What Went Wrong: The Bears come out flat against the Packers in Week 1

Share

What Went Wrong aims to take a look at each of the Bears’ eight losses and figure out, well, just that. Consider it one last chance to hate read about the 2019 season. 

Remember Week 1? Things were great back in September. An early-Autumn breeze off Lake Michigan made for picture-perfect conditions as the NFL all found themselves in Chicago for a massive 100th Birthday party. TV sets were propped up in Grant Park, bars opened early, and the Cubs were still three weeks away from watching the Cardinals come into Wrigley and bury the Joe Maddon Era with a weekend sweep. 

One play does not a season make, but in hindsight, one play sure as hell sums up the season nicely. On the Bears *first* play of the season, Matt Nagy dialed this up: 

(NFL.com)

How fun! Think about all the possible unique names it could have! No one’s where they’re traditionally supposed to be, and that’s sexy. Keep ‘em guessing, fellas! Then they actually, you know, ran the play, and Tarik Cohen fumbled the pitch two yards behind the line of scrimmage. They got bailed out on a Green Bay penalty, but you don’t get a second shot at a first impression. And even when you do, you apparently run Mike Davis up the middle, throw a few incompletions, and punt the ball from the Packers’ 45 a half-dozen plays later. And then things never got better! So what went wrong? 

On The Surface

This is not complicated. They didn’t score a touchdown, so there’s that. Mitch Trubisky had a 26.4 QBR and a 62.1 Quarterback Rating. However you prefer your arbitrary QB stats, they were bad. We could easily dive into schematics and wonky QB breakdowns, but quite frankly, this play sums it up nicely: 

Of course, it wasn’t all on Trubisky. David Montgomery had six rushes for 18 yards, and Mike Davis had five for 19. How many rushes did Cohen have? None! The Bears didn’t call a single run play for Cohen, but they did line him up at wide receiver 41 times. He did end up leading the team in receptions that night (8) but only finished with 49 yards, which in hindsight may have been one of the more foreshadow-y aspects of the loss. The only truly productive player on offense was Allen Robinson, who had seven catches for a quiet 102 yards. The Bears threw the ball 30 more times (45) than they ran it (15), which at the time looked like a team-specific game plan. We were all so young and naive. The defense played fine and was extremely not the issue. 

Under The Surface

Fun fact: by Pro Football Focus’ grades, the Bears’ offensive performance against the Packers was actually worse than it was against the Eagles, when they went an entire half of football without gaining positive yardage. Their overall grade in the loss (60.3) was the fourth-worst all season. Kyle Long (50.0), Cody Whitehair (44.1), and Adam Shaheen (43.1) all receive failing grades for their pass-blocking performances. What little “success” they had running was all behind James Daniels, as they averaged 5.5 yards per carry over the middle/left, per PFF. Two of their three rushing first downs came through the left A/B gaps, too. ANOTHER fun fact: the Bears picked up as many first downs on the ground as they did from Packers’ penalties. 

And while the line fared slightly better in pass protection, Long and Whitehair struggled mightily with the interior rush, and Trubisky had serious issues against what pressure the Packers did manage to bring:

(Pro Football Focus)

So what went wrong? Is it lazy to say everything? The Bears admitted, albeit it late in the season, that they were a bit caught up in the pageantry of Week 1, which was not something anyone needed a full season to figure out. At the time, the loss was underwhelming, sure, but eventually it got chalked up to Mike Pettine just having Nagy/Trubisky’s number. Take a look back, however, and you’ll see all the warning signs for 2019’s collapse are there, clear as day. Only seven more of these to go! 

Contact Us