Both sides of ball can bring the heat
Coming off an early open date, the Bears are rested, healthy and alone in first place in the NFC North. We’ll pause here while you read that unfamiliar sentence again. What a different season this has been so far. Now Matt Nagy’s team will aim to extend its winning streak to four games with this weekend’s trip to play the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Here are our three keys for Sunday’s game.
Be aggressive. Stay aggressive. Pregame analysis: Coming off a 354-yard, six-touchdown explosion, Mitch Trubisky has seen the potential windfall when he responds to his head coach’s encouragement to think big at all times. Nagy wants his starting quarterback to trust the play calls, to believe in his playmakers and to feel confident in letting it loose. “He’s learning how to use that touchdown-tocheckdown mentality,” Nagy said this week. “He has that in him and he’s learning how to do it our way.” After connecting on only four completions of 20 yards or longer through the first three games, Trubisky rattled off eight such completions against the Buccaneers, including touchdown throws of 39 yards to Trey Burton and 20 yards to Josh Bellamy. Things won’t come so easily against a strong Dolphins secondary. But there will still be plenty of opportunities to bite off big chunks.
Attack the quarterback. Attack the football. Pregame analysis:
The Dolphins offensive line is beat up and inconsistent right now. As a result, quarterback Ryan Tannehill is growing increasingly jumpy in the pocket. All that should be music to the ears of a Bears defense that already has 18 sacks and eight forced fumbles. Khalil Mack, owner of a strip-sack in each of his first four games this season, has a favorable matchup against Dolphins right tackle Ja’Wuan James. Furthermore, the entire Bears defense should be aware of Tannehill’s chronic case of fumblitis. Tannehill is still early in his sixth season as an NFL starter and has fumbled 50 times in his career. Last week, he lost a crucial fourth-quarter fumble that the Bengals took in for a win-sealing touchdown.
Avoid self-inflicted wounds.
Pregame analysis:
For the past halfdecade, the Bears have spent many a Monday explaining away their unfortunate mistakes. Avoidable errors. Concentration lapses. Instancesin which they simply shot themselves in the foot. This year? It has been a much different tune. Through four games, the Bears offense has turned the ball over just five times. The Bears also have been penalized only 23 times, a league low. And of those 23 flags, only 10 have been of the pre-snap variety. The quickest way to avoid an unfortunate stumble is to remain disciplined and sharp with the details. And Nagy does that by incorporating numerous players. It hasn’t resulted consistently in points, but consider through four games, four players either have led or tied for the single-game team lead in receptions. Three players have led the team in receiving yards in a game. Tarik Cohen’s 41 touches are particularly noteworthy as an example of how Nagy deploys a versatile player in different alignments and uses him accordingly. The sample size is still small, though, so let’s see how the ball continues to go around. That much was clear two weeks ago in the destruction of the Buccaneers when the Bears put up 400 yards before halftime and topped 45 points for the first time since November 2012. I keep coming back to Josh Bellamy’s 20-yard touchdown grab, the fourth of Mitch Trubisky’s six TD passes that day. The beauty of the score was the ease with which it developed. It was a new twist on a familiar look the Bears had used many times already this season. The Bucs were expecting a bubble screen. The play design, though, allowed for the home run swing. “Plays off of plays,” as Trubisky describes it. All it took was a quarterback pump fake and sharp timing with the receiver. Wide open. Pitch and catch.
— Dan Wiederer