Too early to start worrying about offense’s struggles

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The Bears offense has been in the headlines for the last few practices, and not in a positive way.

It’s been a rough few days for the starting offense, which has struggled with procedural details and execution. For every solid goal-line drill there was a concerning 7-on-7 period, where it’s clear the offense still has a ways to go.

Quarterback Justin Fields had a rough practice on Tuesday, where he had a number of incompletions — namely during the 7-on-7 action. One was an egregious missed opportunity as Fields had a wide open N’Keal Harry in the end zone, but he overthrew him.

Those things aren’t uncommon for this time of the year, as we’re just a week and a half into training camp. But for head coach Matt Eberflus, he certainly senses an urgency to get those things corrected as quickly as possible.

“There is an urgency to get it right,” quarterback Trevor Siemian told reporters on Tuesday. “You got to keep that at the forefront of your mind. You don’t want to say, ‘Hey, that’s OK. We’ll get it next time.’ It’s just a balance.”

While there’s a sense of urgency, there’s also an understanding that it’s still early in the summer. Siemian said you typically know what an offense looks like in Week 1 — not the sixth practice of training camp. Still, the expectation is the offense still has plenty of work to do.

“You’re challenging guys and we’ve got new guys mixing in and out,” he said. “The personnel groupings aren’t fine-tuned, really where they’re going to be when we start going live bullets. It’ll be interesting to see how it comes together and then when you get down to the nitty gritty, it’s what guys can handle and what we’re good at.”

Sure, it’s concerning that the offense has been struggling noticeably over the last few practices. Especially when the team is without its top defensive players linebacker Roquan Smith (PUP list) and defensive end Robert Quinn, who’s still ramping up.

But we’re just six practices into training camp, and this is a mostly new offense learning a new scheme. If these problems persist in a couple of weeks, then it’ll be time to worry.

The Bears returned to the practice field on Tuesday, where the pads finally came on. Here’s what we learned from the sixth practice of the summer.
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