What Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy thought of the Bears’ opening week performance

LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The hope that the Bears would be taking shots down the field with some new weapons didn’t exactly come to pass in Week 1 of the 2023 season.

So naturally, offensive coordinator Luke Getsy was asked about the playcalling on Thursday after a Week 1 loss to the Packers on Sunday amidst plenty of criticism that has come his way the lst few days.

Was the game plan too conservative?

“I don’t look at it that way. I don’t think I ever have,” said Getsy when asked that question. “We look for advantageous looks. It sounds like screens have been a conversation, but a poor motion landmark and a couple of poor blocks. But if you watch the film, and you actually watch the film, we have everybody accounted for and there’s nobody else out there, if we can just capture that edge, those are 15-25 yard gains, and you guys are patting me on my back – and I get it, that’s part of it.

“My point of it is, we’re gonna make decisions for what we feel is advantageous to our guys having opportunities. Now we’ve got to do better – we’ve got to coach it better, we’ve got to make sure guys execute it better. That’s where we’ve got to get better at for sure.

Justin Fields only had five passes that traveled over ten yards with one completion of 23 yards in the game. D.J. Moore, the biggest acquisition of the offseason, only got two targets the entire game, while Chase Claypool failed to make a catch.

The unit was 3-for-13 on third downs and gained only 4.4 yards per carry while Fields was sacked four times.

Getsy wasn’t about to panic about the opening game as he prepares for the Buccaneers on Sunday in Tampa, as he’s done in the past after bad offensive games.

“I think we did a lot of good things. I think our execution was, obviously, maybe a little more reflective of Game 1 than we would want it to be,” said Getsy of the offense against the Packers. “It felt like we left a lot out there. Obviously, when you don’t win, things will get criticized more, but we always look at it under the microscope and make sure that we’re coaching every single person to the best of our abilities and getting the details right, and our details were not good enough, and that’s kinda the underlying fact that showed up.”

Naturally, the struggles have brought up more questions about Fields, who is in his third year with the Bears and a critical one for his future with the franchise. When Fields had some early troubles in 2022, Getsy was quick to defend his progress and did so again on Thursday after the quarterback expressed that he would have liked to have been more aggressive against Green Bay.

“I think he’s in a good place. He’s got a really good understanding of what’s going on around him. He’s getting better and better at that,” said Getsy of Fields. “But you’re still going to have some times where you look back and reflect and say, dang, I wish I would have did this or did that. We’re gonna have that as we continue to grow.

“That’s part of his youth, part of his experience that we’re getting. But there was a ton of evidence on film that’s there, we just got to get it more consistently.”