A lot of the blame for the loss in New York last Sunday fell at the feet of quarterback Chase Daniel. It’s not hard to see why. After a solid performance in Detroit on Thanksgiving, the veteran backup was out of sorts all day. He threw two interceptions, could’ve had one or two others and fumbled four times as well. However, don’t tell that to Chicago Bears wide receivers coach Mike Furrey.
The former NFL receiver and first-year assistant wasn’t happy with the game either. His reasons were different though. It turns out that aside from Allen Robinson who had a tremendous game with five catches for 79 yards, he was livid over how his group of receivers performed in that game.
Most of the ire was directed at rookie Anthony Miller and veteran Taylor Gabriel. Surprising given that both have had good years up to this point. Miller leads the team with six touchdown catches including the one that forced overtime in that game. Gabriel has 544 yards and is less than 100 away from topping his career high.
So what had Furrey so up in arms about the afternoon at MetLife Stadium. He explained it to Adam Hoge of WGN, and boy was it incredibly detailed.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
Chicago Bears wide receivers accused of trying for shortcuts
Furrey understands that the nature of his Matt Nagy offense, one built in the West Coast style, is heavily dependent on attention to detail. Every receiver has to run their routes correctly in order for a play to work as it should. It seems the Bears didn’t do that nearly enough in that loss, which explains by Gabriel and Miller played so poorly.
“We’ve been talking about details since day one. The biggest fault of any wideout is go start running a route and all the sudden there is nobody there and you feel that urge to just turn around like “I’m open,” when you’re at eight yards, but you’re supposed to be at 12 because the quarterback is taking a five-step (drop), not a three-step. So he’s not ready to throw you the ball yet. So when you do turn around, that corner is already driving — when if you would have just gotten your depth, the ball would have been in the air before the corner drove. So (Sunday) we had some routes where, you know, like Taylor (Gabriel), he’s so fast and he knows he’s fast and so he feels like once he starts running and that DB really starts taking off that to get six yards is not as bad as getting eight yards. Well, the quarterback is not ready to throw you the ball. We had an early play in the first or second quarter where we were trying to get Allen (Robinson) on a slant route and Anthony (Miller) knew he had man-to-man and he just has to get out the way. You know where that ball is going so it’s not your job to beat your guy so bad at the line of scrimmage. You just got to be unselfish and you got to get out of the way so we can get A-Rob the ball. You know that’s where it is going. Those details, you can see how that would hurt you. Because all the sudden, now Anthony is back and his defender is in the throwing lane and you got Chase back there trying to throw the ball and now all the sudden that ball might have to be a little bit behind because Anthony was in the way. And so those details will hurt us. We got to become way better than that…”
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. 😱 @TarikCohen @AnthonyMiller_3 pic.twitter.com/NqtUEQhIYY
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) December 2, 2018
So why did Miller and Gabriel falter so bad?
It mainly centers around something that’s the most difficult to coach out of young receivers. They have too much of a tendency to freelance. In college, receivers are instructed to run a route. However, because the defense isn’t nearly as effective at that level they basically go until their open and then look for the ball. Furrey refers to it as “playground” style. That isn’t going to fly at this level.
“…That’s the hardest thing to learn because people are so self-dominant, because of their abilities in college that they can get away with so much. You talk to Anthony and he’ll tell you that he lived in playground (football) in college. You get open or you scramble around and catch the ball, you catch 140 yards, all the sudden you ran six great routes for 140 yards. Well, that doesn’t work here. There’s timing. There’s concepts. And Taylor is learning the same thing.”
The West Coast system is at its best when every receiver runs their routes exactly according to the play design and coverage. If they do this, the quarterback will know exactly where to go with the football based on timing and it’s almost always going to be a completion. After being the top dog in college, it’s a system that teaches players the value of unselfishness.
