Bears Communication Issues Getting Old
What the Bears have here is a failure to communicate.
The silly mistakes keep on coming in their games and a few other seemingly innocent snafus on each side of the ball could have been attributed to coaching in Sunday's 16-13 Bears loss to the Ravens.
Already obvious on this list was the headset going out on a botched fourth-down gamble when they wasted a timeout, wasting another timeout by not being ready with a two-point play after their go-ahead touchdown by Marquise Goodwin, a 12-men-on-the-field defensive penalty and a false start coming out of a timeout.
Now there's the other false start penalty, one on tight end Cole Kmet early in the second half.
It was not simply a case of sloppy play or Kmet being anxious and jumping, or even forgetting the snap count.
"That's extremely frustrating and something that just can't happen," Kmet said Monday. "It's inexcusable. A little cadence issue."
Another communication error was at fault.
"I think the line thought that we were going on a double count and the receivers and myself included, I think we all were under the assumption we were going on one," Kmet said. "Gotta be better communication there between all of us. That just can't happen."
The players may be miscommunicating but the coaching staff is responsible for making certain of communication.
One other similar situation occurred on defense and resulted in the field position required for Baltimore's winning points.
It was the play Kindle Vildor failed to cover Sammy Watkins. It may not have been just a case of blown coverage as it appeared, but another possible communication issue but this for the defense.
Coach Matt Nagy said the Ravens lined up in a bunched set, with several receivers on one side, and the Bears were in man-to-man coverage. Man coverage sounds like it would be a simple blown coverage, but perhaps not.
"I think most likely, but again we have our own little rules and they have communication tools that they use within the bunch sets, so there's a little bit of details that go into that," Nagy said. "It looks like it to all of us, yeah it's on Kindle.
"But they have their own set of rules of communicating and who has what with the way they defend the bunch set."
Either way, the lack of communication in this instance doesn't say much for the defensive coaches.
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