advertisement

Bears need return to offensive balance

As the Bears begin preparations for the playoffs, their curious offensive play-calling in Sunday's loss at Green Bay should remind them of the formula they used to win seven of eight games before the regular-season finale.

The symmetry between run and pass that helped produce a 7-1 record after the bye was nowhere to be found at Lambeau Field, and a similar imbalance could make the Bears' postseason a short one.

In the eight games after their bye at the end of October, the Bears were the only NFL team that had more run plays than pass plays.

But they inexplicably abandoned that strategy against the Packers as Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz called for 47 passes and 18 runs.

Cutler threw 39 passes, was sacked six times and ran twice when chased from the pocket.

That's similar to the ratio the Bears used in back-to-back home losses to Seattle and Washington just before the break, during which Martz and Co. made a commitment to the ground game that fueled the run to the playoffs.

Cutler was sacked 10 times in those 2 losses and threw 4 interceptions with just 1 TD pass.

Going pass heavy against the Packers made even less sense because the Bears were having success running the ball in the first half, even though they didn't do it much.

After averaging 7.2 yards on nine running plays in the first half, Martz called just nine more in the second half, which produced 37 yards. There also were 2 Jay Cutler runs for 8 yards on designed pass plays.

“Offensively, I like the way we ran the football,” coach Lovie Smith said. “We see going into the playoffs that you have to rely on the run. There will be times when you'll have to be able to run the football or just want to run the football, and we see that we can do that.”

So why not run it more?

Instead the Bears tried unsuccessfully to force the ball to their wide receivers. Cutler threw 13 passes to Devin Hester and Johnny Knox that produced a total of 1 catch for 16 yards. Both of Cutler's interceptions came on passes intended for Hester and Knox.

“Passing-game wise, we know that we have weapons, and we can pass the football when we want to pass the football in the playoffs,” Smith said.

That absolutely wasn't true against the Packers. The only thing the Bears proved Sunday is that their wide receivers can be taken out of the game by quality cornerbacks, especially when Cutler is pressured.

Smith admitted that the inability to protect Cutler was a problem.

“I think it's a concern every time you give up a sack,” Smith said. “That's a little bit too much pressure on our quarterback. (There were) a lot of reasons for that.”

One major reason was that the Packers didn't have to worry about stopping the run.

New England did the same thing when it jumped to an early lead in Week 14, forced the Bears to throw, and limited Knox and Hester to 4 catches for 33 yards.

Asked about the lopsided pass-run ratio vs. the Packers, Smith mentioned the final, futile drive when, with time running out, 13 straight pass plays were called.

But even before that, the Bears had called 34 pass plays and 18 runs, which defies logic, considering that they averaged 5.5 yards on run plays that didn't involve Cutler scrambles.

On their 45 pass plays, not counting Cutler's 2 runs, the Bears managed a total of just 117 yards, an average of 2.6 yards per play.

That's hardly a formula for playoff success.

•Follow Bob LeGere's Bears reports via Twitter@BobLeGere. Check out his blog, Bear Essentials, at dailyherald.com.

Bears, fans should have two words for Tice: Thank you

Experience at Lambeau Field could help Bears in playoffs