Chicago Bears: How much has the offense actually changed?
By Joseph Herff
The Personnel Percentages
The first major change of the Bears’ offense was what personnel groupings they’ve been running. Last season, the Bears ran mainly 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end). While this season, the Bears are mainly running 11 again, it is at a small percentage. In 2019, they ran 11 personnel 63% of the time compared to 53% of the time this season. This change isn’t major, but it is a slight change.
So what is the major change? The Bears are running 13 personnel (one running back, three tight ends) 16% of the time. How often did they run this last year? They ran it 1% of the time. The Bears rarely had the tight end talent to do this last year, but with Jimmy Graham, Cole Kmet, Demetrius Harris, and J.P. Holtz having valuable roles in this offense, we are seeing more tight ends in this offense.
Even crazier: the Bears have had a tight end on the field every single play this season. Every snap has been out of some sort of personnel involving a tight end. This is much different from last season whereas the Bears did not run tight ends much at all. Here are the other stats via Sharp Football:
2019 Personnel Groupings – Top 5
- 11 – 63% (636)
- 12 – 11% (115)
- 21 – 11% (114)
- 10 – 6% (65)
- 20 – 4% (44)
2020 Personnel Groupings – Top 5
- 11 – 53% (34)
- 13 – 16% (10)
- 12 – 14% (9)
- 01 – 5% (3)
- 21 – 5% (3)