Day: September 4, 2022

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions.

If Luke Getsy does well and gets a head coaching gig in 2023, do the Bears have a Plan B? — @bbshooks

If Getsy is hired elsewhere as a head coach in 2023 — and the Denver Broncos interviewed him for the job that went to Nathaniel Hackett — it would be a great development for the Bears. That would mean Fields had a huge season and took a major step forward to prove he is the franchise quarterback. Face it: If Fields is so-so this season, that won’t do a ton for Getsy’s stock as a potential head coach. But if Fields puts together a really good season with the state of the offensive line and talent at wide receiver, that would make Getsy a commodity. It would be a blow for the Bears to lose Getsy to another team after one season, but he would be leaving with the offense turned around and the quarterback playing well. I know it sounds counterintuitive to say the best thing that could happen to the Bears is if Getsy is hired as a head coach elsewhere, but I truly believe that. As far as a replacement, quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko will have a big hand in the development of Fields and has coached a variety of offensive positions.

Questions like this amuse me. Fans can’t wait to jump ahead and worry about losing a coach or a player literally before we know anything about them. Why don’t we wait and see what happens during the season before we start worrying about stuff like this? Isn’t there enough to worry about already?

Having said that, I have always said that one reason to hire an offensive head coaches that you can’t lose him if he turns out to be any good. But, in theory, good head coaches for the long haul, and John Harbaugh is the guy that always comes to mind when I think that, can identify good coordinators and good coaches for their staff. In fact, I would say finding those guys is probably at least half of their job. And is probably the most important part. So really, this comes down to how good of a head coach Matt Eberflus will turn out to be.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions.

One of the most impressive things from the preseason was the Bears’ few penalties. During the Matt Nagy years, the Bears seemed to have far too many penalties, often at very inopportune times. Is it wishful thinking, or do the Bears thus far seem much more disciplined under Matt Eberflus? — Norm G.

The Bears were really good in three preseason games at limiting penalties, and you certainly would look for that to carry over to the regular season. Penalties are going to happen and will pop up at inopportune times. Are the Bears more disciplined? Possibly. They appear to be more organized. You’re not seeing the pre-snap penalties on offense that came with confusion and struggles getting the play calls in and that sort of thing. I think that is what most people found irksome about the offense under Nagy. The Bears had way too many pre-snap penalties and burned too many timeouts because the sideline operation wasn’t smooth.

One of the most encouraging things about the preseason, and there weren’t many because it’s, you know, the preseason, was the small number of penalties that the Bears committed. As’s the questioner implies, I think that this may mean that the team might be more disciplined.

One of the biggest questions for me all preseason was why the Bears over under was 6 1/2 wins. It seems high. But the bookies usually know what they’re doing, and if fans are pounding me under there must be reasons for it. This could be one of them.

Disciplined teams that make very few mistakes can steal a lot of games. I always thought that the Indianapolis Colts, Matt Eberflus‘s last organization, was often one of the teams that do this fairly consistently. They seem to win a lot of games despite, to my eye, not having as much talent on paper as the other elite teams in the league.

I’ve been around long enough to know what a team that is getting ready to over-achieve looks like. The Bears definitely have that feel about them this year. Perhaps the Bears may be better than people think this year simply because they allow other teams to beat themselves.