Matt Nagy Deserves Blame For The Bears' Offensive Struggles

Excitement is building around the Chicago Bears following their 23-16 victory over the Carolina Panthers on Sunday which pushed their record to 5-1. Despite being the second best team in the NFC, Chicago's offense has struggled heavily to be efficient and consistent. Although the Bears have already made a change at the quarterback position, it is head coach Matt Nagy who is beginning to field the blame for the failure.

In Chicago's last three games, the offense has averaged 18 points per game and has scored just five touchdowns. Of the five touchdowns scored, two of the touchdown drives were created by defensive turnovers deep in the opponent's territory. The last three touchdown drives have all started within their opponent's territory.

Veteran Nick Foles has been the Bears starting quarterback for the team's last three games as the offense has averaged 18 points per game. Including Trubisky's time at quarterback, Chicago's offense through six games has only averaged 21 points per game. The Bears are averaging 223 passing yards per game along with just 90 rushing yards per game this season. The reason as to why Nagy is starting to see more and more blame come his way for the lack of offensive production is due in part to his benching of Trubisky back in week three. Chicago's head coach placed the blame of the offensive's lack of consistency on his young quarterback's limitations. Many believe Nagy was correct when Foles came off the bench against the Falcons to lead a 16-point comeback that featured three fourth quarter touchdowns.

Since week three, Foles and the Bears offense has not been able to make the big plays on offense and score touchdowns consistently. On Sunday, The Bears had only one play that was longer than 20 yards which was a 23-yard completion to receiver Allen Robinson. One of the reason's why Trubisky was bench was an inability to complete downfield throws, but the number of attempts and completions downfield have decreased game by game with Foles.

The running game has gotten significantly worse game by game as this season as the Bears offense had 63 rushing yards against the 25th ranked Panthers' rushing defense on Sunday. More than half of the team's 540 rushing yards have come in two games, with the biggest rushing play of the year being a 45-yards scramble by Trubisky. The failure to run the ball with success has been Nagy's most prominent failure as an offensive play-caller as the offense has less than 2,000 yards rushing in the Bears' last 22 games.

The insufficient numbers on offense could be in part to the players on offense, but Nagy has worked with a majority of players that he had in his first season in 2018. Chicago's 2018 offensive was a lot more consistent than the last two seasons. With the offense producing the same result following the quarterback change three weeks ago, the focus is now on Nagy for the offensive's struggle, and rightfully so.