Nick Foles Says Offense Needs Time But Time's Up
Bears defensive end Bilal Nichols adeptly handled a blunt and valid question.
Is it frustrating for the defense carrying an offense struggling so mightily?
It seems like an eternal question in Chicago, one the defense of Brian Urlacher and Charles Tillman faced, just like the Bears defense of the 1980s did much of the time, just like the 1960s Bears did.
"We don't feel it's that," Nichols said. "We're a team. So we just view it as we're playing good football right now. And we're trying to find a way to take it to great football."
The defense is much better than the Bears offense, which hardly looks capable of competing against better defenses like the Los Angeles Rams will have Monday.
The running game first played well but has taken a downturn the last three games, which coincides with a different type of quarterback playing the position—one with less mobility.
The Bears have dropped from 11th in rushing after three weeks to 28th. They've fallen from 20th after three games in scoring to 27th. They're 28th in total offense after being 17th three weeks ago.
The offense had to take a step back to become better is the way Matt Nagy views it. He says he knew this when he switched quarterbacks.
"I knew when I made the decision, I knew it wasn't going to be like a magic wand where just all of a sudden he comes in and lights it up or does this or does that," Nagy said. "That wasn't going to happen.
"It's going to take a little bit of time. The good thing is that we're winning. The good thing is that we understand we got to get better. So every single day, we just keep practicing, but there's no sense of urgency where you start getting concerned one way or the other. There's really not."
Foles agreed to a large extent, even if the team enters this week's game starting possibly the most difficult stretch on its schedule.
"I'm in this offense, but it's not like I'm stepping into my Philadelphia offense and I can go run it like I did in Philadelphia," Foles said. "I'm starting over from Phase 1. There might be some similarities to have that set foundation, but that takes time.
"In Philly they had all of '16 and then they were going into '17 and Carson (Wentz) had a good grasp of it and then I went in and we changed it a little bit. This, we had training camp, we were in a competition so we were running base plays, and then you get to the season."
Foles sees progress unrelated to numbers.
"It's not really one area, I think that every week we've made incremental changes and it's continued to improve a little bit every week.
"And I think that as an offense, stepping in the huddle and the rhythm and the tempo and getting up to the ball and the flow of the game, I think that would be the biggest thing, like going in the game, that rhythm of it, to where we just feel solid, where every play we're dangerous and we're good and we're not staying behind the chains and we're executing and doing those little things. I think every week we've made little incremental changes and we're progressing."
The Bears defense has bought the offense time, but this week that commodity becomes more scarce.
"It's not like we're starting from Ground Zero, we're figuring it out and the good thing is we've found ways to win games," Foles said. "So we'll just continue to go through this one day at a time and figure out who we want to be.
"And once again, each team I've been on has been different, though. It's just who will the Chicago Bears offense identity be."
One that scores more than 23 points occasionally would be nice.
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