Chicago Bears: Will Matt Nagy’s fatal flaw end the Bears season

The Chicago Bears need to find more ways to push the ball downfield vs Saints

Ironically, the highlight of the Bears offense in week 17 was Trubisky’s longest pass completion of 2020. It was a 53-yard pass to Darnell Mooney. It took the Bears two and half quarters of spinning their wheels in a dink and dunk fest before Mitch Trubisky and Darnell Mooney hooked up for the Bears most explosive pass play of the season. This is so Matt Nagy.

Something similar happened in Mitch Trubisky’s first playoff game in 2018. The Bears’ offense was mired in mud midway into the third quarter until Nagy, finally, took the training wheels off and had Trubisky throw the ball downfield a fair amount the rest of the game. This is quite likely what will happen in this upcoming playoff game with the Bears and Saints.

It is quite evident that there should have been more long passes attempted by the Bears in week 17. When discussing this 53-yard bomb on Fox’s post-game show hosted by Lou Cannellis, former Bears quarterback, Jim Miller, had this to say.

He believes it is important to attempt at least one of these deep passes in each quarter. Mitch Trubisky, in keeping with his newfound openness, has stated he wants the Bears to throw more passes downfield. His sweet spot is more with mid-range passes where his inconsistent footwork is less likely to cause incompletions.

I have often written the Bears make the Packers defense look better than it is by keeping the vast majority of the plays within ten yards of the line of scrimmage. Any defense would look good if they know this is what they will be facing on most plays.

Part of the Bears’ offensive failure last week was dash plays late in this game. In these plays, Trubisky is on the move throwing to a target near the line of scrimmage. However, after watching the Bears do this quite often, the Packers started to stop these plays cold. Repeating plays over and over again that a defense is laying in wait for is a hallmark of the Matt Nagy era in Chicago.