Healthier David Montgomery Gives Bears Shot at Balance

Running back David Montgomery practiced Wednesday on a limited basis and whether he's available or not to face the Detroit Lions Sunday could go a long way toward the amount of success the Bears have at solving some of their chronic problems from last season.

Montgomery suffered a groin strain two weeks ago but seemed to move well on the practice field Wednesday as he was part of the preparation for Detroit and the opener. The original report said he'd miss two to four weeks.

"I feel like the injury was a bigger deal in the media than it really was here," running back Tarik Cohen said. "He bounced back off of that so fast, it's like it never happened. He's already back doing the things you love to see him doing, running hard and just, you know, making that first person have a tough day tackling him.

"I just see him having a great year this year. Like I said, his yards after that first contact is going to be off the charts this year."

The Bears went through much of last season without an "identity" on offense, as coach Matt Nagy likes to put it.

Identity by any other name here means running game.

Once they have a running game, the threat of one exists as a detriment to the pass rush, or play-action passing is even possible to slow it down further. And it opens up all else. Without that identity established, the Bears went into games with slow starts and usually found themselves trailing early last year.

The 2019 Bears were last in the league in points scored in the first half, at 7.3 per game. They scored only 2.3 points per first quarters, next to last in the league.

"That's exactly what we want is a balanced offense," quarterback Mitchell Trubisky said Wednesday during his weekly Zoom press conference. "We don't want the defense to know what's coming. We don't want them to tee off on the pass.

"We don't want to allow that pass rush to go on, and I think all those things really calm down when you establish the run game."

Trubisky's play against the Lions within the Bears' offense under coach Matt Nagy has been greatly elevated over what he does against other teams, and it's even more possible it could continue if the Bears find a way to run the ball better.

"We've just got to continue to play to our strengths and if we can just keep defenses off balance and stay aggressive, I think that's really gonna help us create good rhythm," Nagy said.

They have never actually run it effectively against Detroit since Nagy became coach. They averaged only 62.25 yards rushing for four games, all wins, and have never had more than 88 rushing yards in any game with the Lions.

"We've seen from last year once we get David, Tarik (Cohen) and those guys going and CP (Cordarrelle Patterson) and all the guys we have in our backfield—once we get them going we really see the rest of our offense open up," Trubisky said. "I think anybody can see that, just watching.

"I think it also takes a lot of pressure off that O-line, that they're not having to pass block all the time. They get to go out and attack people and move the line of scrimmage and create those holes for those running backs. I think any great offense has balance."

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