Well, they did try a screen in the first quarter, but the timing was jacked up, and Leno ended up being penalized for being too far downfield.
They ran a draw for three yards in the middle of the second quarter. And, perhaps to Trubisky’s point, he completed a 33-yarder to Miller on a play-action keeper in the first half.
With play-action to the left directing the defense that way, Trubisky rolled back to the right, avoided Za’Darius Smith and threw a perfect ball on the run to Miller. It was a similar throw to the deep over route he missed, but he put more air under this one, perhaps benefiting from a second chance at the pass.
As the game went on, though, Trubisky consistently took straight drops, including on some incompletions on third- and fourth-and-medium in the second half.
“We called screens and we called some different stuff throughout the game,” Nagy said Monday. “We changed it up. We had a game plan going into it that we liked. What happens sometime is when you get down 21-3 there at the end of the third quarter time is of the essence. They kind of get into, defensively, a one-set mind where they’re going to play a lot more shell, a lot more Cover-2 — that kind of stuff from then on. Before that, we did exactly what we wanted, which was all that stuff — screens, draws, play-actions, etc.”
At least, the result of the game and the offense’s body of work in this lost season show that Nagy must do more to help Trubisky, and Trubisky must do more to help himself.
