The Bears’ 41-17 walkover against the Jaguars featured plenty of highlights — but also mistakes they can’t repeat against the Packers on Sunday.
Analyzing what went right, and wrong, with an eye on the Bears’ win-and-they’re-in game:
He did what?
On first down at the Jaguars’ 13 with 35 seconds to play in the first half, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky took a shotgun snap with David Montgomery to his left and Darnell Mooney to his right. Two receivers were lined up right, with tight end Cole Kmet split left.
Kmet ran a crossing route right, Montgomery a wheel up the left sideline.
Trubisky rolled left, almost to the numbers, and doubled back right. He almost made it back to the other set of numbers seven yards further back when he heaved the ball toward the back right corner of the end zone.
All of Trubisky’s receivers had run in that direction when he scrambled right. None were open. When linebacker Joe Schobert picked it off, four of the six people closest to the ball were Jaguars. Also: six of the nearest nine.
It was a baffling decision.
“The longer the play gets strung out like it did there, a lot of bad things can happen at times … ” quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo said Monday. “It’s one of those things obviously that can’t happen, especially in that point in the game — in the red zone, tied up 10-10.”
Trubisky, though, led the Bears to points on the next five drives: a field goal after Roquan Smith’s interception followed by four second-half touchdowns. Aaron Rodgers won’t give the Bears the gift of momentum with a pick the way Mike Glennon did before halftime.
Fly sweep?
The Bears had first-and-goal from the 18-inch line Sunday and had to kick a field goal. How? Four words: tight end fly sweep.
On first down, the Bears played three tight ends and an extra blocker, backup tackle Rashaad Coward. Kmet, lined up as a wingback on the left side of the line, went in motion, took the handoff from Trubisky and was tackled by outside linebacker Aaron Lynch, the ex-Bear who slipped between right tackle Germain Ifedi and tight end Jimmy Graham, for a loss of three.
The Bears, again, were too cute by half in the red zone. And it was compounded when they had to settle for a field goal after a two-yard run and an incompletion to Allen Robinson.
The Jaguars are 26th in red zone defense. The Packers, though, are 17th. When the Bears get inside the 20 – or even the 2 — they need to find a way to score.
The Bears lined up to run the fly sweep one play earlier, but Trubisky coaxed an offside penalty.
Tight ends coach Clancy Barone said he eyed the Jaguars sideline, saw coaches didn’t seem to be calling in a new play, and figured the Bears would get the same defensive look. They didn’t.
“I said, ‘Shoot, go ahead and call it again then,’’ Barone said. “And then they did adjust, whether it was by design or not. And then yeah, we all saw the results.
“So I will take the hit on that one.”
The Bears actually called the same play two weeks ago from a different formation, Barone said. From the 1-yard line against the Texans, they were flagged for 5 yards for an “abrupt shift” and then ran a different play.
Hard count
One play before the fly sweep was stuffed, Trubisky put his hands under center and barked out the calls: “Blue 80, set HUT!” Jaguars defensive tackle Daniel Ross jumped across the line of scrimmage.
Teams typically don’t use hard counts so close to the goal line: they fear a false start and figure the reward — in the Bears’ case, a 18-inch gain — isn’t worth the risk.
Trubisky is turning into one of the league’s great hard count specialists — although he’s no Rodgers. Trubisky drew two neutral zone infractions Sunday, bringing his total to seven in the past four games. In the four games before that — including three Nick Foles starts — the Bears drew none.
The Bears’ quick tempo forces the defense to set itself quickly. And then, maybe, jump.
Trubisky has a knack for selling it, too.
“There’s some guys that don’t have that projection of their voice and how it inflects and different volumes to it,” Nagy said last week. “But then it’s also when you do it and why you do it.”
Fake!
The Bears’ field goal operation has been close-to-perfect this year. The rest of their special teams has to be mistake-free Sunday.
There was a near-disaster when the Jaguars faked a punt on fourth-and-2 from their own 35 with the game tied and about five minutes left in the first half. Upback Andrew Wingard ran right for 9 yards and a first down.
The Jags had four blockers to the right of the long snapper to block four Bears. Safety DeAndre Houston-Carson shot the gap between the right guard and tackle, and was grabbed by Dakota Alle. He was called for a hold, and the Jaguars had to punt again.
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