3 ways to fix the Bears after ugly loss to Saints

It was a tough loss for the Chicago Bears on Sunday evening against the New Orleans Saints. Here are three ways to fix the now-broken Bears going forward.

In a game that many in Chicagoland thought the Chicago Bears could win, they were pushed around all afternoon against the New Orleans Saints in Week 7. Though the score may indicate otherwise, the Bears were completely outclassed versus the Saints, falling 36-25 to Teddy Bridgewater’s team. The Bears now find themselves at 3-3 on the year.

This was a game that the Bears needed to have coming off their Week 6 bye, as they lost in London to the Oakland Raiders two weeks ago at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. As long as the archrival Green Bay Packers keep on winning, the Bears need to fix their problems fast.

Here are three ways that the Bears can get right in the coming weeks to save their season, as it is quickly falling away from them.

Exercise some sort of semblance of balance on offense

The most glaring stat about the Bears’ loss to the Saints on Sunday was how unbelievably unbalanced the play-calling was by Matt Nagy’s team. Chicago had 61 offensive plays and 54 times was quarterback Mitchell Trubisky asked to drop back and pass. The Bears ran the ball only seven times.

Unless you have Dan Marino as your starting quarterback, you’re not going to win games if you ask your signal-caller to throw it over 50 times. Marino had one of the greatest arms the NFL has ever seen. Trubisky doesn’t have a gun even remotely comparable to Jay Cutler, so why are you asking the raw passer to sling it 54 times?

Tarik Cohen had three carries. David Montgomery had two. Cordarrelle Patterson had a rushing attempt and so did Anthony Miller. When the Washington State Cougars run the ball more often than you, you’re probably not going to win. Chicago’s offensive game plan cannot be this grossly lopsided if the Bears want to even think about beating teams that are NFC playoff contenders.

Commit to stopping the run and not live and die by the pass rush

We all know about the vaunted Bears pass rush. That’s great and all, but Chicago got ran over by Latavius Murray on Sunday. Murray had 27 carries for 119 yards and two trips to paydirt filling in for the injured Alvin Kamara. New Orleans had 35 carries for 141 yards in their win over Chicago.

Simply put, the Bears defense didn’t prioritize Murray as a runner in this game. That falls on Chicago defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano. While Murray isn’t Kamara, he is more than capable of rushing for over 100 yards and two touchdowns in a game a few times a year. This was one of those days that has given Murray tremendous staying power in the NFL.

Chicago has more talent in its front-seven than most NFL teams can even dream about. Yet, they got run over in a game they needed to win to keep pace in the ultra-competitive NFC North. If you live by the pass rush, you will die by the pass rush. The defense sacked Teddy Bridgewater only once. This is the result the Bears defense did not want in the slightest.

Devise a game plan to help Mitchell Trubisky succeed or replace him

Of course, we had to talk about Trubisky in this game. He’ll get a ton of flak for his performance in the Bears’ latest defeat. However, was letting the Bears’ signal-caller throw it over 50 times ever going to be a good idea? Nagy has to do a better job of putting his quarterback in a position to succeed.

But what position is that? Chicago would be an NFC North leader if they got better quarterback play out of Trubisky. This wasn’t a bad performance out of him, as he completed 34 of 54 passes for 251 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. However, he averaged an awful 4.6 yards per attempt. You can’t win that way with a dink-and-dunk passing game.

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In his third year out of North Carolina, the former No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft has to start playing up to those lofty expectations. Trubisky may not have asked for this but he can orchestrate a pop-gun offense for Nagy and beat a great team like the Saints. Either devise a game plan that will help Trubisky or find a replacement who can do what Nagy wants.