Jay Cutler, Chicago Bears Offense Finally Moving in Right Direction (For Now)

The Chicago Bears' offensive performance in Sunday’s 21-13 win over the Minnesota Vikings should give reasons believe the best is yet to come this season.

While the offense was far from perfect, week-to-week improvement is all that can be expected after a 3-6 start. And that’s exactly what you saw against Minnesota.

After a three-game stretch in which the Bears scored only 51 points, all losses, the Jay Cutler-led offense showed signs of life for the first time since defeating the Atlanta Falcons on Oct. 12. Playing bad football in the most epic of ways for an entire month certainly can drain the proverbial passion bucket.

“The questions get a little bit easier after a win,” Cutler said after the game. “Everyone can relax a little bit. We have a long season. ... We had a good week of practice. We've had good weeks of practice before, we just had to play better, make some plays, overcome some things. We did all that today.”

Cutler isn't wrong, either. The Bears did have to “play better.” The Bears did have to “make some plays.” The Bears did have to “overcome some things.” But the keyword in all of that is “today.”

Defensive tackle Jeremiah Ratliff has the right mindset, via Peggy Kusinski of NBC Chicago:

What’s unfortunate now, at this stage, is that Cutler needs to be be able to deliver that same quote after each of the next six games, because the Bears still need to win out in order to be in the playoff mix. Cutler’s quote is a sign of the week-to-week improvement that was mentioned above.

And despite the win, there still is a lot of improving to be done. Yes, Cutler completed 72 percent of his passes for 330 yards with three touchdowns. That’s all fine and dandy. If there’s one thing that can soil a box score like that, it’s the number of interceptions that go along with it. The Bears’ quarterback threw two head-scratching interceptions, yet the Bears still found a way to win.

The main question now, moving forward, is whether the Bears offense can become efficient enough to score points even when Cutler is throwing back-footed passes to the opposing team.

Chicago was able to overcome it Sunday by putting together long, clock-draining drives. For the entire game, Minnesota had only one drive that went longer than three minutes. The Bears, on the other hand, had six drives of three minutes or more, four of which went five-plus minutes.

These drives were sustained by running back Matt Forte’s season-high 32 combined touches; by the monstrous efforts of wide receivers Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery; by the arrival of one Marquess Wilson, the second-year wideout who entered the game with two career catches; and by the fact that Cutler and the offense took what the defense gave them.

For starters, let’s take a look at what the Marc-Trestman-coached offense looked like last season, in terms of balance, compared to how the touches have been distributed this season.

Year
2013 (16 games)	58.9 percent pass vs. 41.1 percent rush
2014 (first nine games)	62.5 percent pass vs. 37.5 percent run

A lack of balance on offense isn’t the only reason this team has struggled—not by any means—but a balanced offense sets up the action that takes place 10-plus yards downfield.

What was the balance like Sunday? How about 58.1 percent pass to 41.9 percent run? Does that type of balance look familiar? Perhaps comparable to last season? There’s no reason for this trend not to continue.

The Bears’ bell-cow running back didn’t appear to get bogged down by the workload that led to him falling one carry short of his career high of 27 carries, set his rookie season, 2008. On the final play of the third quarter, on a cold, blustery day, he barrelled through a handful of Minnesota defenders for a 32-yard gain. It arguably was his best run of the season, too.

Forte’s 32 touches led to the Bears’ gaining control of the middle of the field, forcing Minnesota to pay attention to someone or something not named Marshall or Jeffery.

“That was sweet,” left tackle Jermon Bushrod said of the offensive improvement. “We needed it. We were able to do some good stuff. When you go into a game, things aren’t always going to be perfect. Our playmakers bailed us out at times.”

It had to be nice for Cutler to once again see the pass-catching duo who was widely regarded as the NFL’s best after the 2013 season. While each of the receivers registered 100-plus-yard games against Atlanta a few weeks back, Sunday’s game, hands down, was the best all-around performance of their respective seasons.

Were there mismatches to be taken advantage of against Minnesota? There most certainly were.

"We wanted to go at 21," Cutler said, referring to Vikings 5’10” cornerback Josh Robinson.

Marshall (6’4”) and Jeffery (6’3”) have 151 inches of height combined, a likely mismatch over just about every cornerback-cornerback combo in the NFL. It’s just a matter of taking advantage, and the Bears did so for the first time in over a month.

Wide Receiver	Catches/Targets	Yards	Touchdowns
Alshon Jeffery	6/10	94 yards	1 TD
Brandon Marshall	4/4	39 yards	1 TD
Marquess Wilson	1/1	6 yards	N/A

Minnesota played a lot of three-deep coverage, which usually turns into man-to-man coverage on the outside and over the top.

Two times during the game, Marshall tried to get Cutler’s attention to alert him of man-to-man coverage against Robinson. The first time, Cutler missed Marshall’s signal and ended up throwing an interception in the direction of tight end Martellus Bennett. Adam Hoge of The Game 87.7 FM relayed what he saw from the press box: 

The outcome was better the second time, when Cutler, after audibling at the line, threw a high, back-shoulder throw to Marshall, who hauled in the touchdown over the top of the cornerback.

What’s important here is that Marshall was not Cutler’s first read. The Bears quarterback scanned left to right, not forcing the throw somewhere it shouldn’t have gone. Too many times this season Cutler has locked onto a receiver and it has ended badly.

Remember what Dolphins safety Reshad Jones said after Miami beat Chicago in Week 7; a game in which Jones intercepted Cutler.

"After watching film all week, we saw (Cutler) was looking where he threw the ball. He was always looking at his receivers and never looking off,” he said, via The Associated Press.

Bleacher Report NFL Analyst Matt Bowen took notice of the offensive improvement: 

One of the major criticisms of this Bears team has been the lack of in-game adjustments, locking onto one concept. Well, right there, on that one play, you have multiple adjustments, all positive.

You also have to factor in the success the Bears had downfield; a definite adjustment from past weeks, when Cutler found very little success throwing the long ball, averaging just 4.1 attempts per game and a 34 percent completion percentage.

	Completions-Attempts-Yards	Completion %	TD/INT	Season completion percentage
Minus yards	10-10-86	100 percent	0/0	94 percent
0-9 yards	15-19-98	79 percent	1-0	79 percent
10-19 yards	3-4-41	75 percent	0-1	52 percent
20-plus yards	3-7-105	43 percent	2-1	34 percent

Again, this is a small sample size, but what you saw with your eyes can be explained with numbers. Cutler had more success throwing downfield as a result of taking what the defense gave him. He appeared to not to check out of as many run plays at the line of scrimmage as he usually does, as Trestman alluded to after the Miami loss, via Adam Hoge of The Game 87.7 FM. He didn't deviate from the game plan of using his big receivers against smaller cornerbacks.

For maybe the second time this season—maybe even the third—you've seen positive movement from the Bears offense. It doesn't matter against whom the win came. A win is a win. At a time when each loss feels like another job lost at Halas Hall, the wins definitely have to count for something.

Now it’s up to Trestman to take what works and implement it in a way that forces the opposition to give him the looks he wants. For Trestman to keep this team moving forward, he must game-plan smarter than the opponent.

While seven straight seems like a daunting task, what else is there to believe in at this point?

All stats provided by Pro Football Focus unless otherwise noted. All quotes pulled from press-conference transcripts unless otherwise noted.