3 Bears Whose Stock is Falling After Week 3 Loss to Colts
Through the first three games of 2024, the Chicago Bears are 1-2. This is far from the start anyone imagined when the Bears hired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and drafted quarterback Caleb Williams.
Coming into the season, many people expected the Bears to establish a productive offense and come away with a 2-1 record after the first three weeks. Instead, the complete opposite has happened. Willams and the offense have failed to establish an identity, resulting in just three offensive touchdowns in three games.
Defensively, the Bears have been as advertised. They'd held each opponent to 21 points or less while creating turnovers, with six total takeaways so far this season. The defensive line has performed better than many expected. Through three games, they have seven sacks and 23 quarterback pressures. While more is still desired out of the defensive line this is a good start.
Although the defense has excelled, there is plenty of blame to go around for the Bears' 1-2 start to the season. With that in mind, here are three players whose stock has fallen after the week three loss to the Colts:
1. Offensive Coordinator Shane Waldron
Hopes were high when the Bears hired Shane Waldron to be their offensive coordinator in February. Waldron had just helped Geno Smith revive his career with the Seattle Seahawks, a team that had offensive firepower similar to what the Bears were about to acquire before the start of the season.
While not much stock can be put into preseason performance since everything is vanilla, the Bears' offense looked good under Waldron. This instilled confidence that the Bears might actually have a competent offense in 2024.
Sadly, the preseason success looks to be a ruse three weeks into the season. Waldron's offense seems to lack the ability to build plays off of each other. Through three weeks, there have been too many deep pass concepts on all downs. While attacking deep is important, it needs to be built up through the short and intermediate game. If deep routes are the only thing that's being run, teams will easily stop them as they have been doing.
Waldron also seems to love screen passes, like previous offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. While having an effective screen game can be a boost, it shouldn't be the main component of a passing attack. Waldron doesn't seem to understand that. Even if the last three screens failed, he will call another one.
Waldron's run game has also been ineffective. Unlike the passing game, the failure on the ground isn't all on him as the Bears' offensive line hasn't had the best run blocking. However, Waldron does have control of what running back is in on what plays so he could change personnel.