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How the Bears Can Get More from David Montgomery

The success formula for David Montgomery and the running game is now firmly established and the question is whether the Bears actually decide to use it

The path forward for David Montgomery and the Bears offense became apparent in 2020.

Whether the Bears choose to follow it is another matter.

Of all the leaps ahead made by younger Bears in 2020, Montgomery's might have been the most important if not the biggest.

If not for Montgomery and the offensive line establishing a rushing threat over the final six games, the Bears would have finished the regular season with a losing record.

"He's only going to get better and better," Bears coach Matt Nagy said. "His growth and evolution at running back is obviously predicated on his teammates as well, that offensive line, and then being able to do different things in the pass game. I think the sky's the limit for him."

The revised offensive line altered its blocking to use more outside zone schemes and gave Montgomery a better shot. He made the most of it.

A year after he ran for 889 yards, Montgomery finished fifth in the NFL in rushing with 1,070 yards and fourth in attempts with 247.

Seven of Montgomery's eight rushing touchdowns came in the final five weeks after the offensive line switch. Before the switch he was averaging 14.5 carries a game and after it 19.3 runs per game. More productivity led to more willingness to stick with what was working on the part of play-calling collaborater and offensive coordinator Bill Lazor.

Montgomery's talent and confidence was there all along, as Nagy has maintained. The difference was the blocking and the desire to stick with the run.

Montgomery's broken tackles total didn't rise significantly, according to the service Sportradar via Pro Football Reference. He had 29 broken tackles, good for third in the league. Last year he had 28.

What did rise was the number yards he produced after contact. Once Montgomery broke a tackle, he didn't always have someone waiting right away to stick his nose into turf in an instant, so it allowed him to either make a move or build momentum to shed another tackle attempt.

Montgomery went from 20th in the league in yards after contact to fifth with 590 yards.

There are factors pointing to smaller numbers overall for Montgomery in 2021, such as the fact Tarik Cohen will return and take away carries. However, Cohen might not be 100% after a September ACL tear until later in the season. The other options are currently limited for the Bears to take some of the load off Montgomery and they've probably done too much of this at this point, anyway. They need to let him run more at least until they have a dependable alternative.

There is one other statistic pointing to better productivity ahead--possibly much better.

Montgomery finished 14th in the league in yards gained before contact with 480. That's worse than in 2019, when he was 13th with 480.

This number is to be expected considering the great difficult the offensive line experienced establishing the run for a stretch of seven games when the temn averaged only 52.4 yards rushing a game with Nick Foles at quarterback.

It was a big chunk of the season when Montgomery could expect to get hit far sooner than he could over the final six games when their blocking scheme changed.

What's sad about this entire scenario is it almost repeated from 2019. They went 11 games last year with Montgomery averaging 14.2 carries a game, then gave it to him 17.2 times over the last five games on average and wound up with almost 26 more rushing yards a game. 

So that's two straight years where Montgomery was committed, and the Bears weren't fully committed to him until it was too late.

Before he departed to become Falcons quarterbacks coach, Bears running backs coach Charles London found a way to describe the link between Montgomery and this offensive line they established and the scheme in the final six games.

"I think it's one word, and it's trust," London said. "It's trust between the offensive line and David, and David and the offensive line."

There's one more element and that's between the coaches and the combination of Montgomery and the offensive line.

When they're willing to commit to the running back and the scheme, then the chance for greater success becomes real.

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