After last year's reprieve, Bears offense is back at the bottom

Matt Nagy's Bears offense is worse than Dowell Loggains' Bears offense.

Think about that for a minute, if you dare.

Hired last year to take the offense he'd inherit from the dark ages to the 21st century, and quickly anointed as a savior after some early success fueled largely by the league's best playmaking defense, Nagy's group has fallen on such paltry times that its production now pales to the pathetic unit preceding it.

The Bears rank 29th in the NFL at the halfway point of the 2019 season in yards per game (266.8) and 30th in yards per play (4.5). They're 28th in third-down efficiency (31.4%) and tied for 27th in points (17.8 ppg, including a touchdown apiece on defense and special teams).

In the Bears' worse of two seasons under Loggains, in the year of Mike Glennon 2017, when the veteran built a bridge barely lasting four games to top pick Mitch Trubisky, the offense managed 287.4 yards at a 4.9-yard clip (ranked 30th and tied for 22nd, respectively). It mustered a 34.6% conversion rate on third down (26th), and finished 29th in scoring, averaging 1.62 touchdowns on offense, same as the '19 incarnation.

It's startling and puts the previous regression conversation from last year in a different and sadly even more depressing context. Moreover, it's tough to argue that Trubisky and Tarik Cohen, the top assets on offense drafted by Pace in 2017 and given to Nagy last season, are markedly better.

Trubisky's adjusted yards per attempt is down more than a half-yard (6.1 to 5.5) from the offense that Loggains and Fox ran exclusively with kid gloves. His rushing production also has largely disappeared (20.7 yards per game and 6.0 yards per carry to 6.6 and 4.2, respectively, this season). Trubisky's TD percentage and passer rating are only marginally better, unlike his weapons at the skill spots, which have been immensely upgraded from the group that was led by Kendall Wright, who's been out of the league ever since.

And in their haste to replace Jordan Howard with a feature back who better fit Nagy's offensive identity - what that is remains a total mystery 25 games into his tenure - the Bears apparently broke Cohen, who's averaging 1.2 fewer yards per target than he did as a rookie, never mind during last season's breakout season at 8.0. Cohen had eight combined explosive plays as a runner and receiver as a rookie; he has only two so far this season, or one-third his number of drops.

But as top pick David Montgomery finds his footing, tallying his first 100-rushing yard game and multi-TD outing over the past two weeks, Cohen's reps have nearly been cut in half. He's totaled 32 snaps on offense over the past two games, after at least reaching that number in three of the first five.

Ironically, Howard is the lone member of that 2017 Bears offense clearly in a better place now.

Rest assured, we take no pleasure in any of this, and a quick look at the clown show Jets offense being run by the two play callers who preceded Nagy makes it clear the Bears didn't let the next Bill Walsh or Don Coryell walk out the door.

Still, as the calls grow louder for Nagy to follow them off the Halas Hall premises - which, by the way, we still absolutely cannot imagine happening anytime soon - understand that the Bears offense can't get back to last year's modest improvements before it can return to just being better than Chicago's previous offensive punch line.