Concerned? Forte Getting Less Touches.........

Bears' Forte getting hands on ball less often

Addition of Marshall has reduced running back's touches

By Brad Biggs, Chicago Tribune reporter 7:59 p.m. CDT, October 29, 2012

The addition of a playmaking wide receiver in Brandon Marshall has reduced the touches for others on the Bears offense, and running back Matt Forte is feeling that.

Forte carried 15 times for 70 yards in the victory over the Panthers on Sunday and has 95 rushes and 18 receptions in six games for an average of 18.8 touches per game. That's down from 21.3 last season.

"When you have a special player like that, of course we need him to get the ball more, and we'll try that," coach Lovie Smith said. "But you can say that about a few of our players. We need to get them the ball more, but when you have an offensive day like we did, three-and-out, couple turnovers, you take a lot of plays away where you can't get as many touches for some of your marquee players as you'd like."

Forte is averaging 15.8 carries per game, down 1.1 from last season. There has been a bigger difference in his touches in the passing game. The Bears surely expected that when they brought in Marshall, who has been targeted 80 times — fourth among NFL wide receivers — and has 50 catches for 675 yards.

Heavy hitting: Smith said he is not concerned second-year free safety Chris Conte will change the way he plays after he was called for a personal foul and a blow to the head of a defenseless receiver on the Panthers' Brandon LaFell.

"The officials are trying to protect guys when they're in a defenseless position and all that good stuff," Smith said. "I haven't really analyzed it an awful lot. Just know that they called it and you just live with what's been called at the time. They want to keep the game safe, so in my opinion it doesn't really matter an awful lot.

"We teach it a certain way — we don't ever teach trying to hurt guys — and we'll continue to do that and hopefully be a little bit luckier next time."

Conte's intent — or lack of intent — will not affect whether he is fined. The NFL has fined first-time offenders $15,750 this season. That would represent more than half of Conte's weekly check of $27,353, so it's understandable he might hesitate to put a hit on a receiver.

"We're going to keep coaching it the same way, keep playing it," Smith said. "Every once in a while that'll happen, but the intent wasn't to hurt anyone, the intent was to get the ball out. Chris Conte isn't that type of player, so I don't think it will be an issue."

Third-down breakdown: The Panthers converted 10 of 19 third downs (52.6 percent). The Bears defense entered Sunday's game fourth in the league on third down, allowing opponents to convert just 29.2 percent (21 of 72). The Titans, whom the Bears visit Sunday, are converting 43.8 percent to rank sixth.

Extra points: Defensive tackle Nate Collins was active for the first time this season, and Smith indicated that was because he had been practicing better than Amobi Okoye. Collins was credited with three tackles. … The Bears have won five consecutive games for the third straight season. The last time the franchise accomplished that was 1947-49. … Smith said there were no new injuries to report.

Tribune reporter Vaughn McClure contributed.

We knew that adding Marshall would affect this and even though statistically his number of touches isn't all that much less watching a game tells another story. We are still passing to much and running too little.

Whether it's Marshall being targeted or someone else passing the ball 60% of the time isn't what this team is all about. Not when you have RBs like Forte and Bush. By the stats it would seem that it's Bush whose being vastly underused. Against Carolina he had just 4 carries. No back can do well and get much of a rhythm going on just four carries.

IMHO we should be doing whatever it takes to be running Forte about 20 times per game and Bush 10-12. If between 60 to 70 offensive plays is average for a game then that breaks down to somewhere around a 53% to 47% run to pass ratio or the other way around if we pass a little more.

We shouldn't be passing more than about 30 plays per game on average. The problem as I see it is that we pass too much too early, get stopped, and end up with far too many third and long situations early in the game. Drives stall and we fail to score. If the defense gives up points and we get behind then Tice feels compelled to pass and the ratio gets even more skewed.

This team can win by running the football behind a line that can run block but always seems to struggle pass blocking. So give them some help other than just a TE chipping alongside an OT. Use the run and a short passing game more effectively to set up the big down field plays. We have a huge tendency to go to that early in the game and it's being sniffed out.

Conte: We covered this in another thread. The PF against him on the hit on LaFell was a poor call. Momentum by LaFell carried him into Conte and Conte momentum carried him into LaFell. He didn't hit him with his helmet it was with his shoulder and there's no way it could have been avoided since Conte needs to protect himself well. Hopefully the films will show that.

Collins: He was fired up on Sunday and as far as I could tell we suffered nothing as far as having him playing versus Okoye. He got three tackles and just missed a big sack and that's a pretty good day for a DT in a rotation. It's nice to have the kind of depth we have.

If anyone watched the debacle that was MNF Az v SF, you'll see how a team w/no attempt or ability to rush gets their qb killed and allows the D to tee off on the passing game. SF meanwhile was throwing all sorts of differnt run looks and rb's at AZ's "vaunted D" and it couldn't stop them; and led to easy passes to Crabtree/Moss/Davis.

Tice needs to be treating this O more like SF does.

Quote:

The addition of a playmaking wide receiver in Brandon Marshall has reduced the touches for others on the Bears offense, and running back Matt Forte is feeling that.

Forte carried 15 times for 70 yards in the victory over the Panthers on Sunday and has 95 rushes and 18 receptions in six games for an average of 18.8 touches per game. That's down from 21.3 last season.

"When you have a special player like that, of course we need him to get the ball more, and we'll try that," coach Lovie Smithsaid. "But you can say that about a few of our players. We need to get them the ball more, but when you have an offensive day like we did, three-and-out, couple turnovers, you take a lot of plays away where you can't get as many touches for some of your marquee players as you'd like."

Forte is averaging 15.8 carries per game, down 1.1 from last season. There has been a bigger difference in his touches in the passing game. The Bears surely expected that when they brought in Marshall, who has been targeted 80 times — fourth among NFL wide receivers — and has 50 catches for 675 yards.

In past years, Forte, has been our offense. Stop Forte and you pretty much stopped the Bears offense. Now we do have other weapons. I believe Tice is still figuring it all out, as far as the balanced use of our weapons. He's definitely is not figured it all out yet.

1. It's better for Forte if we don't overuse him. He'll have fresher legs for the playoffs. Ultimately it may extend his career with the Bears. Lower mileage is not a bad thing for a guy we've overused in the past.

2. The poor play calling is killing us. Turnovers and three-and-outs = fewer reps for all of our weapons. It makes me angry.

3. I may be overly optimistic, but this oline looks like it will be pretty decent run-blocking for Forte. The blocking that sprung Forte for our first score Sunday was a thing of beauty. I watched that play over and over again. Webb pulled to lay the wood on the right side of the hole opening, and others opened the left. I've watched similar run blocking this season since we added Rachal to the lineup. They just need to get more consistent with these plays. Sometimes they misfire now. But I have to believe this present group of blockers is capable of giving Forte the blocking he needs to have a great year - the rest of the season, and certainly once we reach the playoffs.

Like JABF99, I think it's good to keep Forte fresh for the homestretch of the season.

Also, who exactly is surprised he is getting 3 less touches per game? After all, until we got Marshall, Forte was half of our passing game. That alone explains the difference in my mind.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Riczaj01

If anyone watched the debacle that was MNF Az v SF, you'll see how a team w/no attempt or ability to rush gets their qb killed and allows the D to tee off on the passing game. SF meanwhile was throwing all sorts of differnt run looks and rb's at AZ's "vaunted D" and it couldn't stop them; and led to easy passes to Crabtree/Moss/Davis.

Tice needs to be treating this O more like SF does.

Well I'd agree with you but "Captain Comeback" he ain't. Harbaugh is proving to be one of the best offensive minds in the game. He's come a long way since his days of being Ditka's whipping boy.

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Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

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2. The poor play calling is killing us. Turnovers and three-and-outs = fewer reps for all of our weapons. It makes me angry.

It makes me angry too - for the further fact that our D is on the field more, tiring them out. Our old guys, and especially our old injured guy, need all the rest they can get. We need to own TOP so our D can be fresh and operate at a high level the entire game. I get sick when they tire out and we blow the end of the game.