Piecing Together the Bears Offense

Darnell Mooney deems himself fit for the next game after knee injury but can the same be said for the Bears offense as a whole?

Although he left Sunday's game after participating in 15 plays, it's still not the physical end of the game bothering wide receiver Darnell Mooney and also his teammates on offense.

It's more a case of getting on the same page with each other and quarterback Justin Fields.

Mooney on Monday said he had knee soreness and left the game after bumping knees with a Tampa Bay player in a 27-17 loss.

"It's good," Mooney said. "It's just a little bruised from last game. It kind of got re-aggravated in this game. Knocked knees with the nickel (cornerback) on one of the routes and kind of just wouldn't go down. Kept trying to go, but just kind of annoying me, so I just got out."

Mooney described it as an unusual feeling.

"Just like a knot on top of my kneecap and it was just in the way," he said. "It was hard for me to bend my knee, so a nagging bruise, but I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine for this week for sure."

Whether the offense is in as good of shape as Mooney Sunday at Kansas City depends on improvement. 

They scored a touchdown on the first drive against Tampa Bay, then came up with only a field goal for their next six possessions before getting in the end zone again in the fourth quarter. By then they were down 10.

One of the issues at times was spacing between receivers. On some plays there were too many of them bunched up in the same locations or closer to each other on the field.

"I think it's just something we just have to continue to talk about with everyone," Mooney said. "Like, the ball is in the middle of the field, or which hash, or whatever it may be. It's just something we have to get back to more detail on on where we need to be on the spots-wise, based on where the ball is in the game.

"Usually the ball is always on the hash, but the ball was kind of in the middle of the field, so we kind of have to figure out the details on that for sure."

Coach Matt Eberflus' view of the game film didn't produce an abnormal number of these types of things, though.

"I wouldn't know if I would agree with a bunch of mental lapses yesterday," he said. "I think it was much improved. I think the guys were on the same page. You know, I know there were a couple plays in there with what you were talking about but yeah, that always needs to improve. On the same page—alignment, assignment, key and technique—guys doing their thing, doing their job and doing it fast with good technique, with good violence, you know, all of those things that we talk about and you're always searching for that."

As for Justin Fields' role in the offense's dry spell, Eberflus described a situation like everyone has heard for months—the need for consistency.

"I think that again, it was the consistency, right?" Eberfulus said. "I think he did a lot of good things in the game. You could see that. You could see his operations better with the offense, you could feel that.

"But again, we're just searching for consistency, to be able to create those explosive plays, get the ball to No. 2 (DJ Moore), get the ball to 10 (Chase Claypool). We thought (Claypool) played better, blocked the perimeter better, did a nice job with those things and made a nice touchdown catch there, so we were excited about that. But yeah, it's just about consistency, about doing it right."

The big plays are there, like the two catches Moore made on the first drive.

"You see flashes and then you see improvement," Eberflus said. "You see that. And you saw the ball delivered down the field yesterday, which is all positive. Those are all positive things.

"And like I said, we just want to see consistency with that. Take what the defense gives you. You know, if that long ball is there the shot is there, the in-cut is there, whatever that route might be and if it's not there then work down your progression. So it's just about consistency. That's really what it is."

Another thing the offense lacked on Sunday was Fields' normal rushing contribution. He matched a career low for yards and had the lowest total of any game he started with 3 yards on four attempts.

Mooney said that type of contribution from a QB can never be assumed.

"I think last year, I don't think he was doing that until we kind of changed things to make it fit for our offense within what we had," Mooney said. "We're still kind of trying to figure out what we have and what we're good at.

"Last year, you didn't think he would just run the ball until probably a couple weeks in the season when you're understanding, 'This works for us, so we're gonna continue to do that.' We're still trying to figure out what works for us."

It seems rather late in the process to be determining this team's offensive identity but Mooney doesn't think that's the case.

"It's not too soon, not too late or whatever," he said. "Obviously you don't want to be 0-2. If we're 2-0, we're not talking about what works, we're probably still trying to figure out what works, but we're still trying to figure those things out."

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