Chicago Bears Sackwatch 2019: Week 7 vs. the New Orleans Saints

Only allowing two sacks against the New Orleans Saints isn’t that bad, but the first was because of piss-poor execution, and at this point in the season that shouldn’t be happening. The second sack was schemed up perfectly and sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the defense for making a good play.

But overall, I thought the pass protection was good, especially when considering Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy had his quarterback drop back to pass 56 times. With zero concern for the run, the Saint defenders could just line up and attack Mitchell Trubisky and that’s exactly what they did. So kudos to the Bears overall pass pro this week.

Let’s take a peek at where the Bears have stood in the sacks allowed department after six games going back to the Mike Martz era.

Sackwatch after 6 games

2010 - 27 Martz
2011 - 19 Martz
2012 - 19 Tice
2013 - 9 Trestman
2014 - 14 Trestman
2015 - 12 Gase
2016 - 12 Loggains
2017 - 13 Loggains
2018 - 14 Nagy
2019 - 15 Nagy

And some people wonder why Jay Cutler had a few choice words for his former offensive coordinator.

Sack 14 - Second Quarter 13:08 - Cameron Jordan
This is a run pass option (RPO) that goes nowhere. The play is designed to read defensive end Cameron Jordan who is unblocked to the right. But before that, the Bears send Taylor Gabriel in motion to help tip Chicago's offense that the Saints are playing zone.

Now back to the read. Jordan crashes down, so Trubisky keeps the ball, and so far so good.

Since Trubisky is looking right — reading Jordan — he’s supposed to hit one of the receivers to the right. Tight end J. P. Holtz heads to the right flat, and the Saint defender responsible for the flat zone follows him after he shucks the Anthony Miller, who is the receiver lined up to the right. Miller runs five yards then turns around between defenders in a soft spot of the zone.

He’s wide open.

But Trubisky, for some reason known only to him, gave up on the play-side read and looked to the left.

Perhaps he was thinking ‘throw the fade to Allen Robinson down the left sideline, or hit Gabriel on the quick curl,’ but he didn’t do either and by the time he came back to the right, where he should have been looking the whole time, Rashaad Coward was five yards downfield blocking. So even if he would have thrown the ball to Miller (who was still freakin open) there would have been a flag on the play.

This sack is on Trubisky.

Sack 15 - Third Quarter 9:03 - Cameron Jordan
The Saints have eight defenders up tight, but on the snap they only send five. Before I get into this sack, I want you to look at the 2 a-gaps. New Orleans has a linebacker in each gap, and on the snap center James Daniels takes the a-gap to his right, leaving the left-side a-gap for either left guard Cody Whitehair or running back David Montgomery to come across the formation. Since Whitehair’s focus goes straight to his b-gap, I’m assuming protection was set up for Montgomery to take #53 (A.J. Klein) if he blitzed.

Now look to the Bears’ right side. New Orleans loops Cameron Jordan (#94) all the way back inside to the a-gap that Klein bluffed a blitz to. Montgomery had already turned his attention back to the right since Klein dropped, and since the Saints blitzed two to the left.

The Saints knew that Whitehair would fan out to pick up #93 (David Onyemata), so they sent him around left tackle Charles Leno Jr., which was a ploy to keep Whitehair as wide as possible. Leno’s attention was on defensive end Marcus Davenport (#92), but when Davenport dropped into a zone he picked up Onyemata, who crossed his face. With Whitehair now widened out he was in no position to pick up the stunting Jordan back to his inside.

This sack is on the perfect execution from New Orleans, and therefore goes into the sacks happen category.

2019 Individual Sackwatch after 6 games:

Mitchell Trubisky - 4
Sacks Happen - 3
Kyle Long - 2
Chase Daniel - 1.5
Charles Leno Jr. - 1.5
Cody Whitehair - 1
Ted Larsen - 1
James Daniels - 1