Nate Tice
The most explosive offense in the NFL so far this season? You guessed it, the Chicago Bears with a 14.1% explosive play rate–the Bears offense ranks since week 3:
Sack rate: 5th
TO/play: 1st
Success rate: 13th (3rd in rushing)
Explosive play rate: 2nd
Yards/play: 4th
EPA/play: 7th
EPA/rush: 3rd
EPA/DB: 8th
SUPLEX (SR + Expl. play rate): 6th
Old Benny making a case.
Damn.
Ben is a great coach
Wow. Didn’t see that coming this early.
It should be noted that the Bears have played a very soft schedule and some of the worst defenses in the league. Cowboys, Raiders, Commanders, Saints, Ravens without Lamar and their three best defensive players, Bengals. That’s a butter soft schedule against a lot of bad defenses so I wouldn’t be crowning Ben Johnson just yet.
I was thinking the same thing. They have a tougher defensive schedule in the second half so we will see if they can keep up that pace. Regardless they’ve been electric.
Let’s take a look at the defenses this has come against:
Cowboys, Raiders, Commanders, Saints, Ravens, Bengals. Of these games, they nearly lost to the Raiders, Commanders, Saints and Bengals. They did lose to the Ravens.
Chicago’s schedule is about to get a lot harder, and they are going to be playing better defenses. Water will find it’s level here.
Being real, Ben’s offense is looking solid, but here is what is legit scary. If you’ve watched the games, you’ve seen how bad the QB play has been. If they do get a legitimate QB, the Bears will for sure be a problem. Every single game there are huge plays to be made and a pass is sailed, receivers are open but ignored, and scrambles are happening because Caleb wants to play superman and dodge tacklers instead of standing in and making a play.
My brothers a life long Bengals fan. He told me after the bengals scored with 55 seconds left on the clock that they scored to soon lol. Bears running game has looked good and the defense has lived on getting turnovers. Caleb has been ok. Going into the Bengals game I think he had 2td passes in the prior 4 games. All that being said it’s becoming pretty obvious we miss him running our offense. Hard to replace the years he and Goff had together over night. Hoping Morton gets it going the second half of the season.
Very true on everything you pointed out. I do feel they will lose
against better teams as well. But the numbers on explosive plays
are impressive.
I’m quickly losing hope on that one. I understood the slow start, but the part that is most disturbing to me is that the offense is looking worse each week, not better. I really wanted to see how we looked coming out of the bye week and what improvements they might make. That response was not encouraging at all.
I still see the Minnesota loss as just one loss, but the fact this is the second time I’ve seen a defensive coordinator eat Morton’s lunch is bothering me. We can still out talent a lot of teams, but the fact we are a team loaded on offense and can’t seem to find a way to make plays, it’s bothersome. The penalties are a sign that things aren’t crisp. I think Morton’s basically trying to call Ben’s plays, but he doesn’t have Ben’s “why” on why certain plays were called.
The OL issues don’t help either of course. Now it gets even worse with the injuries. One thing that is truly scary, I haven’t seen anyone post Decker’s comments about his shoulder. A reporter asked Decker how his knee was since it got hurt during the game. Decker said he is taking so many things for his shoulder, he doesn’t even know if his knee is hurt. That’s terrifying to me. We are being held together by ace bandages and medication right now.
It is, even against bad teams you still want to see big plays. The Bengals game was the equivilant of stat padding though. That team is truly coming apart at the seams. The defense is in a full scale mutiny, and the offense is now fighting with the defense, and I can’t blame them. They drafted Shemar Stewart in the first to help and eventually replace Trey, fought with him over contract in preseason, and he’s been completely invisible. It’s a disaster there.
Ben has more creativity in his pinky finger than Morton does in his whole body.
Ben also has more discipline in his little toe. There’s a reason only one of them is fit.
That’s true. Ben has grown into position quickly, after vibing like a feckless, tone-deaf jerk in his initial public appearances. Since then, from my distant perch, he’s preached a message of precision and been blessed with a little luck, so he and the team are vibing like Harmonic Convergence was supposed to. Good for them.
To say the QB play has been bad is a bit excessive. You make some good points and accuracy has been an issue but you always let your personal bias get in the way sometimes. The Bears are 10th in passing offense this year. How is that an indication of bad QB play?
Teams like the Jets, Panthers, Browns have bad QB play.
DJ Moore threw a TD to Caleb Williams on Sunday.
We could have used some of that on Sunday.
And…
John Morton has more football knowledge in his pinky toe than @janedoe.
A true sign of knowledge is knowing what one doesn’t know.
Why are we ignoring that the Bengals just lost to the Jets and to some extent probably gave up on their season and went into apathy mode?
Certainly on defense where they kind of sucked to begin with.
Ben is a good coach. He was when huge swaths thought he sucked a month ago. But so is Dan and I’m not trading our coach for anyone.
Bengals have a historically bad defense. I think they have given up well over 500 yards rushing the last 2 weeks. It’s truly one of the all time worst defenses.
This board is pretty gross right now. And I think it’s far more vitriolic and blame casting oriented than after the Packers game. I find that weird. There was so much more uncertainty then. We played a ‘22 Panthers level game. That’s the scenario. It happens. Dan and the guys got this. We have a tremendous amount of evidence that they will respond. So let’s quit chopping down our players and coaches and enjoy the ride. With extreme frequency championship teams have to weather storms. There is upside to this experience even if it causes fans some heartburn