Did Matt Nagy get too cute with Tarik Cohen?
Tarik Cohen only touched the football five times for the Chicago Bears on Sunday. That is not nearly enough
Cody Parkey, a last second drive, plenty can be blamed for the Chicago Bears loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. With the offense scoring just 15 points and Trubisky throwing a few near interceptions it is easy to blame the young quarterback, and he should take his blame.
However, one big question the Chicago Bears will have to answer is how they were not able to get Tarik Cohen more involved in the game plan. You can argue that the Eagles neutralized him but the Bears straight up didn’t use him.
Cohen is not a heavy carry running back, but his season low was three rushes. On average he had about six carries per game. On Sunday, he had one carry, He finished with just four touches, although he was at least targeted five times in the passing game.
What is an even more confusing is that Taquan Mizzell and Benny Cunningham each had as many rushing attempts as Tarik Cohen. Taylor Gabriel had three rushing attempts, as many as Mizzell, Cunningham and Cohen combined. If all of those go to Cohen he has his standard six carries.
Even on the two point conversion the team had Khalil Mack and an extra lineman out there but no sign of Tarik Cohen anywhere. Taylor Gabriel took a pitch pass instead.
Why did they choose to go with the other players of Cohen? Gabriel is somewhat understandable but Mizzell and Cunningham do not need touches at this point if they are directly taking away from Cohen.
Matt Nagy has made smart calls all season and did a good job mixing and matching all of the various players on his offense. However, today it seemed like he made too much of an effort to get everyone involved rather than focusing on getting his best players the ball.