Breaking down the offensive line, Matt Nagy’s offensive identity, Trubisky’s play, and more

The Chicago Bears’ played a wild game on Sunday, and in it we saw massive changes made on the offensive side of the ball — the Bears’s shotgun usage dropped from ~80% (2018-2019) to ~42% (per PFF) in a way that’s totally unprecedented in the “Andy Reid” tree, the Bears deployed more “13” personnel (1 RB, 3 TEs) than any other team in football, and Matt Nagy called more play-action passes for Mitchell Trubisky (10) than he’s ever called in a single game. With all of the under-center action and a true run-focused approach to moving the ball, Sunday’s offense had a very different feel to it than Nagy’s offenses in the last two years, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But those weren’t all the changes that the Bears’ debuted on Sunday — they also showed off a revamped running game built almost solely off of outside zone, and wow did they bludgeon Detroit with it, picking up 5.3 yards per carry and leading the league in NFL Next Gen Stats’ new “Expected Rushing Yards per Attempt” metric. Considering that the offensive line is largely made up of the same players that were 3rd worst in the league when run blocking only a year ago, what changed? How does outside zone even work? And what do these offensive changes suggest about Matt Nagy? I dive into the Bears’ Week 1 tape to answer all these questions and more in my latest video breakdown — check it out below and let me know what you think!

What do YOU think? Are you confident in the Bears’ offense going forward?