Beatty reacts to Amegadjie’s brutal NFL debut |
CHICAGO - Chris Beatty’s first two games as an offensive coordinator in the NFL have been brutal.
The Chicago Bears have lost both games by at least three possessions and are in the midst of an eight-game losing streak. They are about to welcome the Detroit Lions to Soldier Field on Sunday, Dec. 22 (Noon / FOX). “Definitely room for improvement from last week, definitely disappointing,” Beatty said. “With Detroit coming in, they’re a little bit banged up. But, we got to make sure we take care of ourselves and play a better brand of ball than we played the last two weeks.” Chicago got in a hole early. The last time these two faced each other, this past Thanksgiving, they were shut out in the first half against the Lions. The Bears were nearly able to overcome the 16-point deficit before their clock management debacle at the end of the game. Reflecting on that game, Beatty said Chicago made some strong halftime adjustments. “We made some great adjustments at halftime last time. Obviously, we got to start faster than we did up there on Thanksgiving. I think they’ve got a great team. Obviously, you’re going to have to score points … You can’t dig yourself a hole. So, we want to try to be aggressive but at the same time, put our guys in a position to do what they do best. We know what they do. They’ve got some personnel issues over there, so we got to be able to figure that out quickly and then move forward from there and get our guys in a position to play fast at the start of the game,” Beatty said. “You’re assessing everything, every play, every series. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of discussing in between series of how to attack different things. They’ve got a lot of moving parts and we have too at the same time. So, we got to be able to adjust whether it’s protection, whether it’s routes or whatever it may be, run game, whatever those adjustments need to be according to how they play it. But, at the end of the day, we got to worry about us. We got to play fast and do what we do best and hopefully they got to adjust to us as much as we’re trying to adjust to them.” Injuries have been a problem for Chicago throughout the season. Offensive lineman Ryan Bates has been ruled out for the game while offensive linemen Teven Jenkins (calf) and Braxton Jones (concussion), as well as defensive lineman Gervon Dexter (knee) and cornerback Jaylon Johnson (illness) are officially questionable. Running back Travis Homer is doubtful with a hamstring. Jones showed concussion symptoms the day before Chicago’s previous game against the Minnesota Vikings; rookie offensive lineman Kiran Amegadjie played in Jones’ place against Minnesota and had a rough night. He missed a critical block that led to a fumble and committed four penalties. While it was a rough NFL debut, Beatty hopes Amegadjie will learn from his mistakes against Minnesota. “All experiences are good experiences if you learn from them and if you don’t, then they’re all bad. So, I think at the end of the day, hopefully he’s learned some things from it. Speed of the game, there’s no simulating what it is on a Monday night or Sunday afternoon. So, those things are adjustments for him, the first time really getting out there and you’re the guy. So, I do think those things are beneficial because you have to get out there and experience it yourself and again, we take full responsibility as coaches to put those guys in positions to be successful and we got to do a better job and I’ve got to do a better job in my role in doing that and that’s, at the end of the day, it ultimately falls on us putting those guys in position to have a chance to be successful.”
