Finding the importance of Shane Waldron after Chicago Bears Preseason Week 1

This season promises to be a lot of things, but boring is not one of them. Yet, what we have seen to far in the preseason has been just that, boring. No, not to the normal fan watching the game, but to those of us who are wondering what Shane Waldron's offense will look like when it is tailored specifically to the team's talent and the opponent's weaknesses.

Before we get into the X's and O's too deeply, let us acknowledge a few realities regarding what we have seen from the Chicago Bears:

1) This is preseason, so the offense is completely vanilla, and no real game plans are being used.

2) The Bears are not going to be putting out their big surprise plays or the ones that they will depend on situationally. They do not want to give people the opportunity to game plan against it.

3) MOST players will not be putting themselves in a position to get injured, so while they will be aggressive, there are going to be plays left on the field that normally would get made during the season.

With that said, what have we seen from Shane Waldron and the Bears so far? Have there been any surprises? Have we seen anything that we did not expect? Well, other than an actual well executed screen pass?

To be a bit blunt... nothing, no, and nope.

Everything that we have seen from this Bears offense is exactly what anyone would have expected from someone running a West Coast Offense (WCO) / Shanahan (Touchdown to Checkdown) Hybrid. They have attacked the seam mercilessly, particularly with the Tight End positions, and they have attacked the holes in zone coverage rather than hoping that a WR can get in front of or behind someone covering them.

That TE pop pass to Kmet against the blitz vs. the Texans? Check.

The sharp comeback route that Odunze ran against the Bills in the Cover-2 hole between the CB and the Safety? Check.

The screen pass to D'Andre Smith (RB)? Check.

If anything, it was a snooze fest for anyone looking for wrinkles or hints as to what the Bears offense will look like when the season comes around, yet that is not a bad thing. The team executed the fundamentals well enough to prove the concepts of the offense solid, and that implies that they not only have a handle on their assignments but that they are all on the same page when executing them. Almost like they're coordinated rather than being drawn up on a whiteboard on the sideline.

What a far cry from Luke Getsy.

Now, it was not perfect, and there will be lots to clean up, but that is only to be expected at this point in the off-season, especially when you have a number of rookies and young players in key positions.

Yet, after watching these two games, I have a lot more confidence in Waldron's coaching and his ability to get people to pull in the same direction and toward the same goal. Does that mean we are going to the Super Bowl? Not likely, but for the first time in a long time, it does not seem impossible.