It seemed like head coach Matt Nagy was trying to find out where he stood with Nick Foles through their first six quarters. The Chicago Bears head coach didn’t have a firm grasp on what made the veteran quarterback effective or comfortable. Something that is typical for a new QB-coach pairing. Especially one that didn’t even have a full offseason together.
That might explain the unusual decision by the Bears to not utilize a key part of their offensive scheme.
The RPO. Otherwise known as the Run-Pass Option.
For those who aren’t quite up to speed, an RPO gives the quarterback the option to hand the ball off to his back or throw a quick pass to a receiver depending on what the defense shows him. Foles ran it a lot in college and had similar success in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles. Yet through his first two appearances with the Bears, he ran an RPO just three times.
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That changed on Thursday night against Tampa Bay.
After a mere two run-pass option plays in the first half, the Bears seemed to take Foles off his leash in the second. During a critical scoring drive at the end of the 3rd quarter and start of the 4th, he ran three of them. All successfully. Of the six total RPO plays, four of them went for at least six yards. Despite no discernable running game.
- #1 – 7 yards
- #2 – -6 yards
- #3 – 9 yards
- #4 – 6 yards
- #5 – 8 yards
- #6 – 2 yards
Nick Foles figures to do this heavily moving forward
Part of the reason the Bears were probably reluctant to use the run-pass option early on is that it never had much success before. Not with Mitch Trubisky on the field. The thing to remember is a good RPO requires a quarterback who can read defenses quickly and make snap decisions. That was never a strength of Trubisky which is why his attempts in the RPO often didn’t end well.
That changed once Foles went in. Reading defenses and field vision are two hallmarks of his game. It’s why the efficiency of the offense took a step up. If they can start to get the running game going a little more in the weeks to come, that RPO could prove far more deadly with him on the trigger. The upcoming matchup with the Carolina Panthers could offer a big opportunity to work on this given their somewhat suspect run defense.