At the end of the Chicago Bears' Week 8 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, a true microcosm of the day occured after a big play connection from Caleb Williams to DJ Moore got them inside Baltimore's five-yard line. It's easy to say Moore should have gotten out of bounds if he wasn't sure he could score, but that's nitpicky.
Williams couldn't quite connect with tight end Colston Loveland for what would've been a touchdown. Then came a completion to Devin Duvernay that fell short of the end zone. Then Willams failed on a quarterback sneak, and finally Williams missed a wide open Moore in the back of the end zone on fourth-and-goal.
In a 14-point loss, the Bears went one-for-three in the red zone against Baltimore. Turn one or both of their first quarter drives that ended in a field goal into a touchdown, and it might have been a different game.
There's no single thing that deserves all-encompassing blame for the Bears' red zone woes. Penalties have been noticeable, and they are hard to overcome. But the failed sequence late against the Ravens was more about execution, and Ben Johnson also took blame for his play-calling in that moment.
Declan Doyle talks about Bears red zone issues
Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle had his weekly session with the media on Thursday. It's no surprise he was asked about the problems in the red zone.
"The red-zone struggles have been on all of us", Doyle said, via ESPN's Courtney Cronin. "As you look at them sequentially, pulling up that last game, you might look at it and say, ‘Hey, there’s one play,’ I look at it and say there’s four plays that if our precision and our detail is better on any one of those four plays, we probably come away with seven points in both of those first two drives. And that’s the thing that we have to really hone in on. There’s no magic answer. If there was, we’d be going out and doing it. It’s really our ability to execute, be precise on details, with what we’re asking guys to do in those critical moments are going to lead to sevens rather than threes."
Sharper play-calling. Sharper execution. Avoiding back-breaking penalties that derail drives. That's the easy and obvious formula for the Bears to improve as a red zone offense (26th in the league entering Week 9). Doyle, as expected, lest he reveal anything meaningful, essentially said exactly that.
Read more: Reunion that actually makes sense offered up for Bears at the trade deadline
There's really nowhere to go but up from here for the Bears' red zone offense. Facing the league's third-worst red zone defense on Sunday looks like a nice launching point for that improvement.