Three Keys for Bears to Reverse Fortunes

Analysis: The three keys to victory for the Bears against Tampa Bay include some specific tactics, such as running Justin Fields and blitzing the blitzer.

It's been the kind of week for the Bears when teams either put their heads down and feel sorry for themselves or rise up for an upset.

After losing to Green Bay in embarrassing fashion, they've:

• Had defensive coordinator Alan Williams scratched from practice the last few days of the week and from the game Sunday for a personal reason.

• Moved head coach Matt Eberflus into the role of calling defensive plays.

• Had right guard Nate Davis listed doubtful for Sunday's game following a reported death in his family.

• Lost starting slot cornerback Kyler Gordon for at least four games due to a broken hand that required surgery to repair.

• Go into the game with Gordon's replacement, Josh Blackwell, doubtful due to a hamstring injury.

• Had Chase Claypool come under severe scrutiny for a series of poor attempts at blocking last week.

• And dealt with the aftermath of the kind of defeat against their rival that brings the entire city down on their shoulders.

Now they go in to face a team which turned in one of the best. Week 1 defensive efforts while their own offense hasn't yet found its footing.

It's enough to remind everyone of the 2020 loss at Tennessee during the pandemic, when they had numerous players either hurt or out with COVID-19, or the loss at home to Minnesota that season when the entire secondary and some backups were gone due to COVID.

Sometimes teams rise to the challenge. 

Over the years, the Bears have seen instances of this. The game in 1988 when Mike Ditka suffered a heart attack and the late Vince Tobin had to take over as head coach against Washington was one. Another came in 1999 when all went with heavy hearts to Green Bay a few days after Walter Payton's death in order to face another inevitable beat down from Brett Favre, but came away with a miracle win on Bryan Robinson's last-second blocked chip shot field goal.

Whether the Bears can rise to such heights and break a team-record 11-game losing streak or will at least give a better effort than in the third quarter of last week's loss depends on several factors.

Here are the three keys to the Bears scoring an upset win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Raymond James Stadium.

1. Keep the Offense as Simple as Possible

The Buccaneers are going to make it difficult with all of their blitzing, anyway. Losing Davis complicates things and Dan Feeney, his likely replacement, has only been in Chicago since the last week of August. He's knowledge of the offensive and changes they can make at the line will be limited. Whether it's Khalil Herbert, D'Onta Foreman or Roschon Johnson blocking in the backfield, simple will be making their assignments facing the blitzers easier when they pass block. This makes life easier for Justin Fields. A road game in the heat and the corresponding noise will make hearing changes at the line more difficult. The Bears thought they had issues with penalty flags last week, and they were at home. Add in the noise and you get the picture. So keeping changes in blocking or play calling as simple as possible benefits everyone, especially Fields.

2. Encourage Justin Fields Runs

It's not what they came into the season hoping to do but against an all-out blitz it can be the best approach to catch defenses with limited numbers in targeted areas of the field. Last year some of Fields' biggest rushing games came against blitzing teams. Detroit finished seventh in blitz percentage and Fields ran for 147 on 13 carries and for 132 yards on 10 carries against them. His biggest rushing game came against the Miami Dolphins, who were third in the league in percentage of plays blitzing. He had 178 yards rushing, the NFL record for a quarterback. Green Bay last year blitzed the fifth-highest percentage, 32.5%, and Fields hit the Packers with 71 yards on six attempts in the second game the teams played.

3. Blitz the Blitzer

Tampa Bay's running attack possed little threat in the opener. Their tight ends were limited in that game. But the Buccaneers' biggest two weapons on offense are receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The Bears can sit back in coverage and hope in their zone to get a deflection or tip, or that their front four suddenly can pressure the quarterback. This would be real fantasy football. 

What they can do to disrupt the timing of those routes to the big Tampa Bay receiving duo is blitz on occasion, either off the slot or in the A-gap. It wouldn't be expected. As usual, they ranked among the more passive teams with the blitz, 28th overall for Week 1 at 16.7% of defensive plays according to Sportradar. Not surprisingly, they were only 24th in quarterback pressure percentage at 16.7% and one of six teams to make less than two sacks for Week 1.

They have a middle linebacker in Tremaine Edmunds and a safety in Jaquan Brisker who can be real problems for an offense if they're lurking somewhere near the line while the quarterback is being blitzed by the slot cornerback or weakside linebacker, T.J. Edwards. They also have a ballhawk in Eddie Jackson who can come up with deflected picks. Mayfield has played one game with this team and receivers. He's not going to be as well-versed in hot reads and doesn't have the arm and legs like Fields does to get away from a fast rush by linebackers and then heave it downfield. 

The Vikings under Brian Flores blitzed against Tampa on almost half the snaps but didn't do it effectively, ranking 21st in pressure percentage in Week 1. Blitzing the blitzer can assist in takeaways and put the Bears on more even footing in a game when their own quarterback is sure to face blitzes, but they need to do it more efficiently and with more stealth than Minnesota.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven