Going Back in Time Doesn't Always Work

It's possible the Bears are walking into a trap against the Detroit Lions Sunday at Soldier Field.

Not that they're head-and-shoulders better talent-wise than the Lions, because the Bears showed last year they could lose a 10-point lead in the closing minutes when Detroit had an interim coach.

Now coach Dan Campbell has been uniting the Lions and has done it by trying to toughen them.

The Bears come into this game after a game plan nightmare that never let them establish the run and left quarterback Justin Fields exposed to a severe beating from Cleveland in the form of nine sacks in a 26-6 loss.

So the next step for the Bears is all too obvious, and especially so if Fields starts. They're going to go back to what worked last year for them when they turned around a disaster in progress. They're going back to the running game.

"In our room, we kind of look back on what we were doing toward the end of last year, in trying to get that mentality and that intensity back in the run game at least," tight end Cole Kmet said. "So we're hoping to kind of gravitate more toward that and look for things like that.

"We've seen teams, watching the film, really between Baltimore and Green Bay and San Francisco, how they've played the Lions—just coming off the rock and hitting dudes. And that's kind of what we were doing toward the end of last year. Hopefully we can kinda get back to that."

Kmet went back to those games at season's end when the Bears made a run to get into the playoffs against New Orleans and found the running game is a unifying factor and then it led to better passing off play-action.

The Bears were second in the league in number of play-action passes called last season from Week 12-17, according to ESPN.

"Well I think you saw another guy that kinda came alive, too, is David (Montgomery) in the run game," Kmet said. "When you get that run game going like we were, tight ends are going to do really well in the pass game.

"So I think just us kind of getting back to that in terms of getting the ball downhill to him and let him do his thing and us coming off the rock and sucking up those linebackers and then being able to create play-action off of that. Just being able to create that natural separation in our routes that way. Yeah I think just being able to get back to that and I think that's something that we were doing at the end of last year and hopefully we can get back to starting this weekend."

It would be good for the Bears tight ends to be used for something. After all, they kept five of them on the roster. Yet, through three games the top three tight ends have played on 208 snaps. In the first three games last year their top three had been on the field for 311 snaps.

"For us up front and for the entire offense, it's just about finding an identity and sticking to it, and once we do that, we'll start to roll because over time and even us last year, once we were able to find an identity and hang our hats on that, we were able to play some pretty good football," tackle Germain Ifedi said. "So it's just another learning experience for us."

The identity last year was the bootleg passes, mixing inside and outside zone blocking schemes instead of going all inside, and also more quarterback movement. It was the kind of thing quarterback Justin Fields would be most well suited for if they're going back to it.

And it was the type of attack Bill Lazor called plays for last year—this week there is plenty of speculation Lazor could be calling plays again after Matt Nagy said everything was on the table.

This all might sound ideal but there is a catch.

This isn't your traditional Detroit Lions defense, or paper lion defense they're attacking. This defense has been more stout against the run than the last two years, when they were 28th and 21st at stopping the run. The Lions have faced three of the best running teams in the NFL and they still are 15th against the run.

Last week they held NFL rushing leader Baltimore to 116 rushing yards even with Lamar Jackson filling in as running back/quarterback. The Ravens average 185 yards a game rushing.

So by becoming too one-dimensional, the Bears will be playing to the Lions' strength.

Coach Matt Nagy said he talked to some offensive players about what they thought could be done to improve.

Running back David Montgomery laughed when asked if he told Nagy to run the ball.

"Nah," he said.

Montgomery's idea: "We figure out what we didn't do well, get back to that in the week and we attack it."

So, yeah. They're going to try to run it on the Lions. And expect Detroit to be more formidable on the ground than the Bears remember from last year.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven