David Montgomery's Essential Impact on Bears' Formula

Bears fans who might have watched the Sunday replay of their Super Bowl XX victory might be devastated.

How could they ever hope to reach that level again to win a championship?

Of course, they don't have to be so good to win a Super Bowl.

If they saw the 2011 New York Giants, they would realize this. The Giants couldn't run the ball, they couldn't stop the pass, they couldn't stop the run very well. They did have the fifth-best passing attack and they managed to pull everything else together at the time they needed to in order to win a Super Bowl.

If the course of the last decade had taught anything it's how important coaching can be and how there are many roads leading to the Lombardi Trophy and it's a matter of picking the right one.

A decade of Super Bowl champions has disproven some real long-held myths about what's needed to take it all.

For years it had been generally acknowledged the way to win was to compile the best net yards per pass attempt. It doesn't hurt, but it's not necessary to be one of the best.

There have been teams like Denver in 2015 that won on defense while averaging only 6.2 net yards a pass attempt. Baltimore in 2012, Philadelphia in 2017 and New England in 2014 were less effective at getting bigger gains in the passing game. It definitely doesn't pay to be the best at net yards per attempt because not one single team that did this won the Super Bowl in the last decade.

There were teams with greatly effective passing attacks that did win, like the Chiefs last year, the Patriots in 2016 and 2018 and Packers in 2010.

Running attacks help but mean no more. The Chiefs were 23rd in rushing last year. Then there are the teams like Seattle, which led the league in rushing in 2012, and the Eagles in 2017 who were third.

Fewest turnovers and scoring might be the two tickets to Super Bowl success, but even they are not defining measurements of a champion.

Scoring obviously helps because only one team out of the top 10 in scoring won a Super Bowl in the last decade but being the best scoring team means little. Not one single team that led in scoring in the last decade won the Super Bowl.

The Patriots won it in 2014 and 2016 by committing the fewest turnovers. Six of the 10 winners finished top five in fewest turnovers, but there were outliers like the 2015 Broncos who were a turnover machine, committing 31 to finish 29th in fewest turnovers committed.

What is evident by looking at each winner is the team had a strength, and the coach did what he could to get his team to play to the strength.

The turnover-prone Broncos had one of the decade's strongest defenses so they tried to maximize it by running the ball and weren't great at it but did enough to rank 17th. Other teams with great defenses, like the 2012 Ravens and the 2013 Seahawks, were more successful playing to their defense by running it.

The Bears know they have one of the league's stronger defenses. They had problems last year with turnovers, finishing with 24 to tie for 22nd in fewest turnovers. They had the 11th fewest in 2018.

So Pace and Nagy traded for a quarterback who had a reputation for being safe with the football. His career interception percentage is only 2.1, which is a low number. It's not Tom Brady low (1.8%) or Aaron Rodgers low (1.4) but it's low. For comparison's sake, Deshaun Watson is 2.4%, Ben Roethlisberger 2.6%, Cam Newton's is 2.7, Jared Goff 2.2, and Mitchell Trubisky 2.3%.

Foles isn't the greatest at getting it downfield with a 7.0 yards per attempt but has had four seasons in the 7s and one phenomenal year in 2013 when he hit a league-best 9.1.

The one missing ingredient usually found in teams who try to win a Super Bowl with a great defense is the running game.

The Bears haven't been a consistently good running team since Lovie Smith was coach. They've been poor under Nagy as he tried to fashion running attacks by using spread formation and as little I-formation with Mitchell Trubisky under center as possible.

One of the great questions facing the Bears this season is whether they can assemble a good enough running game to complement a strong defense and less mistake-prone passer, and whether Nagy will allow them to do it even it means scrapping some of his pet formations and tendencies.

If these occur, it can be the type of season leading to a Super Bowl win, even without the total dominance the 1985 team enjoyed.

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