The mantra in the week leading up as the 2019 Chicago Bears prepare for their game at the Denver Broncos was to put the Green Bay game in the rear view mirror. The focus shifts to facing Vic Fangio, Denver’s new head coach and the Bears’ former defensive coordinator. Here’s what the two coaches and the Bears players had to say.
The players are different, says Matt Nagy, “but you can see that he’s putting his stamp on everything that he’s believed in the last thirty-three years.” Yet he cautions, “you start looking for something and they don’t do that, and then you’re not worrying about what you do best.”
“Just by understanding the coverage. Vic does a good job of holding his coverages and disguising things. The more we do [our plays] the more that Mitch’s trust in the play, and my trust with him knowing where to go within the play. If you start getting too crazy with too much volume of plays, then you don’t become an expert with at that play. And that’s what I want to make sure that I help Mitch do.”
We feel very comfortable going against Vic’s defense for the last couple of years. I’ve seen it in practice a lot. I am able to watch those clips from practice and see what works. We got a lot of familiarity with it. And I think that going to help us. We just got to go out there and do our jobs, and make sure we’re all executing on the same page. Vic does a good job calling the games, and he’s really good at predictability, like knowing what your tendencies are. Knowing what you’re bringing and putting guys in the right spots. He does a good job of making it complicated for the quarterback to see, as far as holding coverages. But he keeps it simple for his guys so they are able to play fast and be in the right spots.
-Mitch Trubisky
Linebacker Danny Trevathian is a former Bronco. He was asked about his Super Bowl winning Bronco team and comparison to these Bears. “It’s all about our attitude and our confidence,” he states. “You got to be scary cocky. You got to take the approach of believing in yourself. Even when you make mistakes, just don’t let it happen twice. Our attitude has carried over. We had a stepping stone last year. This year is time for us to take another leap. Everything is adding up. I’m working my tail off.”
We understand that it’s the same structure of defense. It’s a little bit different. Some of the pieces that they have include a great rush. They have a lot of veterans in the secondary. We can’t prepare for what he [Fangio] does know or doesn’t know. We have to just go out there and do what we do. Execute the plays that are called and be good in different situations. Be good on third down. Try to get into the red zone, and get some opportunities to put the ball into the end zone.
-Allen Robinson II
Vic Fangio, in his conference call with the Chicago media talked about his former coach. “He’s very versatile in that he can be committed to throwing it a lot, or running it a lot. Mixing it up. He doesn’t have one way of doing things. He will do whatever is best for the team to move the ball. He’s got a good imagination with how he goes about it. A different game plan from week to week. Use their versatile players and run their offense. They’ve got a lot of nice players there that can be moved around. He’s a good guy to have that on his plate, because he know how to use that.”