Why Bears players may stop believing offense can be fixed

Bears

Why Bears players may stop believing offense can be fixed

How Matt Nagy can fix the Bears’ offense has been asked time and time again this season, most recently after their loss to the Packers on Sunday night.

The thing is, you don’t want to be looking for an answer to that problem as the calendar nears December.

“I’ve been where Matt’s at. I get what he’s saying,” Dave Wannstedt said Sunday on the Football Aftershow. “The thing that bothers me is ‘we’ve got to figure this thing out.’

“I mean, guys, it’s Week 12. It’s December. Now’s not the time to figure this out, particularly when you’ve been together three years now.”

The Bears lost 41-25 on Sunday but struggled to put points on the board for much of the night. Two of their touchdowns came in the fourth quarter, when the game was essentially out of reach. It’s the latest example this season where the offense hasn’t scored as often as they’d like.

Looking for solutions this late in the season may be more expected from teams under a first-year head coach, especially in 2020. Offseason activities and training camp were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as Wannstedt pointed out.

“But now they’ve all got it together. We know their identity. We know what they are,” he added.

The Bears, on the other hand, are in their third season under Nagy, and the offensive struggles have been a lingering issue.

“The one worry you have is when (Nagy) talks about ‘we gotta fix this,’ is we’ve been hearing that a lot about this offense now,” Olin Kreutz added. “Since Week 14 of 2018 they haven’t been playing good football. We’ve heard a lot from him how ‘I know what it takes. We care, we’re going to fix it.’

“Eventually, guys start not believing that anymore.”