Bill Lazor's Job: Picking Up Pieces of Broken Offense
The Bears brought in Bill Lazor to serve as offensive coordinator after coach Matt Nagy fired Mark Helfrich.
Lazor has a lot to clean up, assuming some of the blame for the 2019 Bears offense belonged to Helfrich. If some of it wasn't his blame, then they have the wrong head coach or someone has been fooling someone for two years.
The Bears offensively last year were not a fumbling, interception-throwing, disaster film.
They were more like an old car capable of rolling for a few miles before collapsing in a heap, looking to be towed.
Their attempts with the ball were utterly futile.
An offensive profile via numbers from Football Outsiders, SportRadar, NFLgsis.com and several other sites reveals the true nature of their inability to reach the end zone.
The Bears were the worst first-half team in football, scoring only 7.3 points on average. It broke down this way: They were next to last in scoring in the first quarter at 2.3 points, leading only the Washington Redskins.
You have to wonder about game plans when this happens.
They were 30th in the second quarter, scoring only five points to lead only Jacksonville and the New York Jets.
The Bears were a true enigma. They possessed the ball well, yet ultimately did little with the ball except punt it.
Their average time of possession in first halves was ninth overall at 51.8% of the clock. For entire games, they were 13th at 50.94% of the clock.
Yet with all their possession time, they went three and out 29.2% of the time, which was worse than every team except the Jets (30.6) and Redskins (29.7).
They punted it to end drives 46.8% of the time, which was worse than everyone except the Jets (48.3) and Broncos (47).
At least it gave Pat O'Donnell something to do.
They averaged only 1.54 points a possession, which was 28th in the league just one year after they were 12th at 2.49 points per drive.
The Bears defied logic.
They had the ball for longer periods of time, yet didn't move it very far when they had it. Their average drives went only 27.82 yards, ranking them 29th in the league.
The good news is that at least they had good field position when they made those short, time-consuming drives to nowhere before punting.
After kickoffs they started from their own 25.78-yard line which was eighth best in the league. And overall they started drives from their 28.35-yard line, which was 16th.
Summing up their entire season on offense: They wasted good field position all year by driving a short distance and taking a lot of time to do it, before they brought in O'Donnell.
Any description of Bears offensive futility in 2019 would be entirely incomplete without quarterback Mitchell Trubisky's red zone antics.
When Nagy was asked last week how he would evaluate his passers, one of the first things he said was: "Are you playing smart in the red zone?"
This makes sense since it was among the first places he pointed at season's end when he and Ryan Pace had to face the media.
"Some of the struggles we have had this year in the red zone, that's where you get your points," Nagy said. "I don't want field goals, we don't want field goals. You have to score touchdowns."
Considering what Trubisky did, field goals should have been welcome
Trubisky lowered his interception percentage to a career-low 1.9% with just 10 interceptions on the year. Yet, four of those 10 interceptions came in the red zone, and that tied him with Sam Darnold for the NFL lead.
His 14 red zone touchdown passes tied for 20th, and he was just 26th in red zone completion percentage (50.82%) among quarterbacks with at least 30 red zone throws.
When the Bears' failures in the running game are tossed in, it all becomes a complete and utter failure. They averaged 3.7 yards a run, good for 29th. Only the Jets and Dolphins had fewer runs of 20 yards or more than the Bears (5).
David Montgomery had five rushing touchdowns from inside the 5-yard line, but he ran for only 11 yards and did it on 14 attempts from inside the 5. It truly looked like they ran straight into a 20-foot high stone wall when they got inside the 5-yard line.
They couldn't move the ball on the ground, couldn't pass where they needed to or consistently pick up first downs. And when they did get near the goal line they couldn't score touchdowns.
If not for all that, they would have been an offensive juggernaut.
Lazor has plenty of work to do.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
