Bear Digest

Thomas Brown Finds Too Few Flowers Growing Amid Bears' Rubble

The Bears got out of San Francisco trying to figure out how they gave up so many big plays and why their energy didn't translate to execution.
Gene Chamberlain|
George Kittle signals first down after one of his six receptions in Sunday's 38-13 blowout win over the Bears.
George Kittle signals first down after one of his six receptions in Sunday's 38-13 blowout win over the Bears. | Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

When former Bears wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad was in Carolina and the Panthers suffered a 52-9 loss to close the year against the Raiders, he pointed to his own 100-catch season achieved that day and said: "Amid all the ashes and rubble, a flower bloomed today."

It wasn't quite a flower, but Bears interim coach Thomas Brown on Monday saw a redeeming quality or two in his sideline debut popping up despite the 38-13 defeat by San Francisco Sunday and one was something they've had a problem with all year. He had stressed fixing it, along with playing violent and physically.

"The other point of emphasis I made to the entire group is eliminating pre-snap penalties and being a more disciplined football team. We did that," Brown said. "We did have two post-snap penalties, but the overall goal is to continue to try to find ways to be more detailed in that end of the field, so that’s a positive."

You've got to start somewhere.

There's still a wide range of issues facing the team, like the slow starts that have left the Bears facing deficits first in 12 out of 13 games. For some reason it keeps happening and yet they don't have such issues coming out to start the second half of games.

"Offensively, here's where our issues were: The start of the game, before the game, I have to do a better job of trying to find some sequence to put us in to stay on the grass and be effective in that regard," Brown said. "That's got to be able to change.

"I probably will get the question, so I’ll go ahead and address it again: I don’t tell our guys to start the game slow. If I had the answer to that, the problem would already have been fixed.

"We'll be aggressive towards that to find a solution when it comes to how we put plays together to get our guys in a better rhythm early in the game, because going into halftime, we don't draw up new plays or put in new formations and motions. It's about us being able to adjust and adapt a little bit faster early in the game to be more effective to get the game rolling with that."

The other thing they need to do is scheme up ways to get bigger chunks of yardage. The Bears are now last in the NFL in offense. They had no runs longer than a 9-yard scramble by Caleb Williams on Sunday and no pass completions longer than 17 yards. San Francisco had 10 plays longer than the longest Bears play.

"We're not nearly effective enough when it comes to creating explosives," Brown said. "We only had two yesterday in general, which is well below our standard overall from an offensive standpoint, so we’ll be aggressive towards trying to find ways to hunt that up and be aggressive with that."

The players said they were juiced up to play all week long after they had been fed up with the way things had been going in the first six games of their current losing streak under former coach Matt Eberflus.

Yet, they looked uninspired to start Sunday's loss and trailed 24-0 before scoring.

"I don't think it was lack of inspiration," Brown said. "I think there's a difference between being inspired and execution. I think our guys were definitely inspired.

"As you said, the juice and the energy was great in the building, even from a pregame standpoint. In the locker room, those guys were in a great spot. But being motivated and being inspired and not executing will lead to the result we got yesterday, so we've got to be better as coaches to get a better result when it comes to execution."

Brown called it a joint effort from coaches and players without blame going on either side.

"It's definitely a collaborative process that we don't remove any responsibilities from ourselves as coaches," he said.

One thing they might want to do is pay closer attention to the opponent's chief weapons. Tight end George Kittle seemed to be wearing a cloak of invisibility in the first half as he piled up five catches and 138 yards.

"Every game we play, every opponent has really good players, so the game plan is always going to be based on how you take away people’s strengths," Brown said. "He is a really good player and as I mentioned in the beginning we have to do a better job of how we communicate of executing the game plan so we don’t have those mishaps on the back end when it comes to guys being open."

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.