When Matt Nagy was presented with the idea that, ironically enough, his offense may be better-suited to operate heavily out of I-formation, he flashed one of the only smiles of his 30-minute press conference.
“Yeah, I did not," he said, with a grin that said he understood the humor of the situation and a glare that said otherwise. "But if we have to do different things you obviously know I'm open to that and I have a lot of faith and trust in our coaches and in our players. We're truly tested right now. We've been through a lot in the last couple weeks. This is what we signed up for.”
A not-insignificant percentage of the Bears’ successful plays came out of the I-formation on Sunday. From David Montgomery’s 10-yard run on the opening play of the game to the team’s only touchdown drive – in which six of the 11 plays were in that set – of the afternoon, utilizing Cornelius Lucas and J.P. Holtz as additional blockers up front paid immediate dividends. On the day, the Bears averaged 8.6 yards per play on action run out of the I. While the plan was always to establish the run, operating so frequently out of that specific formation was an in-game adjustment.
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"They were changing the line of scrimmage so things weren't happening in the back end," Nagy said. "There was no penetration, things were happening on you know even a yard on the other side and you guys saw yesterday how David runs. He runs the ball hard, I don't know how many broken tackles there were yesterday. It started with the first play of the game. "
After that score, the Bears wouldn't run a play out of the I for the following two drives, although both were halted prematurely by turnovers from Mitch Trubisky. Trying to balance having a clear tactical advantage versus overplaying your hand is part of the nuance of it all.
"You’re in the I-formation and it’s a big deal about our run game. Everyone knows that … There’s stuff in there that we have that’s not always run. You gotta have that balance as coaches. For us, these coaches in this league are pretty good and they can scheme pretty well, so they can make adjustments. And when you start getting too predictable with what you’re doing, and you see that because they made adjustments to what you’re doing.
On the day, Montgomery had three runs of 8+ yards out of the I-formation. His 55-yard run, a career long, was a play that Nagy said the Bears will be showing people for a long time.
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"That's the one right there that you put on clinic tape," he said. "So this offseason, when we show that, you'll see that that's exactly ... to me, that's powerful in the fact that you see what happens here, when you do this exactly the way it's supposed to be done and everybody is spot on and you do your job and you win your 1-on-1 battle, that's the stuff that happens."
Nagy was insistent that the offense is close to coming around, and that some of the improvements – like the running game, or Trubisky's first three quarters, got lost in the conversation when the game dramatically ended with a missed field goal from Eddy Piñeiro. He also double-downed on his decision to knee the ball, but did admit to wishing he hadn't waited so long to go to the I-formation play that got Montgomery into the end zone during the 3rd quarter.
The Bears aren't going to shy away from the run any time soon. Matt Nagy probably doesn't have enough I-formation plays on the call sheet to turn into a true ground-and-pound unit, but the coach was quick to point out that the West Coast Offense, the source of Nagy's ideology, has plenty of two-back runs.
"Back in the day, that used to be three yards and a cloud of dust. So it sounds like eight yards and a cloud of dust now."
"I like that, I really do so who know, you know? Maybe we come out running like winged T next week and we win."
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