[CBFF] Every Play Counts: The Bears’ Passing Attack

[Steve Behrens]

This was excellent.  Thanks for posting!!

-Behr


On 9/27/06, mactbone <mactbone0 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> This is a great examination of the Bears last week.
> Really good in depth stuff. Hopefully the blocking
> gets better because I don't trust Grossman to
> dramatically improve his decision making.
> -Chris
>
> Every Play Counts: The Bears' Passing Attack
> 9/27/2006
>
> http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2006/09/27/ramblings/every-play-counts/4299/
> by Michael David Smith
>
> After Sunday's 19-16 win over the Minnesota Vikings,
> the Chicago Bears are in first place in the NFC North,
> and that's no surprise. Just about everyone expected
> the Bears to repeat as division champions. But what is
> surprising is that after the defense carried last
> year's Bears to an 11-5 record, this year the Bears
> have turned their weak passing game into a strength.
>
> In all three of the Bears' games, opponents have
> stacked the line of scrimmage to stop running back
> Thomas Jones (who is averaging only 3.0 yards a carry)
> and dared quarterback Rex Grossman to beat them.
> That's exactly what Grossman has done. An analysis of
> the Bears' passing attack on every play of that win
> over the Vikings shows that the Bears' receivers are
> running precise, well-designed routes, and Grossman
> throws a better deep ball than previously advertised.
> But the offensive line's pass protection is mediocre,
> and Grossman still makes the kinds of mistakes that
> are typical of a quarterback who was only starting his
> 10th NFL game on Sunday.
>
> Grossman was at his best when Minnesota didn't blitz,
> giving him time to survey the field. On a third-and-9
> deep in Chicago territory, Chicago lined up with twin
> receivers (Muhsin Muhammad and Rashied Davis) to the
> left and tight end Desmond Clark in the backfield,
> also to Grossman's left. At the snap Muhammad ran a
> deep route along the sideline, Clark ran an
> intermediate route along the hash, and Davis ran
> between them. Ordinarily when an offensive coordinator
> lines up three receivers on the same side of the
> field, he's hoping the defense won't have enough
> players there to cover everyone adequately. But
> Minnesota rushed four and dropped seven into coverage,
> meaning the Vikings had players available to cover all
> three receivers. The speedy Davis, a former Arena
> player who looks like a perfect fit for the Bears,
> simply ran past cornerback Ronyell Whitaker, and
> Grossman saw Davis get open and threw the ball exactly
> where Davis needed it for a 21-yard gain.
>
> The key to the success of the play was the Vikings'
> decision to rush only four. When Grossman had time to
> pass, he regularly picked the Minnesota secondary
> apart. The Vikings blitzed often on Sunday, but they
> should have blitzed even more. When they gave Grossman
> time to find Davis and Muhammad, he delivered.
>
> Last season it looked clear that the Bears had
> overpaid when they gave Muhammad a $12 million signing
> bonus. Although he was the focal point of the Bears'
> passing game, Muhammad finished 2005 ranked 81st of 89
> wide receivers in Football Outsiders' main statistic
> for ranking skill position players, DPAR. This year he
> looks like the player who led the league in receiving
> yards in 2004. He and Grossman have developed a great
> rapport, as demonstrated on a second-and-4 on the
> Bears' first possession, when cornerback Antoine
> Winfield lined up several yards off the line of
> scrimmage in man coverage on Muhammad. Grossman saw
> how much space Winfield was giving, so he threw to
> Muhammad behind the line of scrimmage as soon as he
> got the snap. Muhammad picked up three yards. A
> three-yard completion doesn't sound like anything
> special, but using the passing game in short-yardage
> situations is a very effective way to combat defenses
> that stack the line of scrimmage against the run.
>
> On a second-and-2 later in the game, Grossman and
> Muhammad hooked up on the same play: Grossman saw that
> cornerback Fred Smoot was giving Muhammad a big
> cushion and tossed the ball to him at the snap. The
> Bears appeared to have a run play called – the
> offensive linemen and the backs moved as if they
> expected a handoff to the right – but Grossman knew he
> could pick up an easy first down if he just flipped it
> across the field to Muhammad, and Muhammad was ready
> for the pass because he knew that he and Grossman had
> read the defense the same way. By exploiting the
> cushion the Vikings gave Muhammad, the Bears forced
> the Vikings to play closer to Muhammad, which opened
> up space downfield.
>
> Later, on a first-and-10, Grossman and Muhammad used
> that space downfield. Muhammad lined up split to the
> right, Bernard Berrian lined up split to the left, and
> fullback Jason McKie went in motion to the left. With
> the motion drawing the defense's attention from the
> middle to the left, Muhammad ran in the opposite
> direction, dragging across the middle of the field and
> catching a pass for 23 yards.
>
> The routes were well designed, but the key to the play
> was the pass protection. Minnesota rushed only four
> and Chicago kept tight end Desmond Clark in to block.
> That six-on-four mismatch gave Grossman plenty of
> time, and he was patient enough to wait for Muhammad
> to get into the middle of the field, behind
> Minnesota's linebackers but in front of the safeties.
> When Chicago's blockers outnumbered Minnesota's pass
> rushers, Grossman almost always took advantage.
>
> But that leads us to Grossman's biggest flaw: when he
> does feel pressure, he doesn't stay in the pocket long
> enough to find an open receiver. On a first-and-15,
> when Minnesota blitzed with both Whitaker and
> linebacker Napoleon Harris, Grossman sensed the
> pressure and threw the ball into the turf immediately.
> Whitaker blitzed from Grossman's right, but Grossman
> never even looked to his right to see if the
> cornerback blitz opened up a passing lane to that
> side. That play was the first of three straight
> incompletions against a Minnesota blitz.
>
> Too often, when he feels pressure, Grossman
> backpedals, chucks the ball off his back foot and
> hopes for the best. Although it's hard to tell a guy
> who's been labeled as injury-prone to be willing to
> take a sack, that's what he has to do sometimes,
> especially considering that throwing the ball away
> doesn't assure him he won't get hit — he was hit
> several times against Minnesota.
>
> A quick look at the stats might suggest that Grossman
> and the Bears' offensive line actually do a good job
> of thwarting opposing pass rushes: Grossman was only
> sacked once against Minnesota and has only been sacked
> twice all season. But that is mostly because Grossman
> is far too quick to throw the ball away. Sometimes
> getting rid of the ball in the face of a pass rush is
> a wise way to avoid a sack, but throwing too quickly
> can be a big problem.
>
> The Bears' offensive line also struggled with the pass
> rush, particularly right tackle Fred Miller. The one
> time Grossman was sacked, a second-and-9 at the
> Minnesota 29-yard line, Miller gave up on his block.
> He looked like he had Darrion Scott beaten early in
> the play, but Miller quit blocking and allowed Scott
> to drill Grossman from behind. Left tackle John Tait
> has always been a good pass protector, and center Olin
> Kreutz has the kind of quickness a center needs to
> snap the ball and get into position to pass block in a
> hurry. But Miller struggles, and the Bears could use
> an upgrade at both guard positions: Grossman regularly
> felt pressure up the middle when guards Roberto Garza
> and Ruben Brown were beaten in pass blocking. Don't
> let the lack of sacks fool you: Kyle Orton was sacked
> 30 times on 398 dropbacks last season behind the same
> offensive line.
>
> The best thing that can be said for Chicago's pass
> protection is that Jones is very good at picking up
> the blitz. On one first-and-10 when Minnesota rushed
> six, Jones kept the blitzing Napoleon Harris from even
> getting close to Grossman, and Grossman hit Berrian
> for 21 yards.
>
> In addition to a failure to recognize blitzes,
> Grossman sometimes looks like he just doesn't see
> where all the opposing defensive backs are. When
> Grossman left Florida in 2003, the knock on him was
> that his height (listed at 6-foot-1, perhaps a bit
> shorter) would prevent him from seeing over opposing
> defensive linemen. I generally think NFL scouts place
> too much emphasis on a quarterback's height, but there
> were times that Grossman didn't seem to see the
> Vikings' defensive backs. On a first-and-10 deep in
> Chicago territory, Grossman faked a handoff to Jones,
> then rolled to his right and tried to hit Muhammad
> just outside the right hashmark. But he failed to see
> Vikings safety Darren Sharper standing there waiting
> for him, and Sharper dropped what should have been an
> interception.
>
> Minnesota intercepted Grossman twice. On one, he
> simply threw a terrible pass. Vikings safety Dwight
> Smith lined up in the middle of the field and Grossman
> threw the ball right to him. There were no Bears
> receivers even close to the play, and Grossman just
> lamely launched the ball to Smith. On the other,
> Grossman backpedaled into the end zone because he felt
> pressured by Vikings defensive end Kenechi Udeze. But
> Udeze dove at Grossman's feet, and if Grossman had
> been more poised he could have rolled to the outside
> before Udeze had a chance to get up and sack him. A
> more experienced quarterback would have had no trouble
> buying enough time to get into a position where he
> could pass safely, but Grossman lobbed it over the
> head of Jones and into the hands of Antoine Winfield,
> who strolled seven yards for a touchdown.
>
> Play-action passes are an important part of offensive
> coordinator Ron Turner's system, and Grossman sells
> them well. On a first-and-10 at the Minnesota 26-yard
> line, Grossman's play action drew linebacker Ben Leber
> in toward the line of scrimmage, and that opened up a
> huge space for Clark in the middle of the field for an
> easy first down. The Bears used the same play several
> times the week before against the Detroit Lions, but
> Leber still looked unprepared.
>
> Grossman's performances through three games this year
> are vastly superior to anything he has done
> previously. Although he still has some growing to do
> when it comes to dealing with defenses coming at him
> at full speed, that's to be expected for a player who
> has spent a lot of time in meetings and practices and
> hardly any time in live game action. If he stays
> healthy, the Bears' passing attack will be tough to
> stop.
>
> Each week, Michael David Smith looks at one specific
> player or one aspect of a team on every single play of
> the previous game. Standard caveat applies: Yes, one
> game is not necessarily an indicator of performance
> over the entire season.
>
> posted 9-27-2006 at 11:05 AM by Michael David Smith
>
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