It’s safe to say that no one on the Chicago Bears coaching staff or the players on the roster was throughly pleased with the offense during this preseason, most notably the finale against the Kansas City Chiefs.
Under first-year head coach Ben Johnson, the Bears are going to have a much different looking offense, and although they went 2-0-1 in the preseason, on the surface, there appears to be much more work to be done to get prepared for the regular season.
In the final preseason game of the year against the Chiefs, the Bears opened up their first offensive drive with a fumbled handoff between quarterback Caleb Williams and wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus. That play set the tone for a slow offensive start and showing, which drew the frustration of offensive coordinator Declan Doyle.
Earlier this week, Doyle spoke about where he feels the offense is currently at, especially what they showed on the first play against Kansas City, calling it unacceptable.
“We end up snapping the ball a little bit late, we end up having to rush the ball handling a little bit and the ball ends up on the ground which any time it’s on the ground, it’s unacceptable,” Dole said. “That can never happen regardless of what scheme we’re running or what we’re trying to get done.”
This is the first opportunity for Doyle to be an offensive coordinator in the NFL, and he’s clearly taking it seriously, similar to his head coach in working to get this Bears offense going on the right foot. Chicago has than two weeks to get things together offensively, and it’ll be up to Johnson and Doyle to get the mistakes fixed and not let old habits pop back up.
The Bears’ coaching staff is coming off very tough in the early days of their first season with this franchise, but if it’s tough coaching that turns the franchise back into a winning franchise, then it may be exactly what is needed.
