Whatever happened to the I-formation?
It seems like eons ago that a stagnant Bears running game showed signs of life when coach Matt Nagy unleashed — Ok, used — the I-formation against the Chargers on Oct. 27 at Soldier Field.
Rookie David Montgomery, who came into that game averaging 3.3 yards per carry, parlayed the I-formation into a breakthrough game. He rushed for 43 yards on six carries (7.2 average) out of the I — usually with tight end J.P. Holtz running interference — en route to a career-best 135 yards on 27 carries (5.0 avg.). Overall, the Bears gained 77 yards on nine plays using the I-formation.
The Bears’ modest success with the I in that game seemed like just another red flag in a disappointing Bears season: the only way the Bears could run the ball was with an old-school formation that seemed antithetical to Nagy’s 21st-century offense, with all its moving parts and matchups and nuances and varied weapons and gadgets. It was as if they had discovered that the solution to the offensive issues was to just play football.
Nagy pushed back against that narrative. “That’s in the West Coast offense,” he said. “Back in the day, that used to be three yards and a cloud of dust. So it sounds like eight yards and a cloud of dust now. I like that.”
Be that as it may, the I-formation isn’t anything close to a staple of Nagy’s offense. But at the time, Nagy was fine with using it.
“Whatever works, I’m down with,” Nagy said.
But since then, the I-formation has been all but forgotten. For the record, the Bears have had success running the ball without it. Montgomery rushed for 75 yards on 16 carries against the Lions and 86 yards on 20 carries against the Cowboys in back-to-back games. But he was stifled against the Packers last week — rushing for 39 yards on 14 carries — and is averaging 3.3 per yards in seven games since the breakthrough against the Chargers.
What happened?
As usual, it’s complicated.
“There’s a lot of things that go into it. I’m not going to get into all the details right now,” Nagy said. “I’ll put it this way: every game is a little bit different based on who you’re playing. It’s good. You can do things out of it. There’s times we haven’t. But we’ve been doing well. We’ve been getting better — I should say, improving on what we know as the identity of our offense. So there’s a lot of things that dictate [the use of the I-formation].”
Just like running no-huddle prevents Nagy from playing his matchup game, the I-formation seems like a drag on Nagy’s offense. “Not necessarily,” he said. “I think you can sprinkle it in. There are some teams that do a lot of I-formation, two-back stuff. That’s what they live in.
“That’s not us. That’s not what we live in. You can sprinkle it in and have some success with it. And that [Chargers game] was a game we felt good about — going into the game, we knew that. A lot of that is for different reasons. I’ve said this before: Not every game can you do that. You can try, but not every game you can do it.”
You can run the Andy Reid offense successfully without a prolific running game. The Chiefs are fifth in the NFL in total offense, second in yards per play and fourth in scoring this season with a running game that ranks 25th in yards and 22nd in yards per attempt. But they also have the reigning MVP at quarterback and a well-oiled offense in its seventh season under Reid.
When the Chiefs offense was in its formative years under Reid in 2013-15 — with Alex Smith at quarterback — the Chiefs’ running game ranked in the top 10 in both yards (10th, 10th, sixth) and yards per carry (fifth, fifth, third).
With work-in-progress Mitch Trubisky at the helm of an offense struggling to get on its feet in its second season, the running game is everything. The Bears are 6-1 when Montgomery rushes for 50 yards or more and 1-6 when he doesn’t.
So while Trubisky will be in the red-hot spotlight Sunday night in the matchup with Patrick Mahomes, the list of Bears upgrades starts with the offensive line and the establishment of a running game — any way Matt Nagy can do it.
