Bear Digest

Biggest Bears offensive problem is no mystery or even a new one

There's one way the Bears can make things easier for themselves in Sunday's playoff game with the Rams but they haven't had the answer for several weeks.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has the time in the pocket and searches for a receiver against the Packers in Saturday's playoff game.
Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has the time in the pocket and searches for a receiver against the Packers in Saturday's playoff game. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Bears coach Ben Johnson almost sounded resigned to the fact when he said it. He'll go back to the drawing board and try to prevent it once again.

"There's a belief with this team that shows up each and every week," Johnson said. "It's kind of who we are here at this point."

The belief is they are going to come back all of the time as their offense springs to life. It's a great source of confidence but, of course, this isn't how they plan on things working. They're trying to change it up but keep finding themselves back in the same first-half rut. The 18-point deficit was a bit extreme, though.

"I think we all want to start faster," Johnson said. "I know that's been a theme here over the last two months of the season, it feels like.

"But we're going to go back to work here, and it's something we address, it's something that we correct and we look to get better from.”

They started with opposite problem

They have fallen behind by halftime in five of their last six games after not really experiencing this consistently early. Ironically, their season started with exactly the opposite situation, as they led 17-6 after three quarters against Minnesota and collapsed.

Not all of the slow starts took on similar looks for the offense. Saturday's was a slow-starting running game and a red zone attack that eventually finished 2-for-5 at scoring TDs.

“In general, a lot of what we talked about today was some of that stalling and a bit of the slow start was self-inflicted," center Drew Dalman said. "A lot of things we can clean up, which is good because it's things that we can still improve on going into every single week. And so, I think it's natural.

"We're all competitors that we get frustrated like that, but it's good fuel for the coming weeks as far as what we need to improve on.”

The red zone issue was also perplexing.

“I think it certainly was not all one mistake over and over again or anything," Dalman said. “But, I think the core of it is knowing exactly what we need to do and executing in those critical moments throughout the whole game.

"Obviously it makes it more dramatic if we do it at the end, but you can make it a lot easier on yourself doing that the whole time. And so I think that that might be the core theme, but then it manifested in different ways throughout. Just execution, preparation, understanding of what we're trying to do conceptually as well as the specific looks we're looking for.”

Not all on Caleb Williams

Johnson made it known he didn't think the slow-starting problem was all on QB Caleb Williams, if at all.

“I actually felt like he played pretty well for the entire 60 minutes," Johnson said. "There's some things we're addressing here today that we feel like we can clean up and we can be better at.

"I get it, four possessions in the first half and we only get three points out of it. And yet, we kept chipping away and eventually we broke through that dam and turned in from field goals to touchdowns there at the end. And so, that was just the nature of that game."

Williams got upset over a few perceived errors during the course of the first half, presumably on the part of receivers. He was making it known on the bench he wasn't happy and cameras caught him after one interception. It appeared Luther Burden's route run on the play was an issue.

Johnson couldn't really question Williams' behavior in this regard.

"When I turn on the tape and I see a few things, particularly in our passing game that weren't the way that we had talked about over the course of the week, sometimes you do need to get a little bit fired up just to make sure that the point gets across and that we play better going forward," Johnson said. "So, I don't shy away from that part of it.”

Johnson hasn't spoken yet to Williams about his emotional reaction to the plays that were caught on camera.

"We all want to do well," Johnson said. "We all want to have success. We want our teammates to do well. So that's a part of it. And yet, there is an accountability factor that goes into it as well."

One thing is certain about this offensive trend: It will end very soon if they don't fix it soon considering opponents' competitive level from here on out and the fact it is now win or clean out the lockers.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.