The Chicago Bears offense has been flat-out bad in the first three weeks of the season. While you can point to a rookie quarterback with a new play-caller and shifts along the offensive line all combining to make things difficult, the biggest issue right now is Shane Waldron.
3. Shane Waldron makes questionable personnel decisions
Shane Waldron has made some questionable personnel decisions. The biggest issue started with Cole Kmet. Gerald Everett had rapport with Waldron from their time together on the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks, which likely explains why he was the team's primary tight end in Week 1.
It took one game for Waldron to change this, and the split has increased each week. Still, what in the world made him think this should have been a split to begin with? What has Everett done in his career to warrant getting screens drawn up for him in the first two weeks? He has 3 catches for 0 yards while Kmet has 128, with 124 coming in the past two weeks. Waldron was actively taking one of his best players off of the field.
We saw DeAndre Carter getting far too many snaps in the past two weeks, and we are seeing it with the team signing D’Andre Swift and playing him over Roschon Johnson and Khalil Herbert. In that case, the former two combined are making far less than Swift, who just had to be in this offense.
Every new piece of personnel outside of Rome Odunze, the no-brainer top-ten pick has been a dud in this offense. The names that Shane Waldron brought in provide such little value.
2. The Chicago Bears have poor situational play-calling
Everyone has seen the play by now. The Bears' play call on fourth down right on the Indianapolis Colts goal line has to be one of the worst calls of the season. They called an option play, something that you do not see in the NFL because it almost never works.
One of the reasons you go for it that close to the goal line is that, in the worst case you have given the defense a chance to create a safety with the opposing offense backed up.
A shotgun option play that involved a pitchback had them moving so far backward from the jump. When you add Swift being anxious to kick everything outside for a bigger loss, it gave the Colts a nice cushion and completely took away any benefit of the play not working.
This has been the case far too often for Shane Waldron. Too often there is an obvious decision to make, and the team is not doing it. They are not using D.J. Moore correctly, they are asking Caleb Williams to do things he did not do in college, and the pace is consistently disjointed. This offense is a mess right now.
1. Nothing is easy for the Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears do not have an identity on offense. The Bears actually run screen plays more than any team in the NFL, but they also create the lowest yards per attempt on screens by a wide margin. If you ask Seahawks fans, they will tell you that the screen game is often overused and underefficient in the Waldron offense.
They run these quad-box formations that set up obvious screen calls, and they get blown up. Too often, the Bears do things that look complex and fail to get anything easy. The same can be said with their ground game. They do not have a straightforward, downhill power runner. They can hardly create any positive momentum between the tackles.
So, the defenses are spreading out and tackling the screens on the outside. Waldron has to find a way to make things easier for his offense.
Screens and quick passes are great, but they have to be well-timed and well-executed. The fact that neither is going on Waldron. Every offense needs to be able to run power. The fact that the Bears cannot show his priorities is off from the jump.