The Bears' offense had an awful opening night against the Packers — their worst since Mitchell Trubisky and Matt Nagy were paired as quarterback and head coach last season. Following up a 12-4, NFC North-winning run in which it scored at least 14 points in every game, Chicago managed only a field goal in Thursday's night ugly 10-3 home loss to Green Bay.
Trubisky's struggles in an ineffective performance (26-of-45 passing, 228 yards, one interception, five sacks, 62.1 passer rating) gave rise to more hot takes that he will never be as good as the two quarterbacks taken behind him in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft — the Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes and the Texans' Deshaun Watson.
That may forever be the case, but as a third-year pro coming off strong work as a sophomore, he should be, and needs to be, a lot better than what he showed Thursday for the Bears to return to the playoffs — or else the defense's continued domination will prove to be futile.
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Trubisky missed plenty of throws against the Packers' pressure and coverages. He looked skittish and couldn't use his athleticism to bail him out. Let's hope the Bears learned what his biggest problem was — their offense has gotten too complicated to support him; it just needs to be complementary.
We aren't calling for them to stop with those newfangled RPOs, because, well, those options help make him effective as a runner and passer. Rather, we're calling for Nagy to stop getting cute with personnel usage that's too diversified.
The Bears' offensive success was misleading last season. They were No. 9 in scoring at 26.3 points per game despite being No. 21 in passing and No. 22 in total yardage. Their defense produced 36 takeaways and 36 of those points. They finished No. 11 in rushing because Trubisky added 421 yards to the total. They ended up with 24 giveaways, the eighth-highest total in the league.
So the thinking might have been, based on Trubisky's highly aided efficiency and big games against weak defenses, to trust him more to spread the ball around. But as we saw in the opener, that's not a very good plan.
Simply, he's not capable of processing all of that like Mahomes can, and he isn't as independent as Watson is in meshing the scrambling with deep-ball throwing.
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The Bears' pass-catchers are good but not what Mahomes, Watson or Aaron Rodgers has. So why have Trubisky targeting nine guys on a night top receiving tight end Trey Burton was inactive? The Bears forced playmakers to try to make plays when they weren't there.
From the time they traded up to select him in the third round of the 2019 draft, the Bears have talked up rookie running back David Montgomery to be the missing element to their offense, a complete back with feature qualities in the vein of what Nagy had with Kareem Hunt when with the Chiefs.
Montgomery made the most of his ridiculously low seven touches in his NFL debut Thursday with one nice run, one big catch (27 yards) and 45 impressive scrimmage yards total. But Chicago forced work for receiving/gadget back Tariq Cohen and swing backup Mike Davis. Two-back formations with them were unnecessary. Even worse was trying to run with wide receiver/return man Cordarrelle Patterson on a critical third-and-short in the first half.
Note that while Montgomery was an all-around upgrade from Jordan Howard, veteran newcomers Davis and Patterson were added to last season's overhaul — wide receivers Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel and Anthony Miller — and No. 2 tight end Adam Shaheen, now healthy, was more in the mix.
Nagy earned his offensive chops working with Andy Reid in Kansas City, and at 41 he is lumped in with the young offensive wunderkind coaches who worked in the vicinity of Sean McVay, such as his Packers counterpart, Matt LaFleur.
Reid, though, isn't going crazy with schemes for the players around Mahomes. The principles are one back, one fast wide receiver and one special tight end doing most of the damage and the remaining production coming from favorable matchups created by the attention those core players receive. McVay runs and throws short often with Todd Gurley and has Jared Goff funnel the ball mostly to three wideouts downfield in his system.
Reid and McVay are more in tune with what their quarterbacks can and can't do and adjust to them. Nagy is a creative designer of plays, but Trubisky needs things to be streamlined. As much as Trubisky is new to starting games, Nagy is still finding his way as a play-caller.
Robinson is the go-to No. 1 wide receiver and was treated that way in the opener. It's OK if Trubisky needs to connect with him a lot more than the rest. When Burton comes back, presumably in Week 2 at Denver, he needs to be involved like a No. 2 target as Nagy's version of Travis Kelce. Throwing more to Miller in the slot makes sense, too.
That also means having Cohen and Davis become more limited change-of-pace backs who spell Montgomery in specific situations rather than randomly rotate with him. Montgomery is young, fresh, powerful and elusive. Give him 20-plus touches a game and make it OK for Trubisky to go full checkdown mode with him on early downs if needed.
The Bears have a top-half offensive line with good pass protection skills, but like other groups it can be had by solid edge rushers, as Packers newcomers Za'Darius Smith and Preston Smith showed. The task will be tougher in Week 2 against Von Miller, Bradley Chubb and familiar sideline foe Vic Fangio. Trubisky needs the coaching help, stat, with the season at an early crossroads.
Trubisky did much in Year 2 to make it seem as though his development had accelerated, but the truth is, he's not yet there as the Neo to this Matrix. The Bears are fortunate in that they can still win a lot of games in 2019 if he's just solid.
The Chiefs and Rams have to get spectacular play more often than not from their QBs and offenses because of their holes on defense. The Bears have the luxury of not having to put an undue burden on Trubisky.
Less can be more. Trying to confuse defenses with permutations doesn't help when it's also flummoxing your quarterback.
