While there almost certainly won’t be another game quite like it, Sunday’s performance by the Bears offense was far from a fluke.
After falling behind Arizona by 14 points, Mitch Trubisky started to look more comfortable. Suddenly the pressure was off and it looked like the Bears had an actual offense. Here’s how the Bears did in that second half:
- Punt
- Touchdown
- Field goal
- Field goal
- Punt — after trying to kill the clock.
From halftime in Arizona, the Bears scored on 11 of their next 16 drives. One of the non-scoring drives was a single play before halftime. Another was simply an attempt to run out the clock.
The Arizona game should’ve been a sign that something better was coming. They scored 13 points in the second half of that game, a good half for any team. And against Tampa Bay, it all clicked.
That isn’t a coincidence. Nagy and Trubisky got together and figured out how to turn three into seven, according to what the Bears coach told Peter King in his Football Morning in American column:
“Our lessons this week was let’s just sit together and let’s figure out why we’re struggling on our offense and see if we can find some answers,” Nagy said. “We on offense had by far our best week of practice all week long. More specifically, in the red zone, because that’s where we’ve been struggling.”
Here’s how the Bears opened against Tampa Bay:
- Touchdown
- Punt
- Touchdown
- Touchdown
- Touchdown
- Touchdown
- Field goal
