What Bears Can Expect from Bill Lazor the Play Caller

If the Bears can know understand anything from their new play caller's past, it's he cannot work miracles alone.

Bill Lazor at least is honest.

"I can think back to University of Buffalo, 2001, 2002, we would do anything for a first down," Lazor said. Right? Hopefully I've come a long way since then."

Lazor's career calling plays has taken a journey through success and failure at college and pro levels.

Either simply seemed to depend greatly on the team. As he pointed out this weekk: "Oh, I think every team is a little bit different."

Lazor had three seasons and 14 games as a play caller in the NFL, two seasons with Ryan Tannehill as quarterback in Miami and a season and 14 games with Andy Dalton as quarterback in Cincinnati.

So many other factors came into play with each team that it's difficult to pin all the blame on Lazor's play calling or give him credit for a lot. What is apparent is he knows how important it is to balance the pass and run.

What's also apparent is he's never been backed by a top-level defense like the Bears have now.

So it will be interesting to see how he can play to his team's strength and make for better complementary play between offense, defense and special teams.

In past stops, Lazor attempted to achieve balance. He couldn't always do it based on how effective his talent was, or on how poor his team's defense was. The complementary football wasn't always there. His teams' defenses failed at times, and he couldn't stick with the run.

He also showed he could elevate talent somewhat but only to a marginal extent.

With Miami, it was Tannehill's third and fourth seasons and he was a late bloomer who really took a huge step when he had a running game for support in Tennessee.

The Dolphins in coach Joe Philbin's first year had the No. 14 offense, 17th ranked passing and 12th ranked rushing game. This was with Lazor as coordinator. He had current Bears running back Lamar Miller gain a career-high 1,099 yards rushing, as well as Daniel Thomas and Knowshon Moreno as support backs.

The next year they finished 26th on offense, 19th passing and 23rd rushing when they were last in rushing attempts. Their own defense had declined from 12th in the league to 25th, which makes it more difficult to keep up rushing totals on offense. The entire thing started caving in and the staff was replaced after two years.

When Lazor when to the Bengals, he was a quarterbacks coach until Ken Zampese's offense short-circuited after just two weeks of the 2017 season. The Bengals fired Zampese after they scored nine points total in two home games, making them the first NFL team since the Eagles of 1939 to open the first two games at home without a touchdown.

Lazor's offense showed an immediate uptick after Zampese was launched, but it lasted only a short period and part of this resulted from playing two defenses -- Green Bay and Buffalo -- which struggled through much of the year.

The Bengals had managed only 221 and 295 yards in the first two losses. Under Lazor they immediately went over 300 yards for three straight weeks and scored 24, 31 and 20 points. Then it turned south again. Lazor's offense averaged 18.7 points and 266 yards over the final 14 games. That was only 8 yards more than they'd averaged the first two games under Zampese.

They scored only seven points against Vic Fangio's Bears defense in John Fox's last season in a Week 13 33-7 loss. The next week they got one TD against Mike Zimmer's Vikings and lost 34-7.

The next year they averaged almost 20 more yards rushing but still struggled and were 26th on offense. In both years at Cincinnati under head coach Marvin Lewis, the defense fell off greatly. It didn't help support the offense. They finished 30th defending the run 2017 and last overall on defense in 2018.

The big Bears goals now will be to score early, and score in the third quarter. The Bears have seven points in nine third quarters.

They really only had first-half leads to protect to any degree in the wins over the Giants and Panthers. Beyond that, it's been an uphill struggle each week as they've failed to support their defense.

Now it's Lazor's chance to try and breathe some life into a carcass.

"Is it going to perfect? No. Is every call going to be great? No," Nagy said. "But that's OK, and we'll work through that. And I am going to be the biggest supporter of my coaches that I have on staff because I believe in them and I trust in them."

Considering how the Bears have gone from 21st in Nagy's first year on offense, to 29th last year and stand 30th going into Monday night's game, it is easy to see why he made the decision.

Whether it can achieve anything considering the lack of talent and offensive line injuries remains to be seen.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven