If Bears offensive coordinato Luke Getsyr is among the least popular people at Halas Hall these days, it all bounces off of him.Fans flooded social media in outrage over the past few weeks about a game plan used by the Bears offensive coordinator with almost 20 screens or short passes against Minnesota.
As it turns out, a good number of those couldn’t even be placed on his plate — at least not directly.TFrom the way Getsy explained the play calls against the Vikings when the Bears won 12-10, some of the blame or credit for a 12-10 win without a touchdown after four takeaways also goes to quarterback Justin Fields.
“I thought Justin did a really nice job with a lot of that stuff,” Getsy said. “So a lot of it, what you see is like RPO-ish, right? They come up and they’re bringing a lot of pressure, so you have to have an answer.”
The run-pass option or RPO is decided by the quarterback as the play is unfolding and not a specific predetermined course of action.
One option on many of these RPO calls was a wide receiver screen to either DJ Moore, Darnell Mooney or Equanimeous St. Brown, or short pass to them or Tyler Scott to beat the large number of Vikings blitzes coming on the inside. So basically it was Fields making the decision to throw the screen.
It was a way to get the ball outside when they couldn’t get there running it because of the pressure being brought, or wouldn’t have time to throw downfield. Fields had to read quickly whether he should take it outside on those screens or downfield or even run it.
“There were maybe one or two he thought something and it really wasn’t,” Eberflus said. “But for the most part, Justin did a really nice job of diagnosing that stuff and seeing what they presented to us. And they do a great job of making everything look the same.
“So whenever they presented it (blitz) and sometimes they got out of it, we were still able to out-leverage them. ”
Fields, of course, didn’t design the play or the game plan, so Getsy isn’t totally absolved of all responsibility. In Getsy’s eyes, it was a good plan and pretty good execution even without a touchdown after the defense took the ball away four times.
“So that was a really good answer to the run game and the way that we handled that,” Getsy said. “A few times we had opportunities. I think there were three or four huge explosives that we lost because we, maybe, whether it was a protection or whatever happened, miscommunication from the backfield or up front, that we lost some opportunities to take advantage of that all-out pressure.”
Getsy particularly liked how they handled a fourth-down conversion when Fields hit Cole Kmet coming late out of the pass protection to catch it wide open underneath coverage and pick up a first down when they needed 10 yards in Vikings territory. However, he doubts they’ll have a need for this type of attack again based on all the blitzes they faced. The Vikings blitz about half of defensive plays.
“So, (we) hit the big one with Cole on that fourth-and-10, that was really good,” Getsy said. “Great to see Justin drift away from it, too, to create the extra time and Cole did the rest. So good stuff.
“But like we’ve talked about before, they (Minnesota) bring a unique challenge to you that you have to have a different plan when there’s eight guys on the line of scrimmage.”
The game plan moved outside more with screens than it did even in the first game, a 19-13 Vikings win in Chicago when Field suffered a dislocated thumb.
“Again, I think it became more extreme because there was more (bltzing),” Getsy said. “At least half of those, you’re not calling them to do that.
“That’s the reaction because of what you’re presented. And so as you go through those types of game plans, you want to have answers for your guys.”
The answers are the options and in this case it’s using them that caused the offense to look
There is always the option of an audible by the QB.
“Yeah, I mean, the QB has the ultimate decision, so whatever he says goes,” Getsy said. “When you play teams that are going to do different things or even like, you have training camp opportunities where you have these base rules and when you get presented these things, the quarterback has these triggers to get to.
“And that team specifically just brings more of that out of you than normal. But the quarterback has complete control for sure.”
If it looks the same this week, something is out of whack. It would either be the Bears offense or the Lions defensively doing something they haven’t been showing. The Lions blitz only half as often as the Vikings do, at 24.8% of plays.
“It’s not always the same,” Getsy said. “I think the team we just played, they kinda do what they do and everybody else has to kinda react to that.
“I think these guys (Detroit) do a really good job of playing their opponent. specifically. So there’s just different challenges when you do that. These guys do a really good job.”
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