Curran's Hard Truths preview: Bears offense is no joke

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FOXBORO - Bill Belichick’s weekly call with opposing media makes him sound like a hooded Eddie Haskell.

“My, that’s a lovely football team you have there Chicago!”

It’s a standard ploy with multi-pronged benefits.

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It lets his own team know that he’s not jacking around, he really thinks these guys – in this case, the Bears – are good.

The media dutifully reports what the greatest coach of all-times thinks about their team, creating city-wide chest-puffing and raising expectations.

The players hear about it, are glad he’s noticed all their hard work and wonder what it would be like to one day maybe play for Bill Belichick if he’s still around and all.

And then on Sunday, the Patriots will often kick the opponent’s ass up between their ears so that they have to blow their nose out their zipper.

The next team comes and he does it again.

This week’s Bears rubdown was especially warm as he noted that the 3-2 Bears are just a couple of plays from 5-0.

And when it came to the Bears offense and Mitch Trubisky, Belichick didn’t hold back.

Speaking about a 54-yard completion from the second-year quarterback to Taylor Gabriel last week against Miami, Belichick said, “That’s about as good a throw and catch as I’ve seen all year. The execution on that was like 99 out of 100. It was a great, great throw, great route, great catch. There was like a few inches to get the ball in there 50 yards downfield and that’s where it was.”

Watch the play. It’s...nice. But nothing’s jumping off the screen to announce itself as one of 2018’s great plays. The placement was outstanding but, hell, Gabriel bobbles the thing and gets hauled down immediately.

Hyperbole aside, that play, the two principals involved in it and the rest of the Bears offense so far this season has transformed under first-year head coach Matt Nagy into something that’s a much more watchable product.

Last season, the Bears threw 12 touchdown passes. All year.

This season, Trubisky has 11 and players like Gabriel and the pocket-sized Tarik Cohen (5-foot-6, 178 pounds, pictured below) are being featured in a way that’s making the Bears offensive transformation an overlooked story early in the season.

Trubisky’s worst game this season in terms of completion percentage was the opener. He completed 65.71 percent of his passes. He’s been above 70 percent in the other three was at 68.75 in the other.

Two weeks ago, he threw six touchdown passes in a hammering of the Buccaneers. And the decision-making has been good. Chicago is 12-for-20 on third downs the past two games.

“I think he’s done a good job of getting the ball to the players that are open or in space and letting them be playmakers,” said Belichick. “He has a lot of them. That’s the quarterback’s job is to deliver the ball to the playmakers and let them go. I think he’s done a good job of that. He’s a tough kid, which I respect. That’s what we would ask our quarterbacks to do, to make plays to help our team win, to get the ball to the players that are open and in space. It’s not about stats. It’s about doing what you need to do to win.”

“He plays about a little bit less than 50 percent of the time and he’s in a lot of different places, he’s hard to find,” said Belichick.
 
“He’s a dynamic player that can run, catch, really threaten every yard of the field from sideline to sideline, up the middle, deep. You can throw it to him, you can hand it to him and he’s elusive with the ball and he’s elusive to be able to get open so the quarterback can get him the ball. Those are great skills to have. Any one of those is good and he’s got several of them.”

The Patriots aren’t great at covering the ultra-quick waterbug guys. Cohen isn’t as fast as Tyreek Hill, but they are somewhat similar players in quickness and stature. And Gabriel, the former Falcon you’ll remember from the Super Bowl, is being used much more extensively in Chicago (34 catches) while the Bears biggest yards-per-catch guy is tight end Trey Burton (13.3 on 15 catches).

With Nagy having been in Kansas City with Andy Reid, he’s brought a similar style to the Bears. On one hand, that’s terrific. The Patriots just got ready for the Chiefs so they have a head start.

On the other hand, the Patriots had 10 days to get ready for KC and still gave up 40 points. And, since it would help the Chiefs immensely if the Bears were able to deal New England an unexpected loss, you can be assured Nagy and his staff will pick Reid’s brain about what the Chiefs missed out on Sunday night.

There are more than kernels of truth in what Belichick had to say on the squawk box Wednesday. This one may be tougher than initially thought. 

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