The Chicago Bears suffered another defeat at the hands of the Green Bay Packers, which spotlighted some concerns in the passing game.
The most controversial call of the game came on fourth-and-goal from the half-yard line, where quarterback Justin Fields lined up in shotgun five yards behind the line of scrimmage. Fields powered forward, but he was ruled just short of the goal line.
Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has been coming under some fire following the game, including on that fourth-down play call from shotgun. But Getsy said it’s a play they’d run again.
“We love that play. We didn’t execute it properly,” Getsy told reporters Thursday. “For whatever reason, we kind of saw something, we were seeing a little ghosts a little bit up front. They were able to get penetration where we should have had two linemen on one to stop that penetration which kind of got Lucas off a little bit instead of cleaning that gap. And then it would have just been Lucas with 59 in the hole and then Justin still would have had to run through some contact.
“But, no, we knew. That was our plan. We talked about it all week. We went over every front that they present and we had plenty of time. There was a stoppage in play for the replay, right? We knew what was coming. That was exactly what we wanted, we just didn’t execute.”
To be fair, the replay showed that the ball did break the plane, even if the referees didn’t overturn the no-touchdown call. But Fields, David Montgomery and Matt Eberflus (along with NFL fans across the country) all shared the belief that it was a touchdown.
But it certainly sounds like we should expect a similar play call down the line, if Chicago is in that situation again.