What we learned from Bears' victory over Seahawks

What we learned from Bears' victory over Seahawks
Wesseling, Chris

The Chicago Bears capitalized on a 49-yard interception return by Prince Amukamara in the fourth quarter to defeat the Seattle Seahawks, 24-17, on Monday Night Football.

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We learned our QB, after 14 NFL starts, hasn't taken the next step yet...

 

We did learn that Matt Nagy can learn from his mistakes though.

His playcalling was far less cute last night than the previous week. Still some things I didn't like...I would have ran downhill more...but I don't think Nagy got in the way last night. I thought the exact opposite last week.

 

Agreed. But, to me, it seems as though he is definitely not running the same O I saw him run in KC last year. I saw a lot of inside slants, lot's of 5 and 7 yard routes, lot's of creating pre-snap mismatches and then targeting them - especially with his RB's and TE's. Hunt and Kelce were 2 of his top 3 targeted receivers

This is from the article...

6. While Trubisky has excelled in executing Nagy's plan of attack early in games, he remains a work in progress as a developmental quarterback. Much like Carolina's Cam Newton and Jacksonville's Blake Bortles, the second-year signal-caller has a tendency for sloppy footwork that affects his accuracy and consistency, particularly on intermediate and deep throws. His decision-making has also left a lot to be desired, leaving the door open for the opponent's fourth-quarter comeback attempt in each of the first two games. Nagy deserves credit for the bubble screens, fly sweeps and read-option looks borrowed from college ball -- as NFL Network's Bucky Brooks noted -- but Trubisky appears lost when dropping back on more conventional NFL pass plays.

 

Yeah I agree. I see some wrinkles of that offense with the toss sweeps and a lot of crossing motion...but either he hasn't gotten deep into that playbook or there is something stopping him from implementing it fully.

This was on full display last night.

 

I learned the Trey Burton is still not a big part of the offense for whatever reason in the passing game , Nagy still doesn't want to run the ball with Howard , the defense needs Mack on the field as much as possible .

Mitch has a lonnnngggggggggggg way to go .

 

Regarding playcalling and Trubisky, I think it's a symbiotic relationship. We saw Nagy start to make things easier for Mitch last night, and change his playcalling accordingly. I think he knows that his QB limits his playbook, but maybe underestimated how much so in week one. Week two was a better showing. More importantly, I think Nagy trying to meet Mitch in the middle is going to help the quarterback progress.

Nagy's offense is a quick-read, intellectual one - it requires snap decisions and recognitions by his QB, assuming they're able to have steady and stable mechanics in place already. Mitch can't do any of those things reliably. So, in order to help him learn to be better at those things, he has to lower the challenge level, and give Mitch more time to grow.

I think we'll see many more weeks of simpler offenses, with Nagy trying to pull his quarterback forward, little by little. Ideally, Mitch grows, and the offense evolves with him, realizing each's full potential.

What we saw in week 2 was Nagy trying to meet Mitch at his level. Will Trubisky be able to elevate his? We'll see...

 

Things I learnt:

Mitch is mentally tough enough to bounce back and be solid.

Our play calling in the run game is shit.

Khalil Mack is the black Zeus.

Our secondary is seconds away from being burnt at any moment.

 

Playcalling?

Hmm... Maybe.

The Packers exposed the Bears offense last week by pulling up their safties, even in Nickel and daring us to throw.

So, I'm going with the fact that our QB has not shown he can throw downfield is much more a factor in why we're not running well.

 

Yeah the defenses we faced gameplanned to shut down the run and dare Mitch to be a real NFL QB and move the ball vertically.

I agree the playcalls on runs haven't been great. Too much side to side and not enough downhill.

 

Bingo. How many completed passes has Trubisky thrown beyond the 20 yard mark, this year? How many has he missed? If I'm a DC, I never leave more than one safety back, purely to clean up any poor tackles from short-intermediate passes. No reason to worry about downfield passing until Trubisky makes you worry.

 

Yeah so let's just do that fancy thing with multiple tight ends flexed in bunches and all over the goddam field and in motion so we can pitch it to the little guy on long sweeps and runs designed to take 3 seconds before he even gets back to the line of scrimmage.

That's a MUCH better plan than to line them up with a fullback or h-back and hand the ball of to Howard so we can get our quarterback that is struggling with downfield plays into short 3rd down situations.

Yep that's the ticket for sure.

 

I'd feel better right now if he had sit Gabriel going up the seam last night.

He massively overthrew that ball.

 

Agreed. And I think that was the moment (am I remembering right? That was the early miss? Or was that another one?) where Seattle was convinced, as Green Bay was, that there was no deep threat from Trubisky.

 

I'm too drunk to remember when that throw came...I think late first half or early second.....but it was a huge miss.

 

I think I read earlier that Mitch is 2nd worst in the league in yards-per-attempt, after Sam Bradford.

That is... uninspiring.

 

Should make for an entertaining offensive explosion next sunday.

 

I couldn't agree more with this. Instead the game slowing down for him it's been speeding up. He seems to be unable to process what he sees, and unable to make a decision quickly. Last week he withheld the throw to what appeared to be a wide open Burton, and why I thought okay the throw could of been made if he recognized it sooner, but I respected the fact that he didn't force it. Then this week it appeared he forced one into the endzone that luckily was only deflected, and that one had bad (insert former Bears QB here) name all over it, and thought WTF! He certainly has the tools to be effective, but any type of pressure all those go out the window, and his ability to just react to what he sees is nonexistent, and is not far behind it.

 

"He was OK. Nothing special. I feel like he was OK. [He's an] average quarterback," Seahawksdefensive end Frank Clark told Eric Edholm of Pro Football Weekly.

"I felt that we should make more plays against him," Clark added. "Pressure is his downfall; the more you can get pressure up the middle and in his face, and he throws those errant passes like that, that's how you can beat him. We failed to do that enough against him. Happy feet -- once he feels any pressure, his head is down and he's gone [out of the pocket]."

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000963802/article/seahawks-frank-clark-trubisky-nothing-special