Chicago Bears Sackwatch 2020: Week 3 vs Atlanta Falcons

With the Chicago Bears making the move to Nick Foles, we’re sure to see a different style of quarterbacking than we’ve seen the last few years with Mitchell Trubisky at the helm. Foles will operate from the pocket more, which means he might get hit more, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be taking more sacks.

While he’s no where near the athlete that Trubisky is, Foles’ pocket presence will have him making sleight adjustments to ensure throwing windows. Where Mitch would feel pressure and take off to make a play with his legs, Foles will feel pressure and subtly slide away from the rush to buy time to hit a receiver. Foles makes up for his lack of athleticism with his knowledge of his offense and knowledge of what the defense is trying to do.

During Foles’ career, he’s been sacked 5.4% of the time, whereas Trubisky has been sacked at a 6.8% clip. Now the numbers don’t tell the entire story as these guys have been surrounded by different players and coaches, but it’s a baseline to understand that Foles’ lack of speed doesn’t automatically mean we’ll see more sacks.

Now let’s head to the Sackwatch...

Sack 6 - 2nd Quarter 7:02 - Grady Jarrett
This was a third down and a manageable five yards to go, and Trubisky has a streaking Tarik Cohen coming from the right to the left. He was matched up against the Atlanta corner, who was mirroring the route about seven yards deeper, while the Falcons had 2 zone defenders in the middle of the field.

Grady Jarrett, who gets this sack, was working against center Cody Whitehair and left guard James Daniels, but Jarrett’s sack comes when he’s on the ground as he trips Mitch up. It wasn’t a bad job by Daniels who made sure Jarrett went to the ground once he lost his balance, but it was a heady move by Jarrett to reach his hand out to clip Trubisky’s shoe.

But if you watch the QB move around the pocket, you’ll see it was a bump by running back David Montgomery that knocks Trubisky down.

I would have liked to see Trubisky look to Cohen on the cross, or spy Darnell Mooney who beat his man off the line to the right, but he was spooked by some up the middle pressure against right guard Germain Ifredi.

Had he not been hit by Montgomery, then maybe he could have squirmed out of the pocket, or maybe he could have stood tall and dumped it to Cohen, so for this one I’m giving Trubisky the behefit of the doubt and scoring it Sacks Happen.

Sack 7 - 2nd Quarter 4:32 - Charles Harris
The Bears went with a first down play action, and while I liked the call, the execution was off. Trubisky faked the quick hitter to the left, then faked the draw to Montgomery, but with the Falcons sending five things got a little too congested for Mitch.

Since Trubiksy was uncomfortable his eyes should have immediately went to his check down option, Ryan Nall, who was lined up at fullback and who shot through the line and ran to the right sideline. He was wide open as the Falcons sent the linebacker from that side and the Bears had two receivers running deeper routes.

It appears his first read was Jimmy Graham, but I’ll reiterate, once he feels some pressure his mind should be screaming checkdown. You can see the notion of throwing to Nall creep into his head after he dances around the pocket a bit, but by then Charles Harris, who was lined up outside Bears left tackle Charles Leno Jr., works himself all the way around to the other side as Leno pushes him past the pocket, and he cleans up for the sack.

Daniels gets a little too high at left guard for the Bears and he’s driven back, but he recovers and throws his man to the turf. Right tackle Bobby Massie may have given up a touch too much ground, but he still pushed his man past the pocket just like Leno did.

I’m pinning this one on Trubisky.

2020 Individual Sackwatch after week 3:

Mitchell Trubisky - 2
Sacks Happen - 2
Bobby Massie - 1
Cody Whitehair - 1
Jimmy Graham - .5
James Daniels - .5

Historical Sackwatch after 3 games:

2010 - 8 (Martz)
2011 - 14 (Martz)
2012 - 11 (Tice)
2013 - 3 (Trestman)
2014 - 7 (Trestman)
2015 - 6 (Gase)
2016 - 9 (Loggains)
2017 - 7 (Loggains)
2018 - 9 (Nagy)
2019 - 8 (Nagy)
2020 - 7 (Nagy)