Bears Haven't Gone Ground and Pound
It wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be, says Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy.
Instead of the Abe Gibron era of Bears football, think Neill Armstrong.
The Bears didn't mean to go caveman for their offense against the Packers. They weren't trying to throw 11 times.
"We only had 42 plays, called 19 or 20 passes," Getsy said Thursday. "So, that was pretty spot on to how we wanted to play that game."
How they wanted to play it was a balanced attack taking advantage of what Green Bay's defense left them to exploit. Actually, they ran it 27 times and that was 10 fewer than against the 49ers in the opener.
David Montgomery had only 15 runs, not 20 or 25. But RPOs and scrambles with Justin Fields running, combined with sacks, reduced the total actual pass attempts.
"I mean, like I said, whatever the defense presents to us, that's what we've got to be able to do," Getsy said. "And I believe we can do that. So each week, different personalities on defensive coordinators present different things, right? Last week, I was around it (in Green Bay) for a long time—they build that shell and they don't let you get behind them. And that's where we've got to take advantage of those couple of opportunities that we did have.
"We didn't execute in those situations and take advantage of those certain opportunities. When you play those types of styles of defenses, you're not getting many shots. You'd better hit it when you can and we didn't do that. So we've got to do a better job of that."
That would be Justin Fields, it would be Darnell Mooney and the other receivers, like Equanimeous St. Brown and Byron Pringle.
This all seems too much against the NFL trend to make some people comfortable.
"I know that it's the NFL, everyone is throwing it 30, 40 times a game," Getsy said. "But we only had 42 snaps and when you run the ball the way that we did, I think you have to make sure you're running the ball, too. That's part of it. And it's our job each week as we evaluate the opponent, what gives us the best chance to succeed and where are our matchups favorable to us.
"Obviously, last week we felt like you know there were parts of the run game where we felt like we had a pretty good matchup. When you're able to get seven explosives (big run plays), that's a lot of explosives in the run game."
So Getsy seemed to be suggesting the Packers were playing the Packers to pass? If they were, this seems like the Packers might have a problem because no one who saw the first two games would ever suggest the Bears are an aerial juggernaut.
"You saw the way that their defensive ends just run up the field last week," Getsy said. "That was their plan, that they weren't going to let (Fields) get outside of the pocket."
So after all that, Getsy isn't taking the Bears back into the Jack Pardee era of handoff after handoff. And he really does have confidence in Fields to throw it a lot of he needs to do it.
"I mean, like I said, whatever the defense presents to us, that's what we've got to be able to do," Getsy said. "And I believe we can do that.
"So each week, different personalities on defensive coordinators present different things, right?"
It's promise people all over Chicago will likely hold him to keeping.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
