Chicago Bears: 3 ways the offense will change in 2018

1. They’ll be far more unpredictable

Every team wants to maintain a certain level of balance in its playcalling. And if you look at the raw numbers for the Chicago Bears, you might think that they achieved that on the whole.

After all, they threw the ball 54.82% of the time in 2017 compared to running the ball on 45.18% of their plays. That gave them the fifth-lowest discrepancy in pass and run plays in the NFL.

But if you actually watched the Chicago Bears offense take the field, you know better than that.

Run-run-pass, run-run-pass, then throw exclusively when the game is over and you’re in desperation mode. Man, did it seem like the Bears were in desperation mode a lot last year, or what?

Maybe it wouldn’t have ended up that way so often if (among other things) the Bears occasionally mixed in a play that defenses weren’t looking for. Like…throwing on first down sometimes. Or even (gasp) throwing on consecutive plays that weren’t in the fourth quarter or the end of the first half.

Just from the look of it, Nagy won’t duplicate Fox and Loggains’ annoyingly predictable game plans. And the Chicago Bears will be infinitely better for that.

In particular, look for Nagy to open things up more on first downs more frequently than Fox did. We should still expect Jordan Howard to get a steady workload in the backfield, whether out of the eye or out of spread formations, but no longer will every possession result in two runs and a pass.

Case in point: Nagy dials up a chair route to Travis Kelce here against the New York Jets on a first down after a big punt return by Tyreek Hill.

Imagine that: taking the opportunity to go for a big play and step on your opponent’s neck.

Whether it’s mixing in play action or quick-hitting RPO concepts on traditional rushing downs, the Chicago Bears will keep defenses on their toes at all levels of the field