While most of the Chicago Bears took Monday off to rest and recuperate after Sunday’s hard-fought comeback against the Carolina Panthers, Head Coach Lovie Smith was seen bright and early at Halas Hall watching film and scheming up a gameplan for next week. Rumor has it that next week the Bears will unveil a totally new offensive scheme that Bears sources have called “Revolutionary,” “Genius,” and “Long overdue.”
Coach Smith is preparing the greatest change in Bears offensive philosophy since the thrilling T-Formation: completely eliminating his offense.
The strategy, which is formally named “New Offense: Capping Undue Turnovers, Lest Everyone Riot” (N.O.C.U.T.L.E.R., for short,) is based on simple, old-school tactics that have been true of every great Bears team: minimal turnovers, trusting the defense, not having Jay Cutler on the field. Smith says the new scheme, which includes radical new ideas like “punt on first down” and “just have the defensive line play in place of the offensive line,” was inspired by the 2000 Baltimore Ravens team, the 1977 Atlanta Falcons defense, and the 2012 Chicago Bears offensive line.
Players on both sides of the ball seem to be excited about the change. “Whatever helps the team, that’s fine” deadpanned Cutler as he half-stared at something in the distance, “It makes no difference to me.” Running Back Matt Forte actually seemed excited about the change, telling reporters that this was the same offense he spent all off-season and training camp working on. Michael Bush is also familiar with the style, as he frequently ran a similar scheme on the Oakland bench the previous few seasons.
But perhaps nobody on the team is more excited than star DE Julius Peppers, who summarized the whole team attitude pretty nicely: “It’s like I’ve always said: I should be playing all the time,” Peppers explained while enjoying a small snack of six porterhouse steaks wrapped in bacon. “I’ve never been tired before, not in my entire adult life, so I’m excited to see if playing 140 snaps a game will push me to my limits. But I doubt it will, because, again, I am an alien.”
*Fake.
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