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Grading the Bears: Lack of Big Plays Sums Up the Effort

The Bears made almost no big plays after the second quarter in a lopsided 19-11 defeat at the hands of the Indianapolis Colts.

The Bears have been exposed.

They proved they didn't belong in the same class as the younger, faster and improved Indianapolis Colts Sunday largely because they couldn't run the football enough to keep the defense off balance.

The Colts had done this early in the game a few times to keep pressure away from Philip Rivers and it helped open up a few drives so they could come away with a 19-11 victory.

By being unable to run for more than 28 yards, the Bears put too much pressure on second and third down for the offense and at one point were 1-for-6 on thirid down, before finishing 3-for-8 and 4-for-14 overall.

Considering this happened when Nick Foles made his starting debut, it's easy to wonder if it's possible what they've done with their offense to accomodate Mitchell Trubisky's mobility in the running game has made it so Foles can't be successful.

Bootleg passes and the threat of a mobile quarterback running helped make the running attack work in the first three games by spreading out the defensive front more. Without this threat the defense focused attention entirely at disrupting the point of attack.

The Bears had made the offense to work with play-action and to move the quarterback. Trubisky's ability to scramble or run off the edge in zone-read situations had been a threat to keep defenses honest. 

Sunday, it appeared the Colts simply teed off, disregarding play-action and made it rough for Foles to complete passes.

This one may require Bears coaches to go back to the drawing board and fast before their Thursday night date with Tom Brady. 

Is it too late to revert back to the shotgun approach of last year? Foles might be more comfortable in this. Or perhaps is it too late to go back to Trubisky?  

Here are the Bears' grades for Week 4,

Bears Running Game: F 

All the talk of better technique in blocking by line coach Juan Castillo seemed to vanish once the Colts' defense started swarming. This should have been a defense the Bears could run against because they play plenty of zone, and even cover-2. Yet the blocking couldn't keep Indianapolis' gap shooters from disrupting the scheme and breaking down runs in the backfield. It was like last year for David Montgomery as he got hit and kept fighting but before he could go more than 2 yards he was hit again by another tackler.

Bears Passing Game: D

Foles was obviously off in his timing with receivers on three deeper passes over the middle. Anthony Miller came up with only three catches for 16 yards, and the Bears badly missed the open-field threat of Tarik Cohen both in the running and passing game. Foles' decision making seemed fine, but his execution gave no indication he could snap out of this quickly. On their first 10 possessions the Bears had seven punts, an interception and downed the ball to kill of the clock. Then they moved it in desperation. Anthony Miller experienced another slow day with three receptions. Even with a quick group of defenders on the Indianapolis side, there should have been bigger opportunities to attack the zone coverage and the Bears couldn't produce this. Pass blocking was shaky through a portion of the game. Neither team had a solid yards per pass attempt but the Bears' 5.6 was abysmal.

Bears Run Defense: C+

Allowing 38 runs for only 103 yards should be cause for celebration after some of the ways past opponents had gashed in the interior of the Bears defense, so it's possible they're improving the run defense. Danny Trevathan wasn't out of position as often as he had been in other games. The Colts hurt the defense with change-up back Nyheim Hines at times, but they essentially kept running back Jonathan Taylor in check. When you hold the opponent to 2.7 yards a rush, you should own the possession advantage but the Bears struggled to keep the ball. The Bears made an oustanding nine tackles for loss in this one but still were occasionally hurt by the run.

Bears Pass Defense: C+

They lost a few jump ball situations even when they had passes covered, one a play Buster Skrine couldn't win and the other when Eddie Jackson got flagged for pass interference but allowed a catch anyway. Jaylon Johnson had the day's worst coverage on a play, failing to prevent a third-and-9 pass of 33 yards on a Chiefs scoring drive. Kyle Fuller was even beat in this one deep, and committed a pass interference to try and prevent the catch. Inconsistent pass rush like they had in Week 1 was apparent on this day.

Special Teams: D

Coverage and return teams did little right. As a result, the Bears started on average from their own 21 while the Colts had the 32-yard line as a starting possession point. The punt team had a Pat O'Donnell punt deflected, something that seems to happen once or even twice a year. Cordarrelle Patterson suffered through a horrendous game, with one poor decision to return a deep kickoff, a silly unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on  punt coverage and generally being beaten by the blockers on punt coverage.

Coaching: C-

The problem in this one looked like manpower more than coaching, as the Colts have plenty of fast, young defensive players who are likely to make this a team to contend with for years to come. They were compiled by Chris Ballard, the GM who was with the Bears scouting department over a decade and wasn't hired twice to be GM here when he should have been an easy choice.

Overall: D

Minus the defense's ability to bend without breaking, this could have been a rout long before it actually was.

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