A three-game losing streak has the Chicago Bears season feeling anything but special ahead of a date with the Philadelphia Eagles. They don’t figure to make things any easier on the Bears and have a couple of players in particular who would love nothing more than to prolong Chicago’s misery. The Bears have lost four straight to the Eagles.
Week 9 of 2018 saw the Bears sitting at 5-3 and atop their division. Flash forward to Week 9 2019 and those same Bears are sitting in the NFC North basement at 3-4. The way they have been struggling offensively, though, they are lucky to have the record they do. Mitchell Trubisky and head coach Matt Nagy have especially been under fire of late.
Bears Season Anything But Special Ahead of Philly Game
Getting Back on Track
The Bears are still very much alive for a playoff spot despite the feeling of doom and gloom; though it will likely have to come via the Wild Card. They have no room for error with five teams currently ahead of them for a spot in the postseason. The Eagles are one of those teams though; if Chicago is going to turn the year around, it has to start this week.
The concern is that Trubisky will have to win this game for the Bears. Philly is 13th in rushing yards allowed but 26th in passing yards allowed. Furthermore, the Eagles are eighth in rushing yards per attempt but 17th in net yards per pass. They have allowed seven rushing touchdowns (same as the Bears), good for 19th but 16 passing scores; the sixth-most.
Trubisky will still have to play his best ball despite the porosity of the Eagles secondary. They are second in quarterback knockdowns, and are fourth in quarterback hits and passed defended. They are only 15th in sacks with 21 (two more than the Bears) but are fifth in ESPN’s Pass Rush Win Rate metric. The Bears are 15th in Pass Block Win Rate.
If the Bears quarterback is going to have success though he will need time, Philly has faced the ninth-highest average depth of target. Unfortunately, Trubisky’s 7.0 aDOT is 25th in the NFL. He is 2-1 over the last two years in games where he averages over 10 yards per attempt, all last year. The third-year pro hasn’t hit the mark since Week 9 last season.
Just because the best avenue of attack against the Eagles is the air that is no reason for Nagy to ignore his running backs. The Eagles are 27th in catches allowed to running backs and all of the Bears backs are capable receivers. Trubisky would also do well to continue running; Philadelphia is allowing five yards per carry to quarterbacks.
Grounding the Eagles
After giving up 150-plus rushing yards in back-to-back games following Akiem Hicks’ injury, the Bears contained up the Los Angeles Chargers already-struggling ground attack to 36 yards on 12 attempts. Before the game against the Oakland Raiders, though, the Bears shut down the Minnesota Vikings Dalvin Cook who was the NFL’s leading rusher at the time.
Chicago needs that Week 4 energy against Philly. They just trucked the Buffalo Bills for 218 yards on the ground in Week 8. Rookie Miles Sanders had 74 yards on just three carries and added another 44 yards on three catches. Chicago has faced the second-most running back targets so Sanders, who is nursing a shoulder injury, could have a big day.
Former Bear Jordan Howard should figure heavily into the game plan. He had 96 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries against the Bills and is enjoying a bit of a resurgence, after being traded in the off-season, averaging 4.4 yards per carry. He still isn’t much of a threat through the air, though he did have three grabs for 28 yards and a score in Week 4.
Philly’s passing attack has dealt with injuries and inconsistency of late. They’re 21st in yards per game on the season averaging 218 yards. Another former Bear, Alshon Jeffery, is healthy though, and he has stuck it to the Bears. He has 11 catches, 134 yards, and a touchdown in two games; one in the 2017 regular season and the other in last year’s Wild Card.
The Eagles are 19th in Pass Block Win Rate and the Bears 10th in Pass Rush Win Rate. It still won’t be easy to get to Carson Wentz who has been sacked just 16 times. He is only completing 62.1 percent of his passes. But he has thrown for 1,821 yards and 14 touchdowns to only four picks and an additional 129 yards and a touchdown on the ground.
Time is a Flat Circle
Following the Chargers game, it was noted that the Bears have been stuck in their version of Groundhog Day, reliving differing versions of that Wild Card loss. The flaws in the team were evident before that but seem to have been highlighted in that game. Their entire off-season centered around the end of that game but might have missed the boat.
The Bears offense was a work in progress last season but they were capable of chipping in at opportune times to take advantage of short fields gifted to them by the defense. This season they have struggled to move the ball at all, let alone in the red zone. The Eagles have allowed 15 red zone touchdowns but teams have had to earn it; they’re allowing just 3.35 yards per play.
Even there, though, the Bears will need Trubisky to deliver to capitalize. Nine of those 15 touchdowns came via the pass and the Eagles are permitting an 81.9 quarterback rating. Trubisky, though, is completing just under 41 percent of his passes with four touchdowns and two interceptions and a 50.4 quarterback rating.
Under Nagy, the 2017 second-overall pick has completed just over 51 percent of his passes and has a 76.15 quarterback rating with 21 touchdowns and three interceptions in the red zone; driving home how much he has regressed. He has run less this season in general and that includes the red zone where Trubisky only has one carry for one yard.
Nagy has come under as much fire as Trubisky has for his handling of the end of the loss to the Chargers. Even if it falls on Trubisky that the ball wasn’t centered before the latest fateful kick, the coach has to get everyone on the same page. More to the point, his earlier play-calling decisions almost certainly cost the Bears points they needed.
Bears Season Less Than Special So Far
That the Bears missed a kick that would have won the game a week before facing the team that benefitted from the double doink is almost poetic. Chicago’s Week 17 victory over the Vikings is what got the Eagles into the playoffs in the first place. Now Chicago needs to win, in Philly, to keep their playoff hopes alive.
No one in the Bears locker room is throwing in the towel just yet, and they shouldn’t. But they need their head coach and their quarterback to rediscover some of their 2018 magic if they are going to pull off the upset. The Bears season has been anything but special after eight weeks. They’ll have to get out of their comfort zone to get this much-needed win.
Prediction: Going to Philadelphia and getting the win would exorcise a lot of demons, and this is a winnable game. But the Bears lost the benefit of the doubt a while ago. Bears 24 Eagles 26
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