Bears coach Ben Johnson is well known as an offensive innovator and creative player. But he was also impressed that the team he’s about to coach against this week just won a game with as old-school an offense as the modern NFL has ever seen.
The Bears face the Buccaneers on Sunday night, and Johnson watched film about how the Bucs beat the Falcons last week while completing zero passes, the first time in more than half a century that an NFL team has finished a game without completing. Johnson said Bucs coach Todd Bowles and his staff wisely kept the ball on the ground on a rainy day in Tampa, and Johnson said the Bucs had a terrific staff for such an approach.
“It’s a very unique play, and it’s a credit to Coach Bowles for recognizing early on, ‘We’re not even going to throw the ball, we’re going to run the ball.’ And they have the horses to do it,” Johnson said. “This offensive line is really good. The pattern is very good – they have a lot of variety in how they do things. And their backs are phenomenal too.”
The Buccaneers and Bears rank first and second in the NFL in rushing, with the Bucs averaging 168.6 yards per game and the Bears averaging 150.8. Johnson has been particularly impressed with how the Bucs have handled the ball over the past four weeks, with Baker Mayfield missing three of those games and not completing a pass in the fourth.
“It’s a powerful rushing attack,” Johnson said. “I think in the last four games they’ve averaged 230 per game, and that coincides with the fact that they’ve also won three of their last four games, so it’s going to be a huge challenge for us. They’re the No. 1 team in football rushing the ball right now. It’s going to be a big challenge.”
Against the Falcons, the Buccaneers finished with 326 more rushing yards than passing yards. It’s safe to say they won’t have that big of a passing disparity Sunday night against the Bears, but Johnson knows the Buccaneers offense can be dangerous even if it’s one-dimensional.
Gn sports
