What Happened to the Chicago Bears?

As it seemed that after having a dominating season in 2018, the Bears would once again be superbowl contenders. Despite the loss of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who took the head coaching job for the Denver Broncos, they picked up another defensive mastermind in Chuck Pagano (former Indianapolis Colts head coach). With maybe a minor step back for the #1 ranked defense with the switching of defensive coordinators, the offense which was on and off during the whole last season, was bound to take the next step forward. High praise from the coaches that quarterback Mitchell Trubisky would improve off his 24 touchdowns to only 12 interceptions which is not bad at all. With taking more helm to the offense and being able to change the plays at the line of scrimmage was expected but what actually happened was the opposite. So what happened to this Super Bowl contending team?

To be a good football team you got to have a good quarterback no questions asked. When the Bears selected Mitchell Trubisky second overall in the 2017 NFL Draft, they were passing on Deshaun Watson who that year was coming off a college football national championship and Texas Tech’s Patrick Mahomes who in 2018 was the NFL Most Valuable Player. Trubisky only starting 13 games in college had a good decent season in 2018 for the Bears. But the future for him seemed promising. He would be moving into his third year and second year under head coach Matt Nagy. With more experience in the offense and adding more weapons for Trubisky to utilize, there was only one way to go and that was up. The Chicago Bears played against the Green Bay Packers in the kick off game for the 2019 NFL season which was all but a good game. Both teams seemed to struggle to carry a drive going both getting stopped by the good defenses on either team. But Trubisky just looked horrible. He looked scared, non-confident, lost to what he was doing. Fast forward few weeks and nothing’s changed. Thus high praised offense that was supposed to take the next level, fell down many levels actually. The offense was atrocious! Not being able to comply 300 yards total in a game until facing the Los Angeles Chargers and they still lost the game. The struggles are not only on Mitchell Trubisky though, the offensive line cannot block the opposing line men giving Trubisky no time to throw the ball. The run game led by David Montgomery has been non-existent until maybe the last two weeks but still ehhhhhhh. The play-calling. That itself has to be a sentence alone. Head Coach Matt Nagy also coming off a AP Head Coach of the year award to add on to the accolades of the team. His play-calling and putting this team in the best position is not what it was like last year. Almost coming off as scared to make a mistake or be worse than last year. Well that has happened Coach, I’m sorry. All of us Bears fans aren’t sure what it is with the play-calling!

Is he scared of trusbiky constantly making mistakes and turning the ball over? Which yes we all are! Trubisky just cannot hit his wide receivers on point at all! Is it because the offense is constantly starting slow and falling behind in games that it changes the whole game plan and everything just goes down hill from there? Yes! All though the defense is boasted with talent, they stay on the field for too long because of the offense who can’t sustain drives and get tired out. Therefore letting the opposing offense score points. Now this next point ties to all of those mentioned. Is it because they run all these trick plays, fake end arounds and screens that nobody just doesn’t fall for anymore? ABSOLUTELY! The Bears move sideways instead of moving up the field! You can tell it’s because Nagy doesn’t trust Trubisky who has been playing horrible this way, Trubisky who doesn’t have an offensive line that blocks well enough for him to throw the ball to who he wants, the blockers who don’t set the tone for the game because the run game is non-existent therefore forcing Trubisky to throw the ball, and he knows he has the worse throwing mechanics in the NFL!

Now they are only halfway through the season and have a record of three wins and five losses. Seemingly the season is over for them and have slight to zero chance to making the playoffs. That’s no surprise because of how horrible the team has been. They can let the season be over and play even worse or then can step up and take that slight chance of making the post season and play the hardest, smartest football they’ve played all year.