How the Bears’ running game broke Philadelphia

A fun part of the Black Friday win in Philadelphia was how the reaction of Eagles fans told a story all its own.

Philly fans are always going to be grumpy coming off a loss to Dallas — that's a trait that goes back decades — let alone when their team squanders a 21-0 lead. Before that, the Eagles scored just 16 and 10 points in a pair of victories over Detroit and Green Bay.

Clearly, there was angst about the Eagles offense and the performance of quarterback Jalen Hurts. Fans groaned at every throw that landed in the grass. They practically rushed the field in celebration when Hurts had a nice gain on a designed QB run.

Six-time Pro Bowl tackle Lane Johnson has missed the last two games with a foot injury, and the Eagles offense has struggled for four, so maybe it's not all due to his absence. But this game was probably not a special effort by the Bears defense.

It was nice to have Jaylon Johnson on the field for the first time since Week 2, and Kyler Gordon for the first time since Week 6, but they're coming along slowly. Johnson played 61% of the defensive snaps and Gordon 67%, while C.J. Gardner-Johnson never came off the field.

This is kind of obvious, but the true story of this victory was the museum-quality run game by the Bears offense. Their rushing attack was better choreographed than the average Mummers Parade (it's a weird Philly thing, look it up.)

Because D'Andre Swift grew up in Philly and Kyle Monangai in New Jersey, the Bears had both sides of the Delaware River covered. George Washington and Rocky Balboa would be proud.

Run to daylight

Ben Johnson and staff are doing a masterful job manipulating defenses. The initial play of the Bears' second drive (which ended in a touchdown) was a Monangai 17-yard run. It demonstrated how the Bears have put together a successful blend of scheme and execution, so let's break it down:

The Eagles were lined up in a straight 4-3, so the first thing the Bears did was send Cole Kmet in motion, which caused the linebackers to slide with him. Eagles linebacker Zach Baun basically vacated the cutback zone.

At the snap, the Bears ran a split-zone scheme, where the offensive line (plus Kmet) flowed to its left, getting double-teams on three of the Philadelphia defensive linemen.

Then came an interesting twist. On split zone, most teams send a tight end across the formation to try to clear out the unblocked defensive end. On this play, it was D.J. Moore who made a beeline for defensive end Jaelan Phillips. But instead of blocking him, Moore brushed past Phillips, then kept running, pretending he was about to catch a pass off the fake bootleg action by Caleb Williams.

The move didn't fool Phillips, though it held him up enough that he couldn't get to Monangai. But Moore's fake fooled the heck out of safety Reed Blankenship. He sprinted outside to cover Moore, so when Monangai cut back and crossed the line of scrimmage, Baun was caught in the wash and Blankenship was nowhere to be found. Rome Odunze added a nice block on the corner.

Gonna run now

The Bears are using a variety of run-block schemes. Swift's 23-yard run a few plays later was more of an inside zone, with Kmet blocking a defensive tackle. On Swift's 3-yard TD, Durham Smythe blocked Jalen Carter, while receiver Luther Burden cleared out Blankenship at the goal line.

They used the fake bootleg action to strong effect all day. The Bears’ third offensive drive began with a 17-yard Swift run. Two Eagles followed Williams as he rolled out without the ball, while another mirrored receiver Olamide Zaccheaus in motion, straight out of harm's way.

It takes a village to create room to run.

In recent weeks, the Bears have had trouble dealing with big, talented defensive tackles. They neutralized Carter in this game, utilizing plenty of double-teams, but also got it done with single blocking at times.

Quick hitters

One interesting sidebar to Nahshon Wright's forced fumble on an attempted “tush push” by Hurts is the New York Giants pulled off a very similar play a few weeks ago against the Eagles, but officials ruled Hurts' forward progress was already stopped (it wasn't). The Giants ended up firing their coach, while the Bears are No. 1 in the NFC. Luck does play a part. …

Maybe the pass game didn't look great Friday. Remember last week we mentioned Wright ranked fourth among NFL corners with at least 60 targets in opponent passer rating? He's now fifth, but Philadelphia's Quinyon Mitchell is first in that category. Why throw when the run is open?