Chicago Bears Week 7: Takeaways

Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

Unacceptable. Brandon Marshall and Marc Trestman both used that term to describe the Bears performance in their 27-14 home loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday and they were both right on. There were a few exceptions but for the most part the Bears came out listless and unprepared from the opening kick off. HC Marc Trestman and DC Mel Tucker did them no favors with awful game plans on both sides of the ball, but it’s up to the players to produce on the field and there were just too many mistakes and an overall lack of urgency on Sunday. This team has the talent to win 10+ games and make a playoff run, but they are playing like an 8-8 team and that might be generous after falling to 3-4 with two tough games looming on schedule (@NE, @GB). At least both games are on the road which may be an advantage since the Bears are playing like chumps at home, falling to 0-3 after their loss to the Dolphins.

Rumor has it that there was some heated arguing in the locker room after the game with Brandon Marshall being the loudest voice. Good. After watching the Bears half-ass it all game on Sunday, it is refreshing to hear that someone on the team is embarrassed. The Bears season is on the brink of disaster and the next two games will decide if they can play up to their talent level or they fall apart and miss the playoffs for the 4th consecutive year.

Week 7 Takeaways

1.) Jay Cutler’s inconsistency is killing the Bears

Coming off his best game of the season last week in Atlanta, Cutler played arguably his worst game of the season against the Dolphins on Sunday. He accounted for two turnovers, the first on a bad interception and the 2nd on a blind-side strip sack and was inaccurate most of the game. When Cutler wasn’t turning the ball over he was missing on both long and short pass or throwing ineffective dump offs. Marc Trestman’s game plan is a big part of the problem, but Cutler has the ability to change the play and he isn’t making the correct reads at the line or finding holes in opposing defenses. He seems content to just dump the ball off when his primary WR isn’t open. The Bears have WAY too much talent to be this mediocre on offense and if something doesn’t change soon then the calls for a change of coaching staff and/or QB will start getting louder.

2.) Marc Trestman’s play-calling blows

Matt Forte, one of the top 3 RBs in the NFL, had just 2 carries in the first half? On the Bears first drive of the game they threw a low percentage deep ball on 3rd & 1? They continue to line up in the shotgun formation and pass the ball on 3rd & short despite Forte being 4-5 on short-yardage runs this season? The Dolphins don’t have a CB over 5’10 and the Bears WRs are both over 6’3 but the Bears only threw three deep balls all game? I could go on, but the Bears just aren’t using their talent correctly and the blame for that is squarely on head coach and supposed offensive genius Marc Trestman.

3.) The Bears got out-coached (again)

I touched on the play calling already, but that isn’t my only issue with Trestman and the Bears assistant coaches. The Bears have come out flat and soft in over half of their games this season. There is no excuse for Trestman not having his team ready to play. Is it a lack of fire? A failure to express the urgency of every game to his team? Do they have the wrong players or the wrong coaches? These questions have no easy answers. I wish the Bears tendency to start slow was their only problem, but the Bears have shown a disturbing trend of not adjusting to game conditions. It was clear Sunday that the Dolphins had a specific game plan to run the read option right at Shea McClellin and take advantage of the soft cushion on underneath passes to TEs and RBs. On the other hand, the Bears offense was running the same scheme they have ran the last two games. A bunch of short passes with an occasional deep pass? It’s like they didn’t watch any film of the Dolphins, which I’m sure isn’t the case, but why did they not have any specific plan to attack their defense? Is Trestman that cocky that he thinks his offense will work regardless of opponent? The Bears have yet to score 30 points in a game this year, so you think Trestman would try to change things up a little but it looked like the exact same predictable offense from the last two weeks. No one is going to confuse Dolphins coach Joe Philbin with Bill Belichick or a coaching genius, but Philbin looked like Bill Walsh compared to Trestman and his staff on Sunday. The Bears coaching staff was clearly out coached, out smarted, out prepared… by a Dolphins coaching staff that is fighting for job security. Perhaps Trestman should start worrying about his.

4.) Mel Tucker disappoints again

I’ve discussed the coaching problems at length already, but Mel Tucker deserves his own takeaway for another incompetent performance. The Dolphins came out with an obvious plan to take advantage of the Bears “starting” LB core on screen passes, read option runs at McClellin and dump off passes underneath. All three worked like a charm as McClellin was routinely swallowed up by blockers or too slow to make a play and underneath receivers were wide open all day with often no Bear defender within 5 yards of the Dolphin receiver after the catch. It looked to me like the Dolphin coaches analyzed the Bears defense and found some holes. It must be nice to have coaches that actually have an opponent specific game plan every week. The Bears defensive scheme looked like the same one they have been running the last few weeks and again made no adjustments at halftime to the read option, the screen pass, or underneath routes. How many times does the Bears defense need to fail before the Bears brass realizes that Mel Tucker is in over his head?

Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

5.) Jeremiah Ratliff was a beast on Sunday

None of my team criticisms apply to Jeremiah Ratliff who was an absolute stud on Sunday. Ratliff had 3.5 sacks in the first half and finished with 4 total and a team high 3.6 grade from Pro Football Focus. The Bears D-line actually played pretty well on Sunday as a group, but were let down by really poor linebacker play, soft coverage zones by the DBs, and the incompetence of DC Mel Tucker who hasn’t shown the ability to make halftime adjustments yet this season. Ratliff gets the game ball on defense.