Special Teams Mistakes Add to Their Current Poor Rankings

When the Bears have suffered big defeats during the Matt Nagy coaching era, they've often been accompanied by special teams disasters.

Whether it's the Cody Parkey double-doink, the Eddy Pineiro field goal misses against the Chargers and Rams, the blocked punts against New Orleans, New England and then last week, and numerous penalties, special teams mistakes can compound any issues the offense and defense have.

Sunday's loss to the Colts was no different, and special teams for the Bears have been shaky thus far. Football Outsiders have Bears special teams overall ranked 30th in the league while Lineups.com has them ranked 27th.

Special teams coordinator Chris Tabor needs to see a rebound. From that end, he's one of the few at Halas Hall happy to see a short work week.

"Personally for me, selfishly, I think it helps, because you can get right back to it," Tabor said. "We got to fix the problems, you know? Early in the year, I shouldn't say early because we're only one quarter in but the first couple games, we did not have a lot of penalties and these last two games we have and that's been disappointing.

"And there's a difference between self inflicted, like the false starts, we control those things. Stuff down the field, guys given effort penalties, you don't want those but can you live with those? You can. So there's a little bit of a difference. And we got to get it cleaned up because this group that we're going to play on Thursday night, I mean, they're really good and well-coached. So we got our hands full."

The punt block came about when two of the more dependable special teams players fouled up and didn't get the block accomplished. It wsa responsible for giving Indianapolis good field position for its first touchdown. The two players who made the mistake were Joel Iyiegbuniwe and DeAndre Houston-Carson.

"It's one of those things where guys are getting out early," Tabor said. "Good returner and getting out early. At the end of the day, you gotta protect first and then you go down and cover. We violated step one and when you do that, bad things happen."

Tabor indicated both players realized the mistake.

"They handled it like pros, they own up to everything," Tabor said.

The Bears have eight special teams penalties for 60 yards on special teams, including a couple of silly false starts on punts.

On Sunday, Cordarrelle Patterson was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for removing his helmet to talk to officials after a play. The 15 yards jump-started a Colts drive to a field goal.

"I just know we can't have those penalties and he knows that," Tabor said. "That's also another self-inflicted negative and we can't have those."

The Bears played without veteran special teams coverage ace Sherrick McManis Sunday due to a hamstring injury, and it's likely to happen again because he's been out of practice this week.

Tabor isn't about to attach some of last week's breakdowns to missing one player.

"You hope not," Tabor said. "And I don't want to say that it does. He's an important part of us. There's no doubt about that.

"But if I said that it did, that sounds like we're making excuses and there's no excuses. I mean, we control what we control. It's about assignment, alignment and technique and we need to do a much better job in those three areas."

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