Chicago Bears: Where do the Bears rank statistically heading into Week 6?

Chicago Bears: Situational and special teams statistics

In this section, we can consider how the Chicago Bears have performed on special teams, and in more situational instances. We hit on it briefly earlier, but ever since the opening week of the season, the Bears have either been the No. 1 fourth-quarter team, or tied, as they are with the Dallas Cowboys. It speaks to this team’s “never say die” attitude.

But, how about getting a score in the third quarter for once this year?

Five weeks in, the Bears have yet to do so. The easy thing to do is to make this an indictment on the coaching staff. Oddly enough, the Bears were elite when it came to scoring in the third quarter last season, a heavy-enough sample 16-game sample size to suggest it’s nearly variance, and that they will eventually pick it up

Offense:
1st quarter points — 3.2 PPG (T-25th)
2nd quarter points — 6.8 PPG (T-19th)
3rd quarter points — 0.0 PPG (last in NFL)
4th quarter points — 11.0 PPG (T-1st in NFL)

Defense:
Opponent 1st quarter points — 5.2 (15th)
Opponent 2nd quarter points — 5.8 (7th)
Opponent first-quarter points — 5.8 (23rd)
Opponent fourth-quarter points — 3.2 (2nd)

One way they can go about fixing that is by shoring up their offensive attack on third downs. I went through and tracked the Bears’ third-down statistics in third quarters in 2020 — they’ve gone a whopping 4-of-12, with three interceptions.

One aspect great offenses seem to have: they don’t put themselves in third-and-long situations very often, because they’re so proficient on first and second downs. Chicago should take note.

Heading into Sunday’s game against the Panthers, the Chicago Bears are tied for 10th in the NFL in third downs per game, at 13.2. As a whole, their 33 percent success rate ranks 29th. For what it’s worth, they’ve been 60 percent on fourth-downs, which ranks 17th.

And, here’s how they’ve ranked when it comes to kicking situations and field position situations.

Average field position — 29.39 (29-yard line, 14th)
Field goals scored per game — 1.8 (16th)
Punts kicked per game — 4.8 (3rd)
Net punt yards per game — 192.4 (5th)
Kickoffs per game — 4.8 (29th)

There’s no need to look too deeply into this. With all due respect, the less often we see Pat O’Donnell the better. In Week 4 against the Colts, he had a punt blocked, a play that seemed to set the tone for the rest of the game. PFF currently has him rated as the lowest-graded punter in the NFL. But to be fair … other punters aren’t called on as much as him?