Chicago Bears: 5 changes that must be made before Seahawks game

Get vertical

When Nagy took the job as the Bears’ head coach there were two adjectives that came to mind when thinking of his offensive style — creative and aggressive. Well, we certainly saw the former on display Sunday night, as Nagy featured a variety of formations and packages, which was a stark contrast from what fans saw under John Fox.

However, the offense lacked the aggressiveness you’d expect to see from this offense. This offseason Ryan Pace went out and acquired offensive weapons like Allen Robinson, Trey Burton, Taylor Gabriel, and Anthony Miller to throw swing passes, screen passes and check downs. Except that’s essentially what he did after the opening drive.

It’s even more puzzling considering that following the preseason game against the Denver Broncos, Nagy made it clear that throwing the ball deep, and essentially staying aggressive, was never going to stop. But it did stop against the Packers.

Trubisky averaged a paltry 4.9 yards per pass attempt in the game. That not only isn’t going to cut it, but it’s a tremendous waste of the talent on the field. Last year, when receiving options were below average, those types of plays made sense. But even last year he averaged 6.6 yards per attempt. Compare that to Alex Smith‘s 8.0 yards per pass attempt average last year while Nagy was his offensive coordinator. That was good for second in the league last season.

If this offense, and more importantly, its personnel, are going to be effective, then the offense needs to spread the field and attack vertically. Come Monday night, they need to be taking some shots down the field, or we’ll start to see the safeties creep up towards the line of scrimmage and crowd the short to intermediate range.