To paraphrase the Lions’ fight song, the Bears need to throw farther down the field.
To combat a blitz-happy Vikings defense in his last game, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy called read-option screens to get the ball out to the flank a moment after the snap. When quarterback Justin Fields saw more blitzers than blockers, he threw short. All but “one or two” of Fields’ decisions were the right ones, Getsy said Thursday.
The result: 13 Bears screens and 15 passes thrown behind the line of scrimmage. Fields threw for 2.4 air yards per pass and 1.9 air yards per completion, both the lowest marks of his career.
The Bears won — but scored only 12 points, all on field goals.
“You have to have a different plan when there’s eight guys on the line of scrimmage,” Getsy said.
And a different one against the Lions. The Bears will throw the ball downfield Sunday at Soldier Field, the same way they did two games ago at Ford Field.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Fields said.
They need to do so effectively for the next five games. The future of their coaching staff, if not their quarterback, depends on it.
The Bears’ top draft pick, courtesy of the Panthers, is trending in the right direction — toward No. 1 overall. Fields’ performance is going the opposite way. It would take quite the turnaround for the Bears to choose Fields over the top draft pick as their quarterback of the future. Bears president Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Pace will also have to decide if they want this coaching staff developing a new quarterback.
Such revelations were never going to come on a screen pass.
The Bears are hunting wins. But if Getsy and head coach Matt Eberflus need proof-of-concept that the offense is working, they can’t present 12 points as progress, no matter if they win or lose.
Getsy pointed to the Bears’ time of possession — about 40 minutes against the Lions and 35 against the Vikings — are “really cool things.” The Bears rank ninth in third-down percentage and 11th in red-zone percentage — signs, he claimed, of good execution.
Without points, it doesn’t matter.
Fields’ two fumbles against the Vikings were back-breakers, even if he rallied the Bears rallied to win. The team missed chances at three or four explosive plays because of protection issues and miscommunication in the backfield, Getsy said.
“That and the two turnovers,” Getsy said. “You can take those [out and it’s] completely different game, for sure.”
It was, instead, a slog. Ironically, the game was decided by Fields’ 36-yard pass to DJ Moore with about a minute to play to set up the game-winning field goal.
The Bears’ offense isn’t where it needs to be. Getsy claims it’s making progress — but with five games to play, the Bears are too late in the season to be touting the long view. Besides, for myriad reasons, next year’s offense might not look anything like this year’s.
“It’s not consistent enough, that’s for sure, for where we want to go and what we want to be,” Getsy said. “But it’s about that progress. [Eberflus] has mentioned that — there’s a patience with it, but there’s gotta be the urgency and the sense that we’ve got to continue to grow.”
The Lions give them a chance to. They allow 7.3 passing yards per play, the ninth-most in the NFL
Fields had one of the best games of his career in his last matchup against the Lions — he had a passer rating of 105.2 and 104 rushing yards — until a strip-sack-fumble-safety iced the game with 22 seconds to play.
“Teams are going to play you differently,” Fields said. “We’ll see how they come out Sunday … They’ll probably come out with a change of plan.”
The Bears better, too.
