Welcome to this week’s Chicago Bears Mailbag! I hope everybody had a better Thanksgiving Weekend than the Chicago Bears did.
In Week 12, the Bears were humiliated by the Philadelphia Eagles by a score of 31-3, and the game wasn’t as close as the score would indicate. It was all sorts of ugly. The Bears forced four fumbles and recovered three of them. They won the turnover battle! The Eagles committed more penalties than Chicago did. It was clear that Philly was basically begging to be upset. And they still won by four touchdowns. As you can imagine, I had some rather seething Thoughts following that game. You can read them here.
Naturally, you can also imagine that the angst shared by Bears fans is at an all-time high. We received plenty of questions and reactions in our Bears Mailbag this week, many of them rightfully about John Fox & Co, but a surprising number about Mitch Trubisky as well. I discuss them in detail below. Let’s get started. And if you want to continue the debate, follow me on Twitter @DhruvKoul.
Thank you to everyone who participated!
I am not worried about Mitch Trubisky at all. The guy had a total of 13 starts in his career post-high school coming into this season, and he wasn’t supposed to play at all this year (in Ryan Pace’s ideal world). Then Mike Glennon happened, and the Bears were forced to roll out their prized rookie quarterback much too early … that too under John Fox — a coach who has never successfully developed a rookie quarterback in his career.
In seven games since, Trubisky has had three good games, three mediocre games, and one stinker (this past Sunday) against the best team in football. He’s an inexperienced rookie, and has played about how I’d have expected him to play so far, given the way things have stacked against him since he took over the huddle. He’s dealt with a shuffled offensive line, the worst set of pass-catchers in the NFL (without a close second), awful in-game personnel decisions, and a head coach who has shackled the playbook completely. People think that rookie development is linear and that he should be better every week than he was before. That’s not true. And people are also quick to compare Trubisky’s mixed results to Deshaun Watson’s sudden success in Houston and think Chicago screwed up. But their respective situations couldn’t be more different, and comparing the two situations at this point is nonsensical.
Trubisky, when allowed to run plays that cater to his strengths, has shown more than just flashes of the ability that prompted Ryan Pace to trade up a spot to secure him in the draft. He has shown athleticism, arm strength, accuracy (when he has his feet set), and an ability to deal with the blitz — he’s one of the top 5 passers against the blitz in the NFL this season. That bodes very well going forward.
He certainly has things to improve on, though. His footwork is inconsistent, and when he doesn’t have his feet set, he tends to miss throws (a lot of them high). He needs to speed up going through his progressions, he sometimes misses an open read, and he needs to get rid of the ball, especially when he’s outside the pocket. But he’s a rookie! These are all normal rookie things. And these are all things that can be coached, given access to a coach that knows what he’s doing. We know that John Fox and his staff are on their way out this offseason, and Trubisky’s development will depend on whom Ryan Pace hires next.
You can guarantee that Pace’s next hire will be someone that he believes can unlock Trubisky’s potential. Next year onwards is when I expect to see the “real” Trubisky playing in a real offense, not this conservative garbage that John Fox has preached. But despite everything that has conspired to hold him back, I still see way more good than bad. Sure, it’s entirely possible that Trubisky ends up being a bust. But we have absolutely no way of knowing or declaring that right now. He hasn’t had a fair chance thus far.
I answered parts of this in the question above, but one of Trubisky’s greatest strengths coming out of North Carolina was his accuracy — that’s what scouts raved about. And when I watched his UNC tape for myself, the accuracy jumped out at me. I don’t think he suddenly lost his ability to throw accurately.
But he certainly has improvements to make this offseason, though. His footwork needs to improve, which has contributed to many of his missed throws this season. But Trubisky needs to work with his coach of the future to get this stuff corrected — and that coach is whom Ryan Pace will hire this offseason. Trubisky hasn’t received the proper coaching necessary so far to unlock his potential. Combine that with a lack of personnel and a conservative-to-a-fault weekly gameplan, and the kid is playing a losing game before he even takes the field. And again, we need to remind ourselves that he’s a rookie! I expect him to improve dramatically next season after he’s had a chance to settle in with his coach of the future.
Honestly, I don’t see any chance of Vic Fangio being on the Bears’ coaching staff next year. Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog posted this article yesterday which includes information from several of his well-placed sources. So none of this is entirely speculation.
Jeff mentions that the Bears considered firing John Fox after the Packers disaster, but doesn’t believe a good interim option exists, including Fangio. If Fangio wasn’t good enough to be interim coach, there’s no way he’ll be hired to head coach in the offseason.
Jeff also mentions that Fangio has turned down extension offers to remain defensive coordinator. There were reports that he was unhappy that Chicago blocked interview requests from San Francisco, who was interested in bringing him back as defensive coordinator, which would have been a lateral move for Vic. This news tells us that these are likely Fangio’s final five games as a Bear.
To put it succinctly, it’s a combination of both. I might be in the minority here, but I hate when coaches and teams belch out the “Next man up; injuries aren’t an excuse” rhetoric. Of course they’re an excuse. Teams go into a season with a certain set of players deemed starters for a reason. When those players are injured, backups, who are backups for a reason, are forced to start instead.
Sure, every team in the league deals with injuries. But the best teams don’t overcome those injuries just like that. A combination of personnel depth quality, coaching, and game-planning each and every week factors into winning football games when dealing with such attrition.
The Bears have had an atrocious number of injuries ever since John Fox became coach. It could be purely coincidental that the number of injuries have gone up exponentially since his arrival, but the Bears are playing without almost half of their starting lineup every year because of injury. It’s unreal. Of course, the Bears just weren’t deep enough as a team to overcome those injuries in years past because of poor drafting, and that’s the fault of previous general managers. Overall, Ryan Pace has done a great job rebuilding this roster and adding depth.
But their coaching hasn’t been good enough to overcome their injuries, either. For example, the Bears had a dearth of quality wide receivers going into the season. Everybody knew that. And losing Cam Meredith and Kevin White early on thrust players who have no business being on the outside into the starting lineup. But for too long, coaches relied on those receivers winning individual matchups against quality defensive backs. Are you kidding me? Asking Tanner Gentry to get open against Marshon Lattimore in man coverage purely reliant upon his route running? That’s laughable. It’s the coaches’ jobs to find ways to maximize the situation and scheme their players open better. And they haven’t done that well enough. Or at all, really.
First of all, the McCaskeys aren’t going anywhere. I’ve answered this in previous Mailbags before — they aren’t selling the team. So we as Bears fans should accept this.
That said, the Phil Emery and Marc Trestman regime was an unmitigated disaster that turned the NFL’s founding franchise into a national laughingstock. When the Bears rightly fired both of them after the miserable 2014 season, they wanted to get it right.
In the real world, it’s very common for businesses to partner with consulting firms to help them make large strategic moves and even hire C-suite executives. And at the end of the day, the Chicago Bears are a business. And at the time, they needed to make a large directional move (hiring a new regime, especially coming off a decision that ended extremely poorly). I think it was a great idea for them to seek a fresh perspective and help them understand the current landscape before deciding on Ryan Pace, who has done way more good than bad so far during his tenure. Of course, it will all be defined by how Trubisky pans out, but we can’t evaluate that right now.
The owners don’t have to be the smartest or best football people to run a franchise successfully. But they do need to know whom or how to hire the people that can help them do so. A consultant is a great way to do that.
This question hit close to home — my day job is in consulting. I liked answering this one. Thanks, @lvhaag.
That’s what good coaches are supposed to do — gameplan and scheme in such a way that their best players are able to play to their strengths. If the next coaches DON’T do that, then Ryan Pace will have hired the wrong guy. But it can’t get much worse than it is right now, so anything will constitute progress, I suppose!
I would love to see Trubisky have more freedom at the line of scrimmage — from calling his own plays to directing no-huddle when he sees defensive personnel/groupings he favors and wants to keep on the field. To be fair, he’s a rookie, and is still coming along, but John Fox isn’t letting him do anything. It’s frustrating, honestly.
But I don’t think going into a two-minute offense all the time is good, either. The Bears have had trouble sustaining drives anyway due to penalties and the like, so running a two-minute offense that isn’t successful means even more time on the field for the defense that’s banged up and tired as it is.
But it would be nice to have the offense keep the defense on its toes for once. The Bears’ offense this season is the easiest to defend in the league. That’s bad.
I would absolutely love to see some combination of the following on the Bears next season:
- Demarcus Lawrence, EDGE
- Davante Adams, WR
- Jarvis Landry, WR
- Paul Richardson, WR
I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the following, either:
- Sheldon Richardson, DT
- Trumaine Johnson, CB
- Allen Robinson, WR
Of course, lots of things can change between now and free agency. Injuries, franchise tags, and extensions can ruin the dream. I will say this, though: Expect to see the Bears target wide receivers heavily in free agency, and focus on EDGE / CB help in the draft.
Ryan Pace generally doesn’t speak to the media in an organized setting during the season. He hasn’t done it the last two years, and I don’t expect him to this year, either.
You’re right in saying that this coaching staff is lost and likely on its way out. I honestly expected Pace or ownership to put out a statement through Bears PR acknowledging that the results aren’t acceptable and that everything would be evaluated at the end of the year, similar to what the New York Giants did regarding lame-duck head coach Ben McAdoo. I also expected that back after the awful Packers loss. But they didn’t. And quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s more than enough credible evidence that Pace is getting ready for life after Fox.
Jeff Hughes of Da Bears Blog got some interesting information from some his sources that he put out in an article yesterday. He says that Chicago considered firing Fox after the Packers game, which made sense because losing that game was inexcusable. But they didn’t because they didn’t believe any good interim options existed, including Vic Fangio. He also said that his sources believe there’s only a microscopic chance of Fox being the head coach post New Year’s Day.
There are also reports that Pace has started putting together a shortlist of candidates he expects to interview at season’s end. So we can rest assured that changes are indeed coming. That’s better news than any PR statement they’d have put out, that’s for sure.
