The NFL is down to its final four contenders for the Super Bowl, with conference championships on tap Sunday. The Packers will host the Buccaneers, and the Bills will visit the Chiefs.
Those games will be televised, of course, and Bears coach Matt Nagy will be glued to them.
“It stinks when you’re at home watching these games in the playoffs,” he said recently. “Some people say, ‘Oh, you know I can’t watch it, it just makes me sick,’ and all that. I’m not like that. I watch it. I just don’t want to watch it because I want to be there.”
The upside, though, is that Nagy might learn something while he watches from home. Each of the four teams got to this point by doing something the Bears didn’t. Here’s what they can learn:
Chiefs start up front
Yes, the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes and he’s the best player in the NFL, but they also have supported him expertly with a true offensive guru in coach Andy Reid, elite skill players such as Tyreek Hill, a robust tight end in Travis Kelce and — most of all — one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
The Chiefs’ line gave its quarterbacks an average of 2.5 seconds of protection this season, according to Pro Football Reference. That’s ninth in the NFL. The Bears provided just 2.3 seconds (28th). The Chiefs also had 77 negative-yardage plays, compared to 94 by the Bears. Mahomes was sacked just 22 times on 610 drop-backs (one per 28), while Trubisky and Nick Foles were sacked a combined 36 times on 609 (one per 17).
And that’s despite the Chiefs missing right tackle Mitchell Schwartz, an All-Pro or second-team All-Pro each of the last four years, for most of the season and right guard Laurent Duverney-Tardif opting out. Journeyman Mike Remmers has been a viable replacement for Schwartz, pairing well with two-time Pro Bowl left tackle Eric Fisher.
The Bears think they have the start of a solid offensive line with Sam Mustipher at center flanked by guards Cody Whitehair and James Daniels, but even that is in question. From there, they have major issues to solve at left and right tackle.
Bills believe in ‘Be you’
Nagy’s motto is “Be you,” but sometimes it’s more like “Be you — as long as it’s who I want you to be.” It has been confounding to watch the Bears repeatedly hammer into quarterback Mitch Trubisky’s head that he must win from the pocket while trying to coach out of him the very mobility and athleticism that attracted them to him in the first place.
The Bills haven’t made that mistake with Josh Allen. While they certainly have taken steps to harness Allen’s throwing accuracy and progressively cut back on interceptions, they haven’t been adamantly trying to change him.
Allen is a powerful runner at 6-5, 237 pounds — nearly the size of a tight end — and has continued to use that ability. In three seasons, he has run for 1,562 yards (5.2 per carry and 35.5 per game). He ran 11 times for 54 yards in his playoff win over the Colts.
Trubisky, meanwhile, went from 4.9 rushes per game in 2018 — his best season — to 3.2 in 2019. This season, Nagy only relented and let him play naturally when Nagy went back to him as the starter and Trubisky spoke up about what he wanted in the game plan.
Would he have developed into a star if the Bears had done that all along? Probably not, but he would’ve been better.
Bucs’ culture is winning
The Bears seem to be mistaking having a bunch of good guys for having a strong culture. A strong culture can absorb even a prickly player and get him on board with the rest of the team.
And there’s the matter of creating a winning culture. The Patriots and Saints seem to have had plenty of problematic personalities over the years, but those players either adapt or find their way out the door quickly.
While the Bears appear to be afraid to bring in anyone with a questionable reputation, the Buccaneers haven’t hesitated. When running back Leonard Fournette and wide receiver Antonio Brown were available and the team believed they could help, the Bucs pounced. And if either of them truly had caused an issue, they almost certainly would’ve been gone. Instead, they combined for 1,081 yards of offense and 10 touchdowns.
The Bears might’ve made a move for Fournette, a two-time 1,000-yard rusher in his prime, or a midseason grab for Le’Veon Bell. Bell didn’t end up being particularly productive for the Chiefs with 353 total yards in nine games, but the Bears weren’t in a position to turn down anyone who could’ve given a boost to their offense at that point.
Packers win with offense
The key question in the NFL the last two seasons hasn’t been whether anyone can stop the Chiefs. It’s been whether anyone can keep up with them.
No defense is going to neutralize Mahomes and his array of weapons. The Chiefs have scored 21 or more points in 34 of 36 games over the last two seasons, playoffs included, and have averaged 31.3 since Mahomes took over with an MVP season in 2018.
The idea that defense wins championships is as outdated as VHS tapes. Offense wins now, and the Packers — with Aaron Rodgers and a terrific ground game — have enough of it to hang with the defending champs.
It’d be ideal to be great on both sides of the ball, but offense should be the priority in the modern era. The Packers have done a lot of winning in Rodgers’ career, and this was just the third time they’ve had a top-10 scoring defense.
Led by the Packers at 31.8 points per game, the final four teams were all in the top six in scoring this season. Last season, three of them were in the top 10. The year before, the top four scoring teams were the last four standing. The Bears badly need to modernize.
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January 23, 2021 at 06:00PM
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