5 Bears weaknesses the Broncos can exploit in Week 2

The Denver Broncos are getting ready for their home-opener vs. the Chicago Bears. There are many out there that are not giving the Broncos a chance at all, which after their embarrassing game against the Oakland Raiders, is easy to understand.

On the other side of things, people got to watch the Bears give the Green Bay Packers some trouble on opening night, even though they ultimately lost.

After spending time breaking down that game, I discovered a few areas the Broncos could attack the Bears to help potentially win the game. Of course that means there are certain players on both sides of the ball that the Broncos need to have as their primary focus.

This is a tough Bears defense, but as the Packers showed, they are not invincible.

Quick strikes

There is one simple way to counteract a great pass rush, and Broncos fans have seen it for a few years. You attack the rush with quick-strike passes.

The Broncos have good personnel to attack the Bears' defense in just that way. Emmanuel Sanders is quick and hard to stick with and DaeSean Hamilton is such a great route runner who gets good separation early.

Courtland Sutton really emerged against the Raiders last week, and showed some good, quick route running to get open early. Then there's Noah Fant, an athletic tight end that can, normally, cause a mismatch. All four of these players can get separation early and be used to move the ball 4-7 yards at a time.

If the Broncos want to counterattack that pass rush, getting the ball out early will be ideal. Derek Carr averaged 2.33 seconds to throw against the Broncos, which negated the Broncos' pass rushers completely.

In the Bears' Week 1 matchup, Aaron Rodgers averaged 3.04 seconds to throw and dealt with a lot of pressure. Joe Flacco and the Broncos will want to average under 2.5 seconds in order to put those pass rushers on a leash.

Attack Chicago's interior O-Line

Watching the game against the Packers, the Bears had some issues on the interior offensive line. James Daniels and Cody Whitehair are solid interior linemen, but they struggled to deal with the likes of Kenny Clark, Dean Lowry and Monty Adams on the Packers defensive line. Despite their struggles, the duo only gave up one sack between them in the game.

To help generate the pressure, the Packers moved some pass rushers around and were not afraid to bring some blitzes. Getting pressure up the middle makes QB Mitch Trubisky uncomfortable and really affects him.

That tends to lead to errant throws and mistakes the Broncos' defense can take advantage of. Doing that leads to another weakness the Broncos can exploit, which we will come back to shortly.

Utilize play-action

There is this old line of thought that you need to have a good running game in order for play-action passes to be effective. Well, that isn’t true. You don’t need to have an established run game for play-action to be effective.

You don’t need to run the ball a lot or even be producing well on the ground in order for it to work. There is plenty of evidence out there that shows a good play-action team doesn’t have to rely on a good run game.

In fact, there is evidence that suggests a good use of play-action passes helps the run game more than a run game helps the play-action. It toys with defenders. Every team will see their defenders bite on a play-action, established run game or not, opening up a throwing window.

The Packers, Rams, 49ers and many other teams use play-action this way with success. In the case of the Packers, they did it against the Bears, and were able to move the ball pretty well as a result. They still had their struggles, but the offense looks best using play-action.

Breaking down that game, the Bears defense were biting on play-action badly and opening up a lot of room to make the throw. Broncos OC Rich Scangarello was with the 49ers, a team that uses play-action as a major part of their offense, and didn’t run it enough vs. Oakland in Week 1.

Play-action works against any defense, and it needs to be a big part of the Broncos' offense against the Bears in the upcoming matchup.

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Make Trubisky play quarterback

After their victory, the Packers said that they knew that if they could force Mitch Trubisky to actually play quarterback, they could win. That is a very true statement because Trubisky isn’t a very good QB.

He looks good when there is a run game going, and he doesn’t have pressure coming up the middle. Take those away and he is a completely different QB.

Taking away the running game puts more pressure on Trubisky. It makes it so the Bears have to move the ball through the air and forces him to read the field. Basically, taking away the run game is an integral part of forcing a quarterback to really play the position.

This is where the pressure up the middle really comes into play. Trubisky doesn’t deal well with pressure in his face. Give him tough reads, and put the pressure on and that can lead to mistakes. The Broncos' defense needs to take advantage and force takeaways.

Denver also can help themselves by trying to force Trubisky to throw to the left. Trubisky is like a completely different QB when throwing to the left, and this issue is more prevalent on first and second down.

According the Sharp Football Stats, Trubisky had a pass rating of 56 when throwing left 15-plus yards downfield and 76 pass rating under 15 yards. That is carried by a 119 passer rating on throws of 15-plus yards on first down and 82 passer rating under 15 yards on first down.

Looking at his career, you see the same trend. Trubisky has a 48 passer rating when throwing left 15-plus yards down the field. He completed only 23 passes with two touchdowns but that came with six interceptions.

There are definitely less attempts throwing left than right. In his career, Trubisky has attempted 263 throws to his left compared to 356 to his right. He makes mistakes throwing left, so take away the right side. If he wants to, though, let him challenge Chris Harris, Jr. and see how long throwing right lasts.

Move the pocket

A large part of the Broncos' offensive gameplan should be moving the pocket. The best two ways to neutralize a pass rush is to use quick strikes and move the pocket.

Joe Flacco does well outside the pocket, and has some movement ability to be effective. With the offensive line issues, the Broncos need to help get Flacco more time to throw and getting him on roll-outs/bootlegs will move the pocket to help negate the pass rush.

The Broncos shouldn’t do this as often as they should use quick strikes, but doing this 10-15 times, especially when taking shots downfield, is a must.

Knowing what areas to attack the Bears is one thing, but what players do the Broncos need to utilize on both sides of the ball in order to exploit these areas? Here's the list.

Shelby Harris: It was a disappointing game for Harris in the opener and the Broncos need him to bounce back. Facing James Daniels/Cody Whitehair, it isn’t going to be easy for Harris. Despite that, the Broncos still need Harris to step and provide that interior pressure to make Trubisky uncomfortable.

Emmanuel Sanders/DaeSean Hamilton: If Denver is going to use quick strikes to negate the pass rush, as they should, these two receivers are perfect to exploit that. They are quicker and shiftier route runners that can get open quickly. Facing off against Prince Amukamara and Buster Skrine should help them. Amukamara allowed an 81.9 passer rating when targeted last year, while Skrine allowed 113.3 passer rating and five touchdowns and allowed nearly 400 yards after the catch.

Off-ball linebackers: It isn’t an easy matchup for the Broncos' linebackers taking on Tarik Tarik Cohen and David Montgomery. Josey Jewell looked really good in coverage against the Raiders, but the Broncos need him to step up even more. With Todd Davis hopefully seeing his first action of the season, he'll be on a snap count and likely to have rust. It's hard to imagine Davis being worse than what Corey Nelson put on the field last week, though. A lot will fall on these ILBs to take away the running game and take away the running backs as passing options.

Garett Bolles/Elijah Wilkinson: Facing Leonard Floyd and Khalil Mack is tough for even great tackles and it is safe to say the Broncos don’t have great tackles. They don’t even have good tackles. Bolles and Wilkinson are both works in progress and are in way over their head against two quality pass rushers. Floyd just had a two-sack game against one of the best left tackles in the NFL. Denver needs them both to step up, and also do things to help them out.

Isaac Yiadom/Bryce Callahan: Whoever the Broncos' No. 2 cornerback ends up being, they're going to need to step up. Chris Harris, Jr. will likely take the right side, and be a challenge for Trubisky and could force the Bears to go to their left more often. With Trubisky’s issues throwing left, the Broncos can take advantage but they need either Yiadom or Callahan to step up.

Royce Freeman: The Bears have a good mixture of speed and strength on their defense, and the Broncos need to wear them down and there are two ways you do just that. First is a quick passing game, and the second is to run with power. Freeman has a good combination of burst and power than can hammer away at the Bears defense. Mix in quick passes and Freeman can wear them down even more and pave the way for the offense.

Bottom line

This is a matchup of two defenses with great potential facing two offenses with plenty of issues. It could come down to what defense makes more plays to help out their offense.

With Vic Fangio knowing the Bears more than the Bears know the Broncos, Denver has an advantage. With Denver's homefield dominance in the first quarter of the season dating back to 2001, there is another clear advantage.

In the end, I think the Broncos are embarrassed about their Week 1 performance and come out with a purpose and manage to take this game.

Follow Erick on Twitter @ErickTrickel and @MileHighHuddle.

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