With the whole country watching on Sunday Night Football, the Bears were easily handled by the Los Angeles Chargers. The team fell to 2-5 on the season in quarterback Tyson Bagent’s second career NFL start. There honestly isn’t too much to take out of this game. Bagent played alright; he wasn’t great but certainly wasn’t the reason the Bears lost. The defense didn’t give him a chance. I also think that Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore simply drew up a fantastic gameplan. He knew exactly what to do against head coach Matt Eberflus’ Cover 2 looks.
The Defense Couldn’t Tackle
According to PFF, the Bears recorded seven missed tackles, three of them credited to linebacker TJ Edwards. This isn’t the group’s highest count of the year, but I still think that this was the team’s worst tackling performance of the season.
In addition to technical ‘missed tackles’, defenders were having a hard time getting Chargers ball carriers to the ground. For example, tight end Donald Parham’s created one missed tackle on his touchdown at the end of the first half. However, even after breaking one tackle, he certainly should have been taken down before he reached the goal line. Parham caught the ball on the five-yard-line, shook off cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, and proceeded to maneuver around TJ Edwards and drive safety Elijah Hicks into the end zone. Three players had a shot at the big tight end, but no one was able to stop him from scoring a pivotal touchdown to extend LA’s lead and kill all momentum from Chicago’s previous touchdown drive.
Bagent was Not the Problem, But Also Not the Solution
In his second NFL start Tyson Bagent didn’t look quite the same as he did in his NFL debut. The Chargers had a little tape on him, unlike the Vikings last week, and used it to their advantage. Bagent accounted for 232 passing yards, two interceptions, one rushing touchdown and no passing touchdowns. In his defense, wide receiver Velus Jones Jr. dropped an easy ball in the end zone, and Darnell Mooney was inexplicably called down on the first play of the game in a play where he could have taken it to the house. The breaks were not falling Bagent’s way.
After the odd Mooney play on the first drive and a second drive that was derailed by penalties, Bagent found himself in a 14-0 hole the third time he received the ball. Eventually, he and the offense cut LA’s lead to 17-7, putting the Bears right back into the game. However, the next time Bagent had the ball in his hands, the scoreboard read 27-7 thanks to the Chargers’ end-of-half double dip. Simply put, the defense did not put Tyson Bagent in a position to succeed.
Kellen Moore Knew What to Do
Quickly, I want to point out what Chargers offensive coordinator Kellen Moore did on Sunday Night. This is not to take blame off of Chicago’s poor defensive performance, but simply to acknowledge the way that Moore picked apart Eberflus’ defense.
Chicago is a heavy Cover 2 defense, which means that there are normally two high safeties on a given down. This means that there is one less player in between the sticks. Knowing this, Moore opted to target that area, opposed to going deep with his gunslinger quarterback, Justin Herbert. Herbert average depth of target (ADOT) was only 5.1 yards, which was the third lowest in Week 8 (only behind both Giants QBs). This was drastically different than his ADOT of 12.6 in Week 7. The Chargers knew that they could easily complete short passes against the Bears defense (that’s what Eberflus wants), and decided to count on their elite playmakers to… make plays. That is exactly what they did (namely running back Austin Ekeler, who caught seven passes for 94 yards and a touchdown). If other OCs follow Moore’s lead and force the Bears defense to make tackles consistently, it could be bad news.