Chicago Bears: 3 surprises from win over Arizona Cardinals

The Bears seemed to think it was against the rules for more than four guys to rush the quarterback. At least they eventually figured it out.

For the first half, maybe the first three quarters, the Bears looked wholly unprepared for any blitz Arizona threw at them. Linebackers and cornerbacks were running freely toward Mitch Trubisky, with his running backs heading out for open pastures that didn’t do much good when Mitchell was swarmed.

That’s not all on them. Trubisky has to anticipate better and either pick up a hot route, call for his backs to pick up someone before heading out to a route, or changing the play altogether. Time and time again he was snowed under and didn’t look like he knew it was coming.

Chicago Bears

That also might have lead to his jumpiness and lack of throwing accuracy on some plays. Perhaps seeing ghosts, Trubisky overthrew a couple open receivers that he either didn’t let get far enough downfield or just wanted to chuck the thing out of the pocket before his innards were feasted upon again.

He didn’t get much help from his coach, Matt Nagy. It took until late in the third quarter for a big screen to Tarik Cohen, and another to Benny Cunningham, to be called to counter the blitz the Cardinals had been bringing all game. Eventually that caused Arizona to at least consider not bringing so much noise for fear of getting burned again.

Trubisky’s awareness was off all game. He missed the Cardinals only having three players covering four receivers at the goal line on one side before throwing a doomed fade to the other side that caused the Bears to settle for three instead of six.

There’s a longer road for Mitch than we thought. Which is ok, it would just be nice if we felt he were moving down it faster than we thought.