Rozner: Plenty of blame for Bears to spread around
This just in, still not Mitch Trubisky's fault.
"We look at it as a whole unit," Bears coach Matt Nagy said Monday. "You go back and look at (Sunday's) game and I'll just tell ya, offensively there's a lot more than just one person, just to keep it really, really simple."
In other words, the passes Trubisky missed? Forget about those plays. The coach is telling you the offensive line was bad, the running backs were bad and the receivers were bad.
And there's certainly truth in that, but whatever you do, don't blame the quarterback.
"Mitch knows and I know and we all know, it goes to him. He gets it," Nagy said. "There's a lot of people involved here that we really believe in that … it didn't happen (for them Sunday)."
So they know everyone picks on the quarterback, but they also know it's not about the quarterback, the most important position in football.
Trubisky gets it.
One can imagine Nagy sitting with Trubisky and telling him that it's not his fault, in a Robin Williams, Matt Damon, "Good Will Hunting" sort of way.
What choice does Nagy have?
The franchise bet everything on Trubisky, so the head coach - who was brought here to make the QB a superstar - has to prop him up and make him feel good.
He has to keep trying. He has not been given a choice or another answer.
It's funny because you listen to veteran quarterbacks after they lose games and often they take the blame.
Trubisky frequently finds someone else to point a finger at, occasionally receivers running the wrong route, and after Sunday's loss to Philadelphia Trubisky mentioned the offensive line.
"First play, not moving the line of scrimmage, not getting the positive play and that hurts when you are second and long," Trubisky said of their first-half struggles. "You'd like to set the tempo early on in the game, moving the line of scrimmage, creating holes."
Got it. The offensive line.
"And then on third down it was man (coverage) across the board. We didn't make a play and they did," said Trubisky. "We just have to come out better. We have to come out faster. We have to come out with a different attitude, kind of like we did in the second half with a little chip on our shoulder.
"I think if we start the game like that we give ourselves a better chance, but right now we aren't giving ourselves a chance."
Fine, but it didn't happen quite how Trubisky remembered it.
As the Bears went 3-and-out five straight times to open the game, first down on the five drives went as follows:
• David Montgomery run for 4 yards.
• Sack for minus-4.
• Montgomery run for 3, which was called back on a Cordarrelle Patterson hold, and followed by a Montgomery run for 8 yards on first-and-20.
• Adam Shaheen false start, followed by a Montgomery run for no gain on first-and-15.
• Incomplete pass.
One solid run, two pass plays and two runs after penalties. That's not all about moving the line of scrimmage, and the two penalties weren't on linemen.
Meanwhile, Trubisky was 0-for-8 on the day when attempting to convert a third-down pass attempt.
There's no doubt the offensive line is a disaster, but there are still throws to be made and first downs to pick up if Trubisky can do his job.
Good NFL quarterbacks with bad lines make plays every Sunday, but Trubisky didn't again Sunday, according to Next Gen Stats, which gave him a minus-21 completion percentage over expectation, the worst by any qualifying quarterback this season.
And he's still not getting enough help from Nagy, who quits on the run so quickly starting a game or a series, as if a single rush play is all he must witness to begin throwing it around the field again.
"Just really, really sloppy. Extremely sloppy," Nagy said of the first-half offense. "I don't know how many drives there were in (the first half), but I feel like a lot of them were negative plays on first down."
Well, the sack was negative, the incomplete pass wasn't great and a pair of infractions hurt.
"If you think you're going to do that coming into a place like this with the defense that they have and that front line, you're not going to be in good shape," Nagy said. "That's what happened and the result showed it. The score felt a lot worse than what it was, so we just have to be better."
Have to be better. Have to look at film. Have to execute. Have to run the ball. Have to be ahead of the sticks.
Maybe you've heard this before.