Following the Chicago Bears' Week 8 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, one lingering issue is all the rage on fans' minds. It's the penalty problem, and it isn't going away.
The Bears lead the league in pre-snap penalties on offense with 16 false starts, specifically. They came into last week ranked 31st in penalties and penalty yardage, which many fans already knew.
Early this week, center Drew Dalman was asked about this problem and, despite trying to keep a positive outlook, his excuse for why this continues to be a pain point is not good enough.
"It's the challenging and good part of the NFL is that you face a new opponent every week and these opponents always stress new aspects of your offense and the different ways you attack them. So, you might clean up something you did last week and you're one percent better from that. And then, you encounter new issues."
"So that's kind of the fun part of the challenge ... these things, as much as we'd like to fix them instantaneously, it takes time and effort and focus, all of which we're applying. So I think we'll get better and better and over the course of the season, we'll be where want to be."
Drew Dalman's excuse on the Bears' penalty problem will never be good enough
Sorry, this isn't a good-enough excuse. The Raiders are a train wreck, and even that team is tied for the league-best, only three false starts on the season. Daniel Jones is in a new offense in Indy and the Colts also have three.
The Tennessee Titans fired their head coach who was supposedly a strong offensive mind, oh and by the way, they have a rookie quarterback playing up and down. And the Titans only have seven false starts on the year.
If we want to really pull at the emotions, here, let's look at the Detroit Lions who are under a new offensive coordinator as well. They have eight.
This Bears offensive line is made up of three veterans who have made Pro Bowls. It features a quarterback who was taken no. 1 overall along with arguably a top-5 offensive mind at head coach.
Fans are frustrated. Coaches are frustrated. Even a good amount of Bears players have publicly shown frustration.
These excuses cannot and will not suffice. We are about halfway through the season and the Bears are showing zero signs of improvement on this front. Johnson is certainly saying and doing all that he can, short of benching certain players and sending an obnoxiously-loud message (which I don't think is the right answer).
Plain and simple, though, this excuse isn't cutting it. The idea that it's going to take time is something we've been saying about a lot of things, whether it's the penalties or Caleb Williams, and it only works to an extent and for so many areas.
Plenty of teams have new head coaches, new quarterbacks, new systems, etc. and yet none of them are as bad as the Bears are in terms of pre-snap penalties. The numbers do not lie, period.
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This isn't good enough.