Chicago Bears: Why fans should be upset after season opening loss

Why should Chicago Bears fans be upset after a season-opening loss to the Green Bay Packers? One player was criminally under-used.

The Chicago Bears held Aaron Rodgers’ team to 10 points at Soldier Field and lost.

If that isn’t enough to get your blood boiling as a Chicago Bears fan, I don’t know what will.

Mitch Trubisky looked terrible. The Bears’ defense played a great game, and no one in Chicago was rewarded for it.

But what’s the real reason Bears fans should be upset following their loss to the Green Bay Packers? The real reason the Chicago faithful should be upset is Matt Nagy’s criminal under-usage of rookie running back David Montgomery.

As a matter of fact, Matt Nagy’s running back usage was way too cute for my liking in this game.

Montgomery, a third-round pick out of Iowa State, has been hyped up all offseason as the new featured back in Chicago with Tarik Cohen supposedly just keeping his role from last year which worked out quite well.

It’s only game number one, but you want to get off to a good start, and it feels like Nagy really went out of his way to do things that everyone sitting at home knew wouldn’t end well.

How about putting Cordarrelle Patterson at running back on 3rd-and-1?

Montgomery has the potential to be a real difference maker in the NFL, and he was unnecessarily handcuffed in this game. Look at this snap breakdown by offensive ‘weapons’ for the Bears on  Thursday night:

• Tarik Cohen – 51 (70 percent), 0 carries // 10 targets
• Mike Davis – 41 (56 percent), 5 carries // 7 targets
• David Montgomery – 28 (38 percent), 6 carries // 1 target
• Cordarrelle Patterson – 20 (27 percent), 1 carry // 3 targets

The Bears’ running game was atrocious in this one (15 carries for 46 yards as a team, 11 of which came from Trubisky) but in a low-scoring game, Matt Nagy did not to enough to get the ball in David Montgomery’s hands.

Montgomery caught his only target in the passing game for 27 yards, and Mike Davis was the most heavily featured player in the Bears’ offense from a targets/touches perspective (tied with Allen Robinson, 13 targets total).

This is not good, and it’s worth Bears fans being upset about. Not only was Tarik Cohen out-targeted by Mike Davis, but Davis and Cordarrelle Patterson combined for the same number of total targets/touches as Cohen and Montgomery.

The Bears will not be able to win games if they do not feature their best offensive weapons, plain and simple.