For all of the talk of the Chicago Bears operating at the 202 level of Matt Nagy’s offense, it didn’t translate on the football field last season.
The Bears had one of the worst offenses in the NFL last season, where they averaged 17.5 points per game and 296.8 yards per game, which was among the bottom four teams in the NFL.
While quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s erratic play gets most of the blame, as it should, the offense’s failures were more than just poor quarterback play. A lack of a run game, offensive line struggles and an absence of tight end production also contributed to the offense’s poor performance. That, as well as Nagy’s questionable play-calling.
Naturally, the focus this offseason has been on fixing the offense. Nagy has added some new offensive coaches to assist him, including offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo, offensive line coach Juan Castillo and tight ends coach Clancy Barone. They’ve also added quarterback Nick Foles, tight ends Jimmy Graham, Cole Kmet and Demetrius Harris, as well as offensive linemen Germain Ifedi and Jason Spriggs this offseason.
But when it comes to establishing an identity on offense, perhaps taking a look at what worked best is Nagy’s best bet. If this offense hasn’t grasped 202, perhaps it’s time to go back to 101.
Running back Tarik Cohen told reporters last week that the focus this offseason will be in simplifying the offense, similar to what the Bears were running in 2018, when things were okay, not terrible.
“I feel like we’ll probably go back to the things we were doing in 2018,” Cohen told reporters last week. “I feel like we’re just going to simplify things. I feel like at times we just made things too hard on ourselves and we didn’t have people guessing. I feel like we were kind of just showing our cards a little bit.”
Cohen said that it’s “going to be hard to tell who’s getting the ball and when or how they’re getting the ball” on offense this year, which wasn’t exactly the case last season.
It shouldn’t be difficult for the Bears offense to make progress this season, considering how terrible things were in 2019. But, still, the goal is to establish an identity and score enough points where they don’t have to rely on the defense to carry them to victory. And if that means going back to the simplistic aspects of Nagy’s offense, so be it.
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