Hoge's 10 Bears Things

Hoge's 10 Bears Things: It's a big week for Nagy and Foles

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The Bears suffered their first loss of the season against the Colts and it was ugly. Here are Adam Hoge's 10 Bears Things on a short week:

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1/10

Monday morning began with a familiar refrain from Bears head coach Matt Nagy:

“We have to be able to run the football. We cannot be one-dimensional.”

He’s right, but fans are understandably growing tired of that reality as it was a theme throughout 2019 when the Bears rushed for the sixth fewest yards in the NFL.

Nagy addressed the problem in the offseason by revamping the run scheme with new offensive line coach Juan Castillo and there were signs of progress in the first three weeks of the season. Even after Sunday’s dreadful 28 rushing yards against the Colts, the Bears rank 20th with 110.5 rushing yards per game.

So was Sunday’s 1.8 yards/carry an outlier in 2020 or an alarming sign of a recurring problem that hasn’t been solved?

“I hope it’s just one of those games where you just feel like, you know, that defensive line and some of the things that (the Colts) were doing,” Nagy said. “But at the same time, I trust our guys. I really do. I really trust our guys, I trust our scheme.”

The scheme didn’t hold up against the league’s No. 1 defense, in part because the Bears don’t have a high-flying passing attack to respect. Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus – who will likely be a head coach in the future – concentrated on stopping the run while keeping his safeties back in a Cover-2 shell to make sure Nick Foles didn’t beat them deep. The Bears had no answer.

“We can’t get caught off guard and all of a sudden try to be one-dimensional, and that’s my job,” Nagy said. “When teams know that you’re going to run the football, are you able to run the football? Right? So if you can do that, then you’re going to be a pretty good football team.”

The Bears couldn’t run the ball against the Colts and it took away the wrinkles that had worked somewhat well the first three weeks.

“It’s beautiful because it sets up play actions and now guys are open because the linebackers are trying to fly and stop the run,” Nagy said. “It sets up screens because now the d-line is rushing up field. It just makes things a lot easier.”

The play-action was dead Sunday. And the Colts kept sniffing out the few screens the Bears tried. It didn’t help that on the fourth play of the game, all three offensive linemen involved in a screen for Cordarrelle Patterson missed their blocks.

It starts up front. The Bears have to establish the run, even though opponents know they’re going to run. And it doesn’t get any easier, as the Buccaneers’ No. 2 rushing defense comes to Soldier Field Thursday night.

Meanwhile, here’s an alarming reality: The Bears are the only the team in the NFL without a rushing touchdown this season.

 

 

2/10

No player on the Bears has played better than Akiem Hicks the last two weeks. He’s been virtually unblockable, looking like the guy who dominated opposing offensive lines regularly before hurting his elbow in Week 5 last season.

Hicks leads the Bears with 3.5 sacks and is second to Roquan Smith with four tackles for loss. He also has nine QB hits, which is six more than any other player on the team.

Despite the loss, Hicks was understandably feeling confident about his performance against a very good Colts offensive line.

“Much respect to their offensive line, much respect to their team. They came out victorious today,” he said. “But we fear no man. We play football. So when it comes to us meeting a challenge we are going to rise to that occasion and I think we did our best to do that today.”

 

 

3/10

Hicks’ play is very encouraging, but remember last season when we blamed the defensive tackle’s absence for Khalil Mack’s low productivity? Well, not only is Hicks back and playing well, but the Bears also have Robert Quinn on the field and they didn’t have him last year.

And yet, through four games, Mack and Quinn have combined for just 2.5 sacks.

Quinn has been quiet since a strip-sack on his first snap of the season, but Mack has actually played very well. His tape has been much more productive than the statistics show.

That said, not unlike the running game conversation, fans are understandably tired of hearing about how well Mack is playing when he’s not racking up sacks and game-wrecking plays. That’s ultimately what the Bears are paying him for.

Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity for the Bears in Sunday’s game was the easy interception Mack dropped after Barkevious Mingo got to Philip Rivers and deflected the pass out of his hand. It was gift-wrapped for Mack and he dropped the ball. With his size and ability, there’s a chance he would have been able to return it for a touchdown, but at the very least the offense would have had the ball in the red zone, trailing 7-0 at the time.

The Colts were clearly the better team Sunday, but you never know how an NFL game can swing with a play like that early in the game. Remember in Atlanta when the defense was suddenly sparked by Nick Foles coming in the game on offense? It’s possible the Bears’ offensive line would have been sparked by Mack making a huge play like a game-swinging interception.

When Sunday’s game ended, the Bears had zero takeaways, an unacceptable number in their book. And through four games, the defense is tied for 18th with just four takeaways.

Just like the running game, that’s an area that needs to improve or the Bears aren’t going to have a chance against better teams like the Colts.

 

4/10

Longtime readers of the column know I don’t like to publish my grades every week because I think there is too much error in not having a copy of the playbook and not knowing every assignment, but in larger chunks, my grades tend to match personnel moves that are made in the offseason (and sometimes even during the season).

So with the first quarter of the season in the books, here are my five highest graded regular contributors:

1. EDGE Khalil Mack (6.75)
2. DT Akiem Hicks (6.00)
3. WR Allen Robinson (4.25)
4. RB David Montgomery (4.00)
5. CB Kyle Fuller (3.75)

And the five lowest:

1. LB Danny Trevathan (-2.00)
2. WR Ted Ginn Jr. (-0.33)
3. K Cairo Santos (0.00)
4. LT Charles Leno Jr. (0.50)
5. WR Anthony Miller (0.50)

 

5/10

In my mind, Roquan Smith still has the ability to be one of the best linebackers in football. His sideline-to-sideline speed flashes, and when he hits an open gap, he makes some punishing stops.

But, not unlike Mack, Smith still needs to make more game-changing plays. He was close to one on Sunday, nearly making an outstanding diving interception in the end zone. He caught the ball, but his left foot was out-of-bounds.

I thought it was notable that former Bears cornerback Charles Tillman tweeted at Smith after the play saying, "Good things happen when you run to the ball!"

That’s a mentality that the Bears used to have on defense. I would argue they even had it under Vic Fangio. They don’t seem to fly to football on every play like they used to and they should.

Smith was flying around Sunday and racked up a game-high 13 tackles and three tackles for loss. That’s probably why Colts quarterback Philip Rivers chose Smith as a target for his incessant (and beautiful) trash talk, which was caught on the CBS broadcast.

After the game, the linebacker downplayed the trash talk when I asked him about it.

"It was just like talk, talk out there on the field. It don’t really phase me that much," Smith said. "I say what I say. He say what he say. It is what it is.”

Rivers is always talking trash on the field, usually to players he respects, and Smith got that treatment Sunday.

In a conversation with former Bears linebacker Lance Briggs on The Hoge & Jahns Podcast last week, I mentioned that perhaps it’s unfair to compare Smith to great Bears linebackers of the past, but Briggs immediately interrupted me and said: “No it’s not.”

They’re high expectations, but Smith has the ability to meet them. First, he needs to build on Sunday’s performance with another strong outing Thursday against the Bucs.

6/10

Through the first three weeks of the season, the No. 43 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft had played in just 32.1% of the Bears’ offensive snaps.

That number dipped Sunday as Cole Kmet only played 15 snaps, which accounted for 24% of the team's offensive snaps. There’s no doubt that’s partially because the Bears were in more “11” personnel late in the game as they tried to mount another comeback, but it’s also clear that the rookie’s integration into the offense is taking some time.

“I thought that it would have happened by now,” Bears tight ends coach Clancy Barone said last week when asked why Kmet hasn’t received more targets in the passing game. “As we all know in the pass game, we can't really predict where the ball is going to go. We don't have 'him' routes where you just throw the ball to ‘him,’ you know?”

Through four games, Kmet has just one catch on three targets. It’s very common for rookie tight ends to take time to develop as they are asked to be versatile weapons while adapting to a major jump in competition. But in tracking the quarterback competition in training camp, I noted that Kmet was the sixth most targeted receiver by Foles and Trubisky. Then again, Ted Ginn Jr. was tied for No. 3.

Still, it’s not a leap to suggest the Bears were hoping to get more from the rookie at this point in the season, even though there haven't been any obvious issues with his blocking. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but tracking the growth of Kmet in the final 12 games of the season is a significant storyline.

 

7/10

Of all the Bears stories over the weekend, none seemed to rattle the fan base more than third string quarterback Tyler Bray getting promoted to the active roster.

IS MITCH GETTING TRADED?!?

It turns out, the Bears just wanted to get Bray on the sideline for Sunday's game.

“To be able to bring (Bray) up and kind of help Nick out as well, they have a really good relationship,” Nagy said. “Having him come up and just be a voice for (Foles) -- I think sometimes those are parts of the game that is nice to have.”

Due to the pandemic, practice squad players aren’t allowed to be on the sideline this season and teams are allowed to promote two practice squad players to the active roster each week without making a corresponding roster move.

Of course, some viewed this as an indictment of Mitch Trubisky, but I did notice in training camp that Foles and Bray walked to the practice field together every single day so there appears to be a legitimate bond there.

The Bears had to give Bray a significant bump in his weekly pay check to make the move to the active roster, but if Nagy – and Foles – wanted him on the sidelines, then perhaps it was worth it.

Of all the issues the Bears have right now on the offense, this probably isn’t a huge deal.

 

8/10

- #BearsSpecialTeams were awful Sunday. Penalties, a blocked punt, and a lackadaisical effort in the return game. It didn’t help that they were missing special teams ace Sherrick McManis and punt returner Tarik Cohen, but special teams coordinator Chris Tabor has a lot of work to do on a short week.

- The Bears offensive line did not play well Sunday, but the sack left tackle Charles Leno Jr. allowed on the first offensive play of the second half seemed to particularly annoy Nagy. Halftime allows for adjustments and whatever the Bears discussed during the break pretty much went out the window as they immediately faced 2nd-and-18.

- Nagy was also frustrated by a missed “kill” call on 2nd-and-5 at the Colts’ 9-yard-line in the second quarter, especially because it happened right out of a timeout. Foles killed the original play before the snap and then looked to hand the ball off to Montgomery, but the running back had already began to run a route. That left Foles to scramble for no yards on a keeper. On the next play, he misfired to tight end Demetrius Harris and the Bears were forced to settle for a field goal.

“We gotta be more effective there in that situation,” Nagy said Monday.

 

9/10

The Buccaneers are extremely banged up on offense, but that didn’t stop Tom Brady from throwing for five touchdowns in a comeback victory over the Chargers Sunday. As of publishing, the Bucs are the only team in the NFL to rank in the top 10 in both scoring offense and scoring defense. Most worrisome for the Bears is that Tampa is only allowing 64.3 rushing yards per game.

Still, the Bears are most likely going to catch some injury breaks in this one. Wide receiver Chris Godwin is unlikely to play and Mike Evans was not 100 percent Sunday. Tight end O.J. Howard suffered an Achilles injury against the Chargers and multiple running backs are banged up, including Leonard Fournette.

Tom Brady is 5-0 against the Bears in his career though and his undefeated record won’t change unless the Bears manage to score more points.

 

10/10

It feels like we’re going to learn a lot about the 2020 Chicago Bears this week. They have yet to put together a four-quarter game and, frankly, didn’t put together any good quarters against the Colts. But they’re still 3-1 and have the seventh ranked scoring defense.

A legitimate contender would come back this week and play well in a winnable game against the Bucs. A pretender would look too much like the team that just lost to the Colts.

Most of the NFL seems to think the Bears are a pretender at 3-1. They have an opportunity to change those opinions on national television Thursday night.

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