The Bears didn’t wait long to start attacking the offseason following a disappointing 2019. Just three days after their last game and one day after firing offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, they hired his replacement in Juan Castillo. He brings a wealth of experience to the role, having filled the same position in Philadelphia under Andy Reid from 1998-2010, in Baltimore from 2013-16, and in Buffalo from 2017-18.

Castillo is expected to be heavily involved in designing and coordinating the run game in Chicago, which will be revamped this offseason after 2 unproductive years under Hiestand and former offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich. Accordingly, I dug into how well run games have fared under Castillo in the 19 years he’s served as an offensive line coach and/or run game coordinator. I did this using DVOA rankings, from Football Outsiders, which are a generally solid all-encompassing metric to evaluate both the rushing and passing production from an offense. The ranks for rushing and passing DVOA can be seen in the table below.

There’s a lot of data to parse through here, and I think you can look at it fairly from both an optimistic and pessimistic viewpoint. Let’s take a brief look at each perspective:

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With five games under their belt, the Bears are roughly 1/3 of the way through the season. I already checked in on the offense, so today let’s take a closer look at how the defense is doing.

No Regression

I wrote this offseason that the Bears’ defense was likely to regress a bit from their 2018 selves but still be one of the best in the NFL. So far this year, you could make the argument that this defense is better in 2019 than it was in 2018, as you can see in the table below.

The Bears are giving up fewer points and getting more sacks than they did a year ago, but the turnovers and touchdowns (the 2018 stats most likely to regress) are both down a bit, which is why their DVOA has fallen so drastically. Still, this remains one of the absolute best units in the NFL, even if they had a thoroughly disappointing showing heading into the bye week. That alone should give the Bears a chance in every game they play.

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With five games under the belt, the Bears are roughly 1/3 of the way through the season. Let’s check in on how they’re doing, starting with the offense.

Explosive Plays

I wrote this offseason about the importance of explosive plays (passes of 20+ yards or runs of 15+ yards) to an offense’s overall success, finding there is a very strong correlation between explosive plays and points scored. Chicago’s offense produced explosive plays at a slightly below-average rate in 2018, and I believed they were poised to improve dramatically in that category this year, and thus improve overall as an offense.

So far, the exact opposite has happened, as you can see in the table below.

The Bears have turned into one of the least explosive offenses in the NFL. They currently have 11 explosive passes and 2 explosive runs, and their current explosive rates would have ranked 31st and 32nd of 32 NFL teams in 2018 (I didn’t have time to compile the numbers for everybody in 2019 so far).

The run game is particularly egregious, as the lowest mark in the NFL last year was 3.1%. 1.7% is not even in the same ballpark. The Bears are 20th in average yards per carry before contact and 29th in yards/carry after contact, but I’m inclined to blame the offensive line more than the runners. Most of the time first contact seems to come not from one player in space, which might give the runner a chance to break a tackle and keep going, but with multiple front 7 players hitting the RB at the same time. It’s worth noting that the Bears’ running backs haven’t been great either though; Player Profiler ranks David Montgomery 36th among running backs in juke rate (evaded/broken tackles per carry), while Tarik Cohen is 55th. In Montgomery’s defense, he is 9th in the NFL in broken tackles per carry, according to Pro Football Reference.

I wrote this offseason that getting rid of Jordan Howard would help Chicago’s run game be more explosive, but so far they’re producing explosive plays on the ground at less than half the rate they did last year. Part of the problem is that Tarik Cohen and Mitchell Trubisky – who combined for 14 explosive runs on 167 carries last year, have no explosive runs so far this year, but David Montgomery only has 1 in his 69 attempts, and that’s far worse than Howard’s rate of 1 every 25 carries last year (which was already one of the worst marks in the NFL).

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It’s been a long offseason, and I’ve covered a lot of ground with a variety of articles. Now that the 2019 season is fast approaching, I’m pretty much finished writing new content, but since I have a hard time remembering everything I’ve researched and shared on here, I thought it might be helpful to re-visit what we learned and see how it relates to the Bears in 2019.

I’m going to try and highlight the most relevant stuff in 1 sentence per article, grouped together by topic. Think of it like a TL;DR for the offseason.

Trubisky

• Trubisky’s playing approach shifted as the season went along, but his overall performance in year 2 puts him in good historical company.
• Trubisky was really good on short stuff in 2018, but really bad throwing the long ball. Also an accompanying film study by Andrew Link.
• Speaking of being bad at the deep ball, nearly half of Trubisky’s 2018 interceptions came from missing open receivers on deep throws.
• These misses also accounted for a number of interceptions against zone defense, but otherwise Trubisky was really good against zone in 2018. Plus, the Bears were too reliant on curls and go routes.
• The good news is that history suggests Trubisky will likely throw the deep ball better in 2019 than he did in 2018. Also an accompanying film study by Andrew Link.
• One area of concern for Trubisky is that he really struggled against average or better defenses in 2018.

Running Backs

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What if I told you that less than 14% of plays determine the outcome of most NFL games?

Everybody loves watching big plays in football. Highlight reels are filled with bone-crushing sacks, long runs, deep bombs to a streaking WR, and big interceptions, because those are the exciting plays fans love to watch.

It turns out those are the plays that decide games too, and I have the stats to prove it.

Methods

Earlier this offseason, I wrote about the strong correlation between long runs and passes and overall offensive success, which got me thinking about what other plays might prove to be crucial to a team’s success. I ended up settling on four types of plays, which I will briefly describe below:

• Explosive run: a carry that goes for 15+ yards
• Explosive pass: a pass that goes for 20+ yards
• Sacks
• Turnovers

My hypothesis was that the team who produces more of these big plays than their opponent will usually win the game. To test this, I tracked all four categories for all 256 NFL games in 2018, along with the final score of each game.

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Like I did last year, here’s an objective look at this Bears roster, grading each unit on a 1-10 scale. I’m scaling it such that 1 means it’s the worst in the NFL, 10 is the best in the NFL, and 5 is an average NFL grouping. I am going to try to avoid projecting too much for young players who have not yet proven it in the NFL, so some of these rankings might be a bit lower than expected.

Let’s get right down to it!

Quarterback: 6

Key Players: Mitchell Trubisky, Chase Daniel

Roster Depth: Tyler Bray

Trubisky was right around average statistically as a passer in 2018, but added value as a runner. In two games when he was out hurt, Chase Daniel showed that he’s a solid backup, but also reminded us that he’s a backup. I was torn between a 5 and 6 here, but decided Trubisky’s running and Daniel as a backup warranted the higher grade.

Running Back: 5

Key Players: David Mongtomery, Mike Davis, Tarik Cohen

Roster Depth: Kerrith Whyte, Ryan Nall

This was a difficult position to grade because of Tarik Cohen. He’s a really good offensive weapon who produced almost 1200 yards of offense and 8 TDs in 2018, but he can’t handle a huge load and does more damage as a pass catcher than a runner.

Mike Davis is a solid player who fits well in this offense, but he’s probably best suited as a backup.

And while I’m hugely excited about David Montgomery and his fit in this offense, I can’t credit him for anything when he’s yet to play an NFL game. Thus I’ll give this group an average grade for now, but I think this is the position that has the highest potential to outperform its ranking in 2019.

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Hall of Fame weekend has me thinking about the big picture of the NFL over time, which makes me think about decades. Every 10 years the NFL puts out an all decade team, so we’re about one year removed from seeing what that looks like for 2010-19.

Since we’re still a little ways from Chicago’s 1st preseason game on Thursday, I thought it would be fun to pick out who I think should be on the all decade team, though there are a few spots where 2019 could end up changing the pick.

I’m going to go with the most commonly used NFL personnel groupings, which on offense is 11 (1 QB, 1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR, 5 OL) and on defense is nickel (2 DL, 2 edge rushers, 2 off-ball LBs, 3 CBs, 2 S). To keep it simple, I’m not going to worry about SS/FS, slot/outside WR, or nickel/outside CB designations.

Let’s get down to business.

QB: Tom Brady

Before even doing any research, I knew this was going to come down to Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees. All have been really good QBs for the entire decade. Brees leads in passing yards and touchdowns, but hasn’t been 1st team all pro or won MVP in this decade. Rodgers and Brady both have 2 MVPs, 2 1st team all pros, and 1 2nd team all pro since 2010. Rodgers has slightly better individual stats, but Brady has played in 5 of the last 9 Super Bowls, winning 3 of them, while Rodgers has only played in 1. That nudges things in Brady’s direction in my book.

RB: Adrian Peterson

I went into this expecting to pick Adrian Peterson, but was surprised how difficult LeSean McCoy made this decision. Both players were 1st team all pros 2x since 2010, though Peterson has an edge in also being a 2nd teamer twice and winning an MVP. McCoy has an edge in volume statistics, however; he has about 1200 more rushing yards than Peterson, an extra 2000 receiving yards, and about 10 more total TDs. McCoy has been really good for longer, but Peterson’s peak was better, and I’ll lean in that direction. Todd Gurley is the only other RB with multiple 1st team all pro berths, but he only played in 4 of the 9 seasons and thus lags well behind the other two in volume numbers. Still, another 1st team all pro season in 2019 could put him in the discussion.

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Now we return to the list of reasons the Bears might struggle to repeat 2018’s success.

IV. Cornerback Penalties

New nickelback Buster Skrine was flagged 7 times for 107 yards in 2018. Those numbers were 14th and 7th highest, respectively, among all defensive backs.

Prince Amukamara also has a knack for drawing flags; he drew 8 for 90 yards (8th and 13th among DBs) in 2018, and had 2 more get declined.

And 2018 wasn’t an outlier for either player. Skrine had 11 flags for 105 yards in 2017, while Amukamara had 7 for 99.

You can live with having one penalty-prone player in your secondary, but two is a bit more of a concern. All it takes is one big penalty in a key moment to swing a close game.

V. David Montgomery and/or Anthony Miller

I’m grouping these two together as relatively unproven young players who will be counted on for big roles in 2019. For Chicago’s offense to take the step forward that is needed to win a Super Bowl, Miller needs to supplant Taylor Gabriel as the WR2 and Montgomery needs to beat out Mike Davis as the starting RB. I think there are excellent reasons to be high on both Montgomery and Miller, but what happens if one or both of them aren’t ready?

Davis and Gabriel are both solid veterans who are capable role players, but neither is a guy who should be a main cog in a top-level offense. Miller and Montgomery are capable of doing just that, but they could hold the offense back if they fail to prove it in 2019.

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Most of my writing this off-season has ended up being very positive about the Bears’ outlook for 2019. I’ve been very clear that I think Chicago should be considered one of the Super Bowl favorites this year, and most of the stats I’ve dug into have logically come to conclusions that support that notion, or at least do nothing to refute it.

However, I do think it’s important to try and remain balanced, so with that goal in mind, today I want to think about what might be legitimate reasons for concern for the Bears in 2019. Another way to think of this might be, if something goes wrong and the Bears miss the playoffs, what will be the reason(s) when we look back and figure out why?

I can think of six most likely possibilities, presented in no real order. Here are the first three.

I. Injuries

Injuries are always the #1 cause for concern for a football team. In a salary-capped league like the NFL, even the best team can be completely undone by one or two key injuries, usually to the quarterback. The two obvious players the Bears simply cannot win a Super Bowl without are Mitchell Trubisky and Khalil Mack, but they have a number of stars whose loss would certainly be felt should they get hurt (especially in areas with questionable depth, like tight end and offensive tackle). The Bears are counting on several players with lengthy injury histories to stay healthy and produce in 2019, including Danny Trevathan, Kyle Long, Eddie Goldman, and Prince Amukamara.

And we can’t forget about the cumulative impact of a number of injuries to players who might not be as important. After years of being one of the unhealthiest teams in the NFL, the Bears were the 3rd healthiest in 2018. Given that there’s a strong relationship between health and team success, worse injury luck in 2019 could derail Chicago’s Super Bowl aspirations in a hurry.

II. Special Teams

Given how Chicago’s season ended in 2018, kicker is an obvious cause for concern in 2019. The Bears don’t have one they know they can trust with the game on the line right now, and that’s a problem for a team hoping to win a Super Bowl. The odds of running through 3-4 consecutive playoff wins without needing a kicker to come through in the clutch in any of them seem pretty low.

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I recently looked at the history of teams to make a significant improvement from one year to the next and found that many of them win fewer games the year after their breakthrough season. This suggests that the Bears might be due for a bit of a letdown from their 12-4 record in 2018 (though they do match the profile of teams that generally stay good after making the jump.)

Today, I want to look more closely at Chicago’s underlying performance in 2018 to see if there’s anything there to suggest they are a team poised for a fall. This is closely modeled after work Bill Barnwell does every off-season, where he uses three factors to identify teams who are likely to improve and likely to regress.

Pythagorean Expectation

The first factor is called the Pythagorean expectation, and it is a measure of how many games a team is expected to win based on how many points they scored compared to how many points they allowed. The exact formula can be seen here, but the general idea is that truly good teams score a lot more points than they give up. Teams that win a lot of games without a large difference in points scored/allowed were considered more lucky than good and are likely due for a fall.

• 2018 Bears stats: 421 points scored, 283 points allowed, 12 wins
• 2018 Pythagorean expectation: 11.5 wins

The Bears didn’t significantly outperform their Pythagorean expectation, which means they won a lot of games because they were legitimately good, not lucky. So far, there is no reason to think that significant regression is coming.

Record in Close Games

The 2nd factor looks at how well teams performed in close games, which Barnwell defines as having a final scoring margin within 7 points. I think 8 points makes a lot more sense given that’s still a one possession game, but in this case it doesn’t change anything for the Bears, so we’ll stick with 7.

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