No quick fix
With or without Watson, repairs to offense will be challenging — and require an honest self-assessment
It was with the best intentions this week that the Bears tried to offer their 1.8 million Twitter followers some positive vibes and a spin through the 2020 highlight reel.
On Monday afternoon, with 103 characters and an attached photo montage, the team offered this: “One-handed grabs, angry runs & a kick-off return for good measure. Every TD this season in one place.”
There were 40 snapshots in all — from Jimmy Graham’s 2-yard catch in Detroit to David Montgomery’s 2-yard run against the Green Bay Packers in Week 17.
As of Friday morning, the tweet had received nearly 300 likes and more than 30 retweets. But as they also say in the social media sphere: “RIP your mentions.”
Within the less-than-kind comments that tweet drew from a few dozen frustrated and edgy fans were familiar doubts on whether the Bears truly understand their place in the NFL hierarchy. After all, no team in the NFC North visited the end zone less frequently than the Bears, who crossed the goal line 40 times during the regular season.
The Packers? They scored 66 regularseason touchdowns and seven more in the playoffs. The Minnesota Vikings had 55 touchdowns. Even the last-place Lions piled up 45.
So was now really the time for a “Check this out” hype brochure? In some ways, wasn’t this the equivalent of the Drury Inn touting free scrambled eggs and sausage patties before 9 a.m. every day?
Sounds great and all. But …
“Shouldn’t take too long to watch,” @ingvald29 wrote.
“Do us all a favor and hibernate already,” @RalphyR1 chimed in.
Added @UncleOtis23: “I don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll only watch the ones in the 3rd quarter.”
That third-quarter compilation, of course, would have featured only six touchdowns, half those against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 16.
Take this a step further. The Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the two teams that will play for the Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7 in Tampa, Fla., combined for 116 touchdowns this season and added 17 more in their combined five playoff victories this month.
The only NFC teams that scored fewer touchdowns than the Bears? The New York Giants (27), Washington Football Team (37) and Carolina Panthers (38). In the AFC, the list is only three teams long: the Denver Broncos (35), New England Patriots (36) and Jaguars (37).
So here we are at the end of January with the Bears charging into a demanding offseason but also needing to again confront the reflection that is staring at them in the mirror. Despite this season’s playoff trip, the Bears remain a middle-of-the-road team with a bottom-tier offense.
They have no clue, at this point, who their starting quarterback will be in Week 1 — a little more than seven months from now — or whether that TBD QB1 still will be their preferred leader by Week 17.
Matt Nagy still is reshuffling his offensive coaching staff after passing game coordinator Dave Ragone and running backs coach Charles London left for the Atlanta Falcons. And there’s no promise that the Bears’ best offensive player, receiver Allen Robinson, will ever set foot inside Halas Hall again.
Other than that …
This week, of course, brought dreams of a potential blockbuster trade for disgruntled Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, an established star who could revive feelings of hope and excitement across Chicago. And while Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace owe it to themselves to figure out how they can get involved in this fascinating auction, it would be credulous to think the Bears are favorites in the gallery right now.
For one thing, with the No. 20 pick in the first round of this spring’s draft, the Bears’ starting point for compiling trade capital remains limited. In addition, after Watson signed a four-year contract extension worth $160 million in September, the Bears would have significant heavy lifting to do to clear salary-cap room.
Furthermore, as social media Photoshop images have shown, the Bears and their fans aren’t the only ones dreaming of seeing Watson on their team in 2021. As it turns out, Watson also looks pretty slick in New York Jets duds. And Miami Dolphins. And San Francisco 49ers. And the Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Patriots and Los Angeles Rams.
You get the point.
That isn’t to say the Bears shouldn’t continue to be aggressive in seeing how they can try to procure this ready-made solution to the quarterback quandary that has flummoxed the franchise for most of its 101-season history. But Pace and Nagy must also have contingency plans. Many of them. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C.
Plans D, E and F.
And then G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O and P. Nothing will consume the Bears more in the coming months than the effort to reboot at quarterback.
Still, perhaps what was most alarming about the team’s end-of-season news conference two weeks ago was the apparent detachment from reality the most important leaders in the organization seemed display, the “everything will be fine with hard work and sharp communication” tone that was set by Chairman George McCaskey and team President and CEO Ted Phillips.
The Bears seemed hellbent on convincing fans that they were two-thirds of the way up the championship mountain and needed only to stay determined and resilient to finish the trek.
In reality, the Bears remain closer to the bottom of the mountain than they are to the apex. The climb is as steep as ever it was. And in a league that offers expresslane privileges to teams with elite offenses, the Bears have a long, long way to go to sniff that status.
At the top of the wish list, they need a new starting quarterback. But they also need to upgrade their offensive line. They need to fortify their receiving corps. They need a more potent and consistent running game.
It’s a good bet Pace and Nagy realize all this and understand the opportunities they squandered to become championship contenders in 2019 and 2020 will hurt for a very long time.
But as the Bears plot their plans to revitalize the offense, perhaps they should supplement their scroll through that touchdown photo gallery with a video montage of all the times they needed 1 measly yard and couldn’t get it.
In mid-November, the Tribune detailed a bunch of those malfunctions. And that was before the game-sealing Montgomery run for no gain on fourth-and-1 in the final seconds of a demoralizing loss to the Lions; before the failed first-and-goal jet sweep to Cole Kmet against the Jaguars; before the fourth-down incompletion that derailed an upset bid against the Packers in the season finale.
Then in the playoffs, the Bears needed 49 plays to score their first touchdown, a meaningless 19-yard Mitch Trubisky pass to Graham on the season’s final snap.
Next week, in a Super Bowl that sets up to become a fireworks show, the Bears will get another look at what high-level quarterbacking looks like and how top-tier offenses function. It should serve as a reminder of just how deficient they are on that side of the ball. And it must further the motivation to close the gap.
But the first part of that mission requires honest self-reflection and awareness of this team’s flaws.