Anthony Miller, the third-year Bears receiver who’s never been shy to share an opinion, made my ears perk up when speaking to the media on a Zoom conference call on Friday afternoon.
When asked if he found positives despite losing to the Packers on Sunday Night Football, Miller said he found them, but felt that the game was lost by the time it mattered. Moreover, Miller added that he didn’t feel the team did anything better coming out of the break.
And what might be the biggest eye-opener was this, as transcribed by Cam Ellis of NBC Sports Chicago:
“I feel like we got hit in the mouth coming out and we just tucked our tail and ran away. I feel like, going forward, we need to be the ones throwing punches, coming out. And not play like we’re already up, we have to be on the attack, because I believe we have the pieces to do it.”
On one hand, I love the idea of the Bears lining up and dictating the action. Step on the field, throw some haymakers, and go from there. But also … did Miller just insinuate the Bears were soft? Because, if so, he wouldn’t be the first.
I went back and checked my notes from the pre-game show before the Bears’ Monday Night Football showdown against the Vikings. In doing so, I circled back to some an exchange between Anthony “Booger” McFarland’s and Randy Moss that caught my ear enough to jot it down in my notes app at the time:
McFarland: “I talked to a defensive coordinator. I asked him: ‘Hey, tell me about the Chicago Bears’ run game.’ They said it’s a trick ’em run game. They’re not physical. They try to trick you. They’re soft. They don’t respect it.”
Moss: “Soft?”
McFarland: “Soft. They do not respect what the Bears do. It’s a gimmick offense. As a defensive player, anytime I saw a gimmick offense, I knew how to beat them. Hit them in the mouth, and you know them out.”
Between that anecdote being stuck in my head and Miller’s insistence that the Bears need to be aggressors, there’s enough for me to have serious questions about what the Bears’ offense should be all about moving forward. It’s one thing to have an analyst call your team soft. But when a player chimes in saying “we just tucked our tail and ran away” just weeks later, that’s problematic.
For what it’s worth, at least Miller has some ideas on how to fix things:
#Bears WR Anthony Miller on what needs to happen for this offense to get clicking:
"I think the plays that we practice and that we execute in practice all week, they need to be called when we get to the game on Sunday…
— Zack Pearson (@Zack_Pearson) December 4, 2020
There’s an old adage in sports that says you play how you practice. So if these plays work during practice, and the Bears aren’t using them in games, then it’s a logical step to take for Miller to insist that those are the plays that should be called (and run) on game day. After all, if they’re working against a defense that ranks eighth in scoring defense, then they should work against the Lions.