Super Bowl. Everything was in place, and they were coming off their best season in years.

But a lack of execution and the pressure of those high expectations ultimately spelled the downfall of this team. As we prepare for a new decade, let’s hope this next decade is far kinder to the Bears than this one was.

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5 takeaways from Bears’ season finale win vs. Vikings

The Bears’ season finale vs. Vikings provided a snapshot of the issues plaguing Chicago all season. Our final takeaways of the 2019 season.

The 2019 Chicago Bears ended their season in Minnesota for the third time in four years, and they beat the Vikings 21-19 on a last-minute field goal by kicker Eddy Pineiro, who had four on the day in all. They finish the year 8-8, good for third place in the NFC North, and begin an offseason with more questions than answers at this point.

The victory seems hollow, however, with no postseason plans and the Vikings resting most of their starters. The Bears defense still forced three turnovers and had a safety, but the offense showed more of the same, unable to convert those turnovers into touchdowns.

This game provided a snapshot of the Bears’ issues plaguing them all season. Here are my five takeaways from this season finale.

1. Matt Nagy has lost faith in Mitchell Trubisky

The big topic this offseason will center around how the Bears will handle Trubisky. Will they pick up his fifth-year option? Bring in competition? Look to trade him? All good questions that will be answered at a later time. But looking at this game and season specifically, Nagy clearly doesn’t trust his quarterback to make the plays needed to win.

In a game with nothing to lose, Trubisky completed 26 passes for 207 yards, averaging 5.6 yards per pass. He was again inaccurate when he did throw deep and struggled against second and third stringers on the Vikings defense. Nagy’s playcalling has come under fire, and for good reason. However, how can he open up the playbook if his quarterback can’t make the throws?

The Bears offense is a mess and they’ll finish the regular season ranked near the bottom in every statistical category. It’s not just one person, but this disconnect needs to be addressed in the offseason.

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