The Chicago Bears offense seems to have undergone some major changes.
The Chicago Bears‘ offense has seemed to change much throughout the seasons that head coach Matt Nagy has been here. In his first year here, Nagy seemed to have some creative, fun plays coming out of his back-pocket 24/7. He coached a lot like Andy Reid from the looks of it and it was exciting.
In 2019, that changed completely. Nagy went to a completely different virtually spread offense. The Bears rarely used their tight ends and ran a lot of screens. Some of the trickery was still there, but it never really was effective. He seemed to stray farther away from his Andy Reid offense.
A lot could’ve been blamed for this. He threw the ball a lot and that could have been because of the suspect offensive line that played horribly all season. But, for how much the Bears threw the ball, they really didn’t get a lot of offensive yards and seemed to do almost nothing.
The quarterback could’ve been blamed for this as Mitchell Trubisky struggled greatly to move the ball and hit his targets. On top of this, his once-reliable targets were now becoming less reliable as the Bears were top 10 in the NFL in drops.
Basically, a lot went wrong. So what did Matt Nagy do to his offense to fix this? He brought in new offensive minds to help restructure his offense to his talents. How much did it actually change though?
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)
Shotgun vs. Under Center
Quarterback Mitch Trubisky was mainly a shotgun quarterback. He even said it is all he played in high school and college. His first year in the NFL, that changed greatly. If there was anything good that came from the John Fox experiment, Trubisky learned how to operate under center.
In 2019, the Bears ran essentially spread. They ran shotgun at the sixth-highest rate in the NFL at 76% percent. This was a lot like what most would think Trubisky was good at, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. He was much better under center, running play action, and with a run-game with him.
For the 2020 season, the Bears have almost the polar opposite. The Bears have operated under center the third-highest rate in the NFL at 57%. They only trail the LA Rams and Cleveland Browns in terms of percentage.
This has changed the aspect of what the Bears do in terms of play calls too.
The Balancing of the Offense
In 2019, we saw many games that made fans scratch their heads. Trubisky would throw the ball 45 times or more in games that we needed to establish the run. Fans, including myself, sat dumbfounded at what was going on with the offense. We constantly kept seeing screens instead of run plays.
For example, in 2019 the Bears passed the ball 61.27% of the time. As stated, this was frustrating with drops, no blocking from the offensive line, and just more frustration. This rate was the 11th highest in the NFL for a team that just invested their first pick of the 2019 draft in a running back.
In 2020, Nagy has balanced the offense. The Chicago Bears dropped down to 53.49% of pass plays which puts them at the 23rd highest rate in the NFL. Now, Nagy is establishing the run every game and feeding the rock to not only David Montgomery but also Tarik Cohen and Cordarrelle Patterson. This takes the pressure off the quarterback and opens up play-action more.
What are some changes you have liked to see? Feel free to comment below the differences you’ve seen!