–If there is a Bears letdown, it won’t be on the part of quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Film showed him why the Bills’ defense is ranked No. 6 overall, one spot off the Bears’ defense.
“They’re super-aggressive. They get after it,” Trubisky said. “They don’t really take plays off. And they just wreak havoc up front and they’re just trying to cause as much trouble as possible.”
Buffalo defensive end Jerry Hughes, in particular, troubles head coach Matt Nagy.
“They pressure the quarterback,” Nagy said. “They make you make poor decisions. They’re opportunistic. The easiest way I can put it is, there’s a little bit of controlled chaos to them. They fly around and it’s chaotic and it can try to make you scramble.
“You saw a couple times last week, Monday night, where there’s some times where Tom Brady is back there and his feet got a little quick and he had to dirt the ball.”
–The Bears’ public relations staff mic’d up Nagy for the last game and put the results on their website. One part in particular caused a stir. It was when Nagy hollered at Trubisky during the game to step up.
“I’m going to challenge you right now, these two quarters, for greatness,” Nagy yelled. “You got me? I want to see it come out of you right here. You take this thing over right now.”
Nagy liked the strong second half he saw.
“I think he responded well,” Nagy said. “Mitch will be the first to tell you that as an offense, we weren’t clicking in the first half and sometimes you need that spark.”
Trubisky didn’t call it a watershed moment, but appreciated the attempt to get him focused.
“Every single snap and every single game, I mean, really every single week, you’re striving for greatness,” Trubisky said. “But I think when he just pulled me aside … I think it really just honed me in, made me focus a lot more and just made me that much more motivated to focus in and do what I had to do to help the offense and really get us going.
“I’ve got so much respect and love for coach. He just said it and I needed to make it happen. So I played a little bit better the second half, but I’m trying to be consistent. That’s what I’m trying to do all the time. But it definitely means a lot coming from him.”
–The Bears’ biggest problem in the first week was red-zone offense, but they’ve come a long way since then. They’ve improved to 11th overall in touchdown percentage at 64 percent and have scored at an 88 percent clip.
“Great practices, great red-zone practices, just putting an emphasis on it and focus, and just when we get down there we’ve just got to take advantage of every opportunity,” Trubisky said. “And I think that’s something we’ve just got a lot better at with our mentality our focus, and then we realize once we get down there, the really good offenses in this league they take advantage of that and they finish with touchdowns and not settling for field goals.”
–Running back Tarik Cohen calls his major role in Matt Nagy’s offense a matter of comfort.
“I play more comfortable, I probably like this offense more than last year,” Cohen said. “They gave me a little more freedom with plays, at the line, things of that nature.
“I’m loving it. I get to touch the ball a lot more often than last year, more consistent than last year.”
Cohen has a team-high 398 receiving yards, third best in the league among backs. In the last four games he has 560 all-purpose yards.
–The signs were evident in the second half Sunday that running back Jordan Howard is still capable of getting it rolling. On his mic’d up feature, Nagy even told Howard he was going to get him going.
“Jordan had 16 carries and had a 24-yarder in a four-minute drive. That part was good,” Nagy said. “Overall I know we can be better and that’s what’s great about this. Our guys understand it, our coaches understand, and we’re going to keep plugging away until we get that.”
–It still hasn’t been announced which guard James Daniels will play, left or right, with Eric Kush back in the lineup and Kyle Long out for an extended period.
Daniels said left or right guard makes no difference.
“I really don’t think it’s that big of an adjustment,” Daniels said.
With the injury to Long, it makes the coaches look all the sharper for bringing Daniels along by getting him into games and splitting snaps with Kush.
Otherwise, they’d be throwing a rookie with no experience into the fray.
“I appreciate the coaches for giving me the chance to rotate in,” Daniels added.
BY THE NUMBERS: 5 — Tarik Cohen has been on the receiving end of five pass plays of 25 yards or more, more than any other running back in the NFL.
