The best way to get Mitch Trubisky to forget about the last play is to give him less time to stew over it.
The Bears ran 12 plays after not huddling in their victory Monday night against the Redskins. In the previous two games combined — in which they were behind and, in theory, more eager to hurry up — the Bears didn’t huddle before a combined nine plays.
“What do I like the most about it? It’s more of a next-play mentality,” Trubisky said Wednesday. “So you really don’t have enough time to dwell on the last play or worry about what happened. You’re going fast. It’s just more of a sense of urgency to get going.”
Among Bears coaches, Trubisky is known to take his mistakes to heart. By playing with tempo, he doesn’t have time to think about it. The same goes for his teammates.
“It’s just a heightened sense of urgency where guys are forgetting about the last play,” Trubisky said. “They’re more focused on the next-play mentality because you’re on the ball and you’re rolling.
“You’ve just got to leave the last play in the past and go on and play.”
He did that against Washington, completing 7 of 8 passes for 46 yards after not huddling. He converted three third downs in four tries while running tempo and took a sack.
“For us, I know where my playmakers are at,” Trubisky said. “You get the calls out faster.”
The pacing of the no-huddle offense can often get a struggling offense into a rhythm. Because the defense can’t substitute, the no-huddle offense takes advantage of mismatches on the field. Between Tarik Cohen and Cordarrelle Patterson, the Bears have versatile offensive weapons who thrive in such situations.
But there’s a major reason why the no-huddle offense benefits the Bears — and it starts with coach Matt Nagy’s headset. In the NFL, coaches can speak into the quarterback’s helmet communication system until there are 15 seconds left on the play clock.
When Trubisky lines up quickly at the line of scrimmage, Nagy can evaluate the defense along with him.
“I think it gets the defense set up, and I could kind of tell what I want the play to be, what I expect, and [Nagy] calls it, and we’re kind of on the same page,” Trubisky said.
Nagy said with a smile that he doesn’t use that time for idle chatter.
“There’s zero pep talk,” he said.
Rather, he figures to be passing along information, from the call itself to tips about the defensive alignment.
“There’s some communication that goes on there,” Nagy said. “It depends on how much time is on the clock and what mode we’re in. And there are other times when you give him a play, and you go.
“That’s the fun part, I think, as we kind of learn who we are as an offense. Do we want to do it again? Do we want to pull back? What do we feel is best that week?”
Look for the Bears to continue to play to Trubisky’s comfort level Sunday against the Vikings. He always has played with tempo, be it at Mentor (Ohio) High School or North Carolina.
“It makes the defense get up and get set,” Trubisky said. “You can tire the guys out. You can either lock them into a personnel — or it kind of just creates some type of panic on defense where they’re trying to sub in tired guys or they have tired guys on the field.
“Tempo’s something that I’m comfortable with. It’s just something I’ve always done.”
