Bear Digest

How Ben Johnson has the Bears addressing false start epidemic

The coaches and players are undertaking a mission to cut back on the false starts in the red zone and elsewhere after climbing to the league lead at this penalty.
Gene Chamberlain|
It's when Caleb Williams gets them to the line of scrimmage that the real Bears problems have begun.
It's when Caleb Williams gets them to the line of scrimmage that the real Bears problems have begun. | Denny Medley-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It became quite a bit noisier at the Bears practice field behind Halas Hall this week.

Just like the fabled band Spinal Tap did, the speakers have been turned "up to 11" at practice as the Bears simulate crowd noise.

It's all part of the plan to address both the crowd noise in Cincinnati this week but also, and more importantly, to prevent false start penalties from being made in the red zone and elsewhere the rest of the season.

"We've had some different ideas for it, just bumping up the crowd noise," wide  receiver Rome Odunze said. "Obviously, holding everybody accountable to it as well; to a different standard, a higher standard. So that way we can just eliminate those errors."


By accountable, he means punishment of sorts. It's not really a severe penalty, just something to remind people. In this case, it might mean going to the sidelines or a play or two.

"We used to have a sign at UW (Washington), if you did something like that you had to go touch it," Odunze said. "It was called the TNT sign, and it was far (to run to it). So every time you do that, you’ve got to go touch it."

The Bears are tied for first in the NFL in false starts with 16. It's hard to believe but another team has as many, and that's the Los Angeles Chargers. However, the Chargers have played eight games already and the Bears only seven, so the Bears really have the false start lead—whatever that's worth.

"We've gone back and looked at every penalty we've  committed," offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. "Obviously, we're all looking to clean all those things up throughout the whole team, but we're using some unorthodox things out there on the practice field that you might not see.

"It's something that we're addressing and is really important for us to  be able to stay on schedule and be able to move the ball offensively and be effective and finish with touchdowns.”

The look at the penalties included coaches questioning whether they were  actually demanding too much of players.

"You're just trying to identify, can we teach it better?" Doyle said. "Are we asking our guys to do things that are too much for them?' Or is there an issue whether it's communication or is there something happening that is causing those things? As we evaluate it, that's what we're trying to attack. You figure out what is the problem and then create a plan to attack that.”

The plan also includes team leaders addressing it repeatedly in their positional  meetings, according to tight end Cole Kmet. It's Kmet who leads the team with three, but it's fairly well dispersed. Darnell Wright, Jonah Jackson, Theo Benedet and Colston Loveland have two each.

There's no way to really know if this will solve the problem until game day, but there have been some early returns.

"We didn't have many presnaps today," Odunze said of penalties.

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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.