A lot went wrong, big and small, in the Bears’ 19-13 loss to the Vikings on Sunday. Of all the unfortunate developments, Justin Fields’ hand injury ranks by far the number one, but there were many other factors in the defeat, such as a failure to capitalize on takeaway opportunities.
On Monday, former Bears head coach Dave Wannstedt addressed the loss on NBC Chicago’s Morning News and shared one thing that bothered him more than anything else: the lack of explosive plays.
“It’s so hard to score points in this league when you only run for three yards and a cloud of dust,” Wannstedt said, alluding to the sluggish running style of offense that dominated the league for years before the great quarterbacks took over . “You have to come up with the big passing game. That’s what the rushing score is all about, and yesterday we were at about three yards per play with the run and pass combined. It should be five, six yards per play.”
The Bears managed to run the ball effectively on Sunday despite missing their top two defenders, Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson. Led by D’Onta Foreman and Darrynton Evans, with some QB scrambles and a few carries from Velus Jones, the Bears carried the ball 36 times for 162 yards. That 4.5 YPC average is great and good enough to keep the offense balanced and ahead. But the Bears only managed two plays where they gained 20 or more yards. These two plays each came in the middle of the scoring and resulted in 10 of the team’s 13 points. During the Bears’ ten remaining drives that did not result in a 20-yard play, the Bears only made it into the red zone once. That led to another three points for the team.
“We did all the basic things,” Wannstedt said. “You start to sound like a broken record when you start saying we can’t have any penalties and we can’t have any turnovers. If you don’t do those two things you have no chance, but the only thing that’s been missing in the last few years is the big games.”
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