Purple Path Forward - Week 5: "Take It on the Run, Baby"
"Heard it from a friend who,
heard it from a friend who,
heard it from another you've been messin' around...
...you're under the gun, now you take it on the run..."
If you're a Generation X'er or Baby Boomer, then there's a good chance you know what song those lyrics belong to 1981's" Take it on the Run" by REO Speedwagon - a rock band formed in the late '60s in Champaign, Illinois, which is Chicago Bears country....the team the Vikings face in Week 5.
And while that hit song is about a failed relationship, it also became this week's inspiration and gameplan for a variety of reasons, not the least of which refers to the "relationship" Vikings fans have had with the team. Yeah, they were "messin' around" on Love Boats and they've "failed" to win a Super Bowl....but right now they're 3-1...and on top of the NFC North...and they're takin' another Divisional win this weekend, baby, and they're gonna "take it on the run"!
For all you Generation X'ers and Baby Boomers, get out your Trapper Keepers and take notes on how exactly we're gonna do that in this week's edition of Purple Path Forward...
...everyone else?
The 2022 Chicago Bears: "They are who we thought they were"
Before we get to how we beat the Bears, we have to understand who the Bears are, and quite frankly, the late Dennis Green said it better than you or I could ever say it:
If you thought the 2022 Bears - under first-time head coach Matt Eberflus and second-year QB Justin Fields - were a team that still can't develop a QB to save their life and win primarily through running the ball on offense, while playing solid pass/red zone defense (something you can cut-n-paste to describe every Bears team that ever existed), we'll "crown" ya.
If you didn't think that? Well, unlike Denny, we'll "let 'ya off the hook", and provide the 2022 statistics below to visually show you, courtesy of the USA Today Bearswire site (link):
Beyond those, here are a few additional statistics that I gathered after doing my best Leslie impersonation of "reviewing the tape" of 2022 Bears games:
- Fields has the 3rd most rushing attempts of any QB thru 4 weeks at 34, with only Hurts (51) and L Jackson (37) with more.
- The Bears have not allowed a 2nd half TD all season, a credit to defensive-minded HC Matt Eberflus and their halftime adjustments.
Hmmm...a top-five rushing offense with a QB that rushes a bunch...a top-five passing defense that doesn't allow teams to score in the Red Zone or in the 2nd half. Wait, haven't the Vikings given up the 10th most rushing yards so far? And hasn't 984, or 72%, of the teams total offensive yard total of 1,376 come through the air? And didn't we have trouble in the Red Zone against the Saints getting TDs? And haven't the Vikings been a 2nd half team - really a 4th qtr team - the past two weeks?
Are we sure that Vegas got the line right for this game with the Vikings -7.5?
"Ok, Ok Coach..simmer down...if you knew who they were, then why didn't you stop 'em?"
Good question, and I'll give 'ya four reasons why we don't have to:
1) The Bears stop themselves. Wanna know which team has run the third-fewest No. of offensive plays at 227 and has the seventh-shortest avg drive time at 2:29 per drive? That one was easy. Here's a tougher one: ever hear of Braxton Jones? Sam Mustipher? Lucas Patrick? Larry Borom? No? Me neither, until I actually watched some 2022 Chicago tape. They are some of the starters along the Bears' OL this season and are primarily responsible for the Bears having the third-most enforced false start penalties (7) through Week 4. That, combined with rookie LT Braxton Jones allowing 11 pressures and 4 sacks through four games will stop any positive drives in their tracks.
2) Costly Turnovers. The Bears have a net turnover differential of 0 through four weeks, which by itself isn't exactly horrible; Coach Eberflus is continuing the long tradition of a Bears Defense doing the Peanut Tillman "punch" and thriving off turnovers, but it's been the giveaways that have been costly. The Bears have turned it over seven times, but four of those have come in the 2nd half and three of the four in the 4th quarter. They're in "rebuild mode" with youth at key positions, and with that comes costly mistakes in the clutch.
3) Justin Fields: Effective runner, or running for his life? Remember when I mentioned earlier that Fields has the third-most rushing attempts of any NFL QB through four weeks? While that's true and Fields is very athletic/effective in the open field, here's where I put that into a bit of context. Fields has 146 rushing yards on those 34 attempts, and all but 133 of those yards came on scrambles. What that means is that the Bears offense, under former Packers QB coach Luke Getsy and former Vikings QB coach Andrew Janocko, isn't designing runs for Fields in the same way the Bills, Ravens, Giants, and Eagles do for their athletic starting QBs, and Fields often picks up those yards when he had no other option. Or, because his ability to read a defense pre/post snap isn't where it should be yet, he's bailing on clean pockets when his first read isn't there. Or, and more closely associated with reason No. 1, he has an inexperienced OL in front of him that doesn't give him clean pockets, and he's having to scramble around and run for his life.
4) They don't stop anybody else. Yes, having the third-best rushing offense has certainly helped the Bears to victories in a sloppy Soldier Field during Week 1 against the 49ers and a Texans team that ranks second-worst in rushing defense in Week 3. But you have to stop the opposing team once in a while, too, and even though the Texans have the league's second-worst rushing defense, guess who's the worst? Even though they are a strong rushing team themselves, the Bears have been outgained on the ground in three of their four matchups so far and six of the eight TDs they've allowed this season have come on rushes (the actual number is five of eight, but I'm counting an Aaron Rodgers forward "toss" TD to Aaron Jones as a rush).
And on that last point, we circle back to the Purple Path Forward gameplan for this Week 5 divisional matchup against the Bears...
"Take it on the run..."
With all the hype on Justin Jefferson breaking receiving records and Irv Smith Jr. "breaking out" in Year 4, the focal point, at least for this week vs the Bears, is focusing on another statistic: that Chicago remains the worst rush defense in the league AFTER Week 5.
But how? Haven't we been continuing to see Dalvin run into brick walls a bunch on early downs, which is causing us to get into more 3rd-and-long situations than necessary? Yes, we have, because, quite frankly, our play-calling and the blocking schemes have been lazy...
Case in point: in the Week 4 game vs the Saints, the Vikings' defense stopped the Saints opening 3rd quarter drive and received the ball up 13-7, hoping to start putting nails in the Saints' coffin with a long TD drive. Then on 1st & 10, we line up Cook behind Ham with a TE (Ellefson) on the right side:
What happens? Well, it's a straight hand-off to Cook to the right side with no misdirection, no pre-snap motion, and no pulling OL - it's straight-up power football (almost like we had Adrian Peterson back there) and you already know what happens without me captioning it: Bradbury and Ellefson get driven into the backfield, and Cook tries to follow through Ham between those two, but both the Saints DL easily get off those blocks and blow up that play for a 1-yd gain:
On 2nd down, Cousins misfires to Jefferson and all of a the sudden, we're 3rd and long, which has been trouble for this team recently. In the above pic, you'd like to think Cook could bounce that outside to the right (outside of Ellefson) if he initially sees some OL are getting pushed back in the backfield, but I'm not sure Cook has that "step" in his game anymore - to bounce things out on a dime and have enough speed to get around the edge.
So what's the solution? How do we have the success against the Bears' 32nd-ranked rushing defense that their opponents have had so far?
Glad you asked...because, well, I spent time watching the Bears' opponents and although the rushers they faced were different than the Vikings (mish-mish of Deebo, Elijah Mitchell, Jeff Wilson, Trey Lance in Week 1, Aaron Jones/A.J. Dillon in Week 2, Dameon Pierce in Week 3 and Saquon Barkley/Daniel Jones in Week 4), there have been a few holes in that Swiss-cheese Bears rush defense that have looked familiar across those four games...
One of those similarities has been pulling the OL. Intead of going toe-to-toe with Eberflus's patented 4-3 defense, all four Bear opponents were able to have a level of success rushing the football when OL have pulled around, created lanes/double-blocks, etc, and the RB followed behind that to get to the second level.
In this example from the Week 3 game vs Houston, you have the Texans set up 1st & 10 from the Chicago 41 after a Bears punt and nice return by the Texas returner. They start out with RB Dameon Pierce in the backfield with their FB with a TE to the right side, and two WR to the left:
When the ball is snapped, the center (No. 54 Scott Quessenberry) and RG (No. 60 AJ Cann) pull to the right side, and while everyone else creates a clogged-up wall to the left, Cann takes care of the RDE, and Pierce has a clear lane to run behind not just the FB, but the center to the second level:
The result of this play was Pierce getting all the way down to the Chicago 17 yd line (I believe his longest rush of the game), which eventually led to a Texans TD and them taking a 14-10 lead midway through the 2nd quarter on the road.
Another example is just the infamous McVay presnap motion/cutback run. How many times during the Zimmer era did teams use this against his 4-3 and Barr/Kendricks were out of position every time and never maintained that gap discipline? The Packers were driving the ball midway through the 2nd Qtr in Week 2 already up 10-7 and were looking to start pulling away from Chicago, who was fairly competitive at this point. But after a few plays, LaFleur dialed up the McVay pre-snap cutback run about four to five times in a row, Chicago did nothing to adjust, and the Packers ended up eventually scoring a TD to go up by ten and it essentially was the beginning of the end for the Bears on SNF.
We've seen this action many, many times before...11 personnel with one RB, one TE and three WR. The WR farthest out goes in motion pre-snap from right-to-left to draw the attention of the defense to the left...
...the ball is snapped and the OL block to the left while the QB hands the ball off to the RB, who immediately cuts back to the right, and the defense is wide open to get to the second level, with the lone WR to the right and the RT to help block downfield:
Eberflus, like Zimmer (2018-2021 era, after McVay started really hammering this run in his inaugural 2017 season), did not make any adjustments and Rodgers/LaFleur ran tempo here to just drive this run home till the cows came home...
How to beat the Bears
This isn't rocket science. The Bears are exactly who we think they are: a young team that makes mistakes, relies on running the ball well, but also gives up more ground to the opposing team than they get.
On offense, O'Connell, Wes Phillips and Cousins do not need to overthink this by trying to scheme Justin Jefferson open like Cooper Kupp: the Bears have a solid secondary with some young, up-and-coming players in Jaylon Johnson, Jaquan Brisker, and Kyler Gordon. Yes, Gordon is a rookie and can be beaten off the line and while you take that when it's there, you also ensure you are mixing in rushing plays against the porous Bears rush defense. And not just straight hand-offs to brick walls, either: O'Connell and OL coach Chris Kuper need to ensure they draw up the proper McVay/Shanahan runs (by mixing in the pre-snap motion/cutbacks, with the pulling OL runs) to keep Eberflus guessing which way the ball is going. The only thing I didn't mention from the game footage was that Chicago's "youth" on defense is also susceptible to another age 'ol football 101 defensive "no-no": they don't set the edge very well. Green Bay in Week 2 and especially the Giants in Week 4 exploited the Bears' DEs/LBs failing to set an edge and Aaron Jones and especially Daniel Jones were able to easily turn the corner to miles and miles of daylight ahead of them - heck, Daniel Jones' two TD runs were both exactly that: the Bears failing to set the edge on a bootleg. How can the Vikings exploit that without a mobile QB, you might ask? We have some speedy wideouts and we've seen a sprinkling of success on jet sweeps already this season.
On defense, I know we're all begging for more QB pressure, but I do feel the gameplan should somewhat try to emulate the Week 1 approach against the Packers, who had a weak OL (especially at OT) and we feasted off of that. The Bears' OL is a true work-in-progress at this point, and Hunter/Z Smith should be able to have the same level of success they did at home vs the Packers. What Donatell could do is bring Harrison Smith down in the box a bunch more this game - especially early on - to try and stop the Bears' rushing attack and put pressure on Fields to beat us with his arm from the pocket, which he has not shown he has the ability to do with any consistency.
"Take It on the Run"...it might be considered "classic rock" at this point, but everything that once was old always comes back in-style at some point, and when it comes to the Purple Path Forward in Week 5, we don't need to be "messin' around"...
Even Daniel and Johnny can agree on that...
heard it from a friend who,
heard it from another you've been messin' around...
...you're under the gun, now you take it on the run..."
If you're a Generation X'er or Baby Boomer, then there's a good chance you know what song those lyrics belong to 1981's" Take it on the Run" by REO Speedwagon - a rock band formed in the late '60s in Champaign, Illinois, which is Chicago Bears country....the team the Vikings face in Week 5.
And while that hit song is about a failed relationship, it also became this week's inspiration and gameplan for a variety of reasons, not the least of which refers to the "relationship" Vikings fans have had with the team. Yeah, they were "messin' around" on Love Boats and they've "failed" to win a Super Bowl....but right now they're 3-1...and on top of the NFC North...and they're takin' another Divisional win this weekend, baby, and they're gonna "take it on the run"!
For all you Generation X'ers and Baby Boomers, get out your Trapper Keepers and take notes on how exactly we're gonna do that in this week's edition of Purple Path Forward...
...everyone else?
The 2022 Chicago Bears: "They are who we thought they were"
Before we get to how we beat the Bears, we have to understand who the Bears are, and quite frankly, the late Dennis Green said it better than you or I could ever say it:
If you thought the 2022 Bears - under first-time head coach Matt Eberflus and second-year QB Justin Fields - were a team that still can't develop a QB to save their life and win primarily through running the ball on offense, while playing solid pass/red zone defense (something you can cut-n-paste to describe every Bears team that ever existed), we'll "crown" ya.
If you didn't think that? Well, unlike Denny, we'll "let 'ya off the hook", and provide the 2022 statistics below to visually show you, courtesy of the USA Today Bearswire site (link):
Beyond those, here are a few additional statistics that I gathered after doing my best Leslie impersonation of "reviewing the tape" of 2022 Bears games:
- Fields has the 3rd most rushing attempts of any QB thru 4 weeks at 34, with only Hurts (51) and L Jackson (37) with more.
- The Bears have not allowed a 2nd half TD all season, a credit to defensive-minded HC Matt Eberflus and their halftime adjustments.
Hmmm...a top-five rushing offense with a QB that rushes a bunch...a top-five passing defense that doesn't allow teams to score in the Red Zone or in the 2nd half. Wait, haven't the Vikings given up the 10th most rushing yards so far? And hasn't 984, or 72%, of the teams total offensive yard total of 1,376 come through the air? And didn't we have trouble in the Red Zone against the Saints getting TDs? And haven't the Vikings been a 2nd half team - really a 4th qtr team - the past two weeks?
Are we sure that Vegas got the line right for this game with the Vikings -7.5?
"Ok, Ok Coach..simmer down...if you knew who they were, then why didn't you stop 'em?"
Good question, and I'll give 'ya four reasons why we don't have to:
1) The Bears stop themselves. Wanna know which team has run the third-fewest No. of offensive plays at 227 and has the seventh-shortest avg drive time at 2:29 per drive? That one was easy. Here's a tougher one: ever hear of Braxton Jones? Sam Mustipher? Lucas Patrick? Larry Borom? No? Me neither, until I actually watched some 2022 Chicago tape. They are some of the starters along the Bears' OL this season and are primarily responsible for the Bears having the third-most enforced false start penalties (7) through Week 4. That, combined with rookie LT Braxton Jones allowing 11 pressures and 4 sacks through four games will stop any positive drives in their tracks.
2) Costly Turnovers. The Bears have a net turnover differential of 0 through four weeks, which by itself isn't exactly horrible; Coach Eberflus is continuing the long tradition of a Bears Defense doing the Peanut Tillman "punch" and thriving off turnovers, but it's been the giveaways that have been costly. The Bears have turned it over seven times, but four of those have come in the 2nd half and three of the four in the 4th quarter. They're in "rebuild mode" with youth at key positions, and with that comes costly mistakes in the clutch.
3) Justin Fields: Effective runner, or running for his life? Remember when I mentioned earlier that Fields has the third-most rushing attempts of any NFL QB through four weeks? While that's true and Fields is very athletic/effective in the open field, here's where I put that into a bit of context. Fields has 146 rushing yards on those 34 attempts, and all but 133 of those yards came on scrambles. What that means is that the Bears offense, under former Packers QB coach Luke Getsy and former Vikings QB coach Andrew Janocko, isn't designing runs for Fields in the same way the Bills, Ravens, Giants, and Eagles do for their athletic starting QBs, and Fields often picks up those yards when he had no other option. Or, because his ability to read a defense pre/post snap isn't where it should be yet, he's bailing on clean pockets when his first read isn't there. Or, and more closely associated with reason No. 1, he has an inexperienced OL in front of him that doesn't give him clean pockets, and he's having to scramble around and run for his life.
4) They don't stop anybody else. Yes, having the third-best rushing offense has certainly helped the Bears to victories in a sloppy Soldier Field during Week 1 against the 49ers and a Texans team that ranks second-worst in rushing defense in Week 3. But you have to stop the opposing team once in a while, too, and even though the Texans have the league's second-worst rushing defense, guess who's the worst? Even though they are a strong rushing team themselves, the Bears have been outgained on the ground in three of their four matchups so far and six of the eight TDs they've allowed this season have come on rushes (the actual number is five of eight, but I'm counting an Aaron Rodgers forward "toss" TD to Aaron Jones as a rush).
And on that last point, we circle back to the Purple Path Forward gameplan for this Week 5 divisional matchup against the Bears...
"Take it on the run..."
With all the hype on Justin Jefferson breaking receiving records and Irv Smith Jr. "breaking out" in Year 4, the focal point, at least for this week vs the Bears, is focusing on another statistic: that Chicago remains the worst rush defense in the league AFTER Week 5.
But how? Haven't we been continuing to see Dalvin run into brick walls a bunch on early downs, which is causing us to get into more 3rd-and-long situations than necessary? Yes, we have, because, quite frankly, our play-calling and the blocking schemes have been lazy...
Case in point: in the Week 4 game vs the Saints, the Vikings' defense stopped the Saints opening 3rd quarter drive and received the ball up 13-7, hoping to start putting nails in the Saints' coffin with a long TD drive. Then on 1st & 10, we line up Cook behind Ham with a TE (Ellefson) on the right side:
What happens? Well, it's a straight hand-off to Cook to the right side with no misdirection, no pre-snap motion, and no pulling OL - it's straight-up power football (almost like we had Adrian Peterson back there) and you already know what happens without me captioning it: Bradbury and Ellefson get driven into the backfield, and Cook tries to follow through Ham between those two, but both the Saints DL easily get off those blocks and blow up that play for a 1-yd gain:
On 2nd down, Cousins misfires to Jefferson and all of a the sudden, we're 3rd and long, which has been trouble for this team recently. In the above pic, you'd like to think Cook could bounce that outside to the right (outside of Ellefson) if he initially sees some OL are getting pushed back in the backfield, but I'm not sure Cook has that "step" in his game anymore - to bounce things out on a dime and have enough speed to get around the edge.
So what's the solution? How do we have the success against the Bears' 32nd-ranked rushing defense that their opponents have had so far?
Glad you asked...because, well, I spent time watching the Bears' opponents and although the rushers they faced were different than the Vikings (mish-mish of Deebo, Elijah Mitchell, Jeff Wilson, Trey Lance in Week 1, Aaron Jones/A.J. Dillon in Week 2, Dameon Pierce in Week 3 and Saquon Barkley/Daniel Jones in Week 4), there have been a few holes in that Swiss-cheese Bears rush defense that have looked familiar across those four games...
One of those similarities has been pulling the OL. Intead of going toe-to-toe with Eberflus's patented 4-3 defense, all four Bear opponents were able to have a level of success rushing the football when OL have pulled around, created lanes/double-blocks, etc, and the RB followed behind that to get to the second level.
In this example from the Week 3 game vs Houston, you have the Texans set up 1st & 10 from the Chicago 41 after a Bears punt and nice return by the Texas returner. They start out with RB Dameon Pierce in the backfield with their FB with a TE to the right side, and two WR to the left:
When the ball is snapped, the center (No. 54 Scott Quessenberry) and RG (No. 60 AJ Cann) pull to the right side, and while everyone else creates a clogged-up wall to the left, Cann takes care of the RDE, and Pierce has a clear lane to run behind not just the FB, but the center to the second level:
The result of this play was Pierce getting all the way down to the Chicago 17 yd line (I believe his longest rush of the game), which eventually led to a Texans TD and them taking a 14-10 lead midway through the 2nd quarter on the road.
Another example is just the infamous McVay presnap motion/cutback run. How many times during the Zimmer era did teams use this against his 4-3 and Barr/Kendricks were out of position every time and never maintained that gap discipline? The Packers were driving the ball midway through the 2nd Qtr in Week 2 already up 10-7 and were looking to start pulling away from Chicago, who was fairly competitive at this point. But after a few plays, LaFleur dialed up the McVay pre-snap cutback run about four to five times in a row, Chicago did nothing to adjust, and the Packers ended up eventually scoring a TD to go up by ten and it essentially was the beginning of the end for the Bears on SNF.
We've seen this action many, many times before...11 personnel with one RB, one TE and three WR. The WR farthest out goes in motion pre-snap from right-to-left to draw the attention of the defense to the left...
...the ball is snapped and the OL block to the left while the QB hands the ball off to the RB, who immediately cuts back to the right, and the defense is wide open to get to the second level, with the lone WR to the right and the RT to help block downfield:
Eberflus, like Zimmer (2018-2021 era, after McVay started really hammering this run in his inaugural 2017 season), did not make any adjustments and Rodgers/LaFleur ran tempo here to just drive this run home till the cows came home...
How to beat the Bears
This isn't rocket science. The Bears are exactly who we think they are: a young team that makes mistakes, relies on running the ball well, but also gives up more ground to the opposing team than they get.
On offense, O'Connell, Wes Phillips and Cousins do not need to overthink this by trying to scheme Justin Jefferson open like Cooper Kupp: the Bears have a solid secondary with some young, up-and-coming players in Jaylon Johnson, Jaquan Brisker, and Kyler Gordon. Yes, Gordon is a rookie and can be beaten off the line and while you take that when it's there, you also ensure you are mixing in rushing plays against the porous Bears rush defense. And not just straight hand-offs to brick walls, either: O'Connell and OL coach Chris Kuper need to ensure they draw up the proper McVay/Shanahan runs (by mixing in the pre-snap motion/cutbacks, with the pulling OL runs) to keep Eberflus guessing which way the ball is going. The only thing I didn't mention from the game footage was that Chicago's "youth" on defense is also susceptible to another age 'ol football 101 defensive "no-no": they don't set the edge very well. Green Bay in Week 2 and especially the Giants in Week 4 exploited the Bears' DEs/LBs failing to set an edge and Aaron Jones and especially Daniel Jones were able to easily turn the corner to miles and miles of daylight ahead of them - heck, Daniel Jones' two TD runs were both exactly that: the Bears failing to set the edge on a bootleg. How can the Vikings exploit that without a mobile QB, you might ask? We have some speedy wideouts and we've seen a sprinkling of success on jet sweeps already this season.
On defense, I know we're all begging for more QB pressure, but I do feel the gameplan should somewhat try to emulate the Week 1 approach against the Packers, who had a weak OL (especially at OT) and we feasted off of that. The Bears' OL is a true work-in-progress at this point, and Hunter/Z Smith should be able to have the same level of success they did at home vs the Packers. What Donatell could do is bring Harrison Smith down in the box a bunch more this game - especially early on - to try and stop the Bears' rushing attack and put pressure on Fields to beat us with his arm from the pocket, which he has not shown he has the ability to do with any consistency.
"Take It on the Run"...it might be considered "classic rock" at this point, but everything that once was old always comes back in-style at some point, and when it comes to the Purple Path Forward in Week 5, we don't need to be "messin' around"...
Even Daniel and Johnny can agree on that...
