The Chicago Bears offense has struggled to remain consistent each and every week with how their game plan has been structured throughout the 2023 season.

The team started off the season with a strong rushing attack reminiscent of the unit that led the league on the ground last season. However, the last few weeks have been more centered around throwing the ball in order to give quarterback Justin Fields more opportunities to prove himself down the stretch.

While the play calling has been frustratingly inconsistent, one area has remained a major factor in the Bears offense, for better or worse.

The Bears have been calling screen passes behind the line of scrimmage at an extremely high rate under offensive coordinator Luke Getsy. The rate is so high that someone at Wikipedia has decided to give the team's play caller a new and warranted nickname.

According to Getsy's page on Wikipedia, the 39-year-old offensive coach is now "known by many as being the 'father of the screen pass' in American football."

Whether that's truly accurate or simply just some mild trolling happening on the editable encyclopedia is yet to be known. However, there is certainly some basis to the new moniker.

So far through 15 weeks in 2023, the Bears offense has thrown 107 passes behind the line of scrimmage, which is the 4th-most in the NFL. Among quarterbacks who have played 50% of the team's drop backs in 2023, Fields ranks 8th in screen concept percentage on drop backs (11.6), per PFF. 

Bears rookie Tyson Bagent (who started in place of Fields from Weeks 7-10) had a screen concept called on 16.4% of his drop backs, the hight rate in the NFL among quarterbacks who have played 20% of the drop backs.

Fields has thrown 41 passes on screen plays and 51 total passes behind the line of scrimmage in 2023. On such concepts, Fields has just 177 yards with zero touchdowns and one interception. When you look at the numbers for Bagent, the undrafted rookie threw 26 passes using a screen concept and 34 passes behind the line of scrimmage. Bagent also had zero touchdowns on such attempts.

The Bears offense alone ranks 23rd in PPG (19.6), 22nd in total yards per game (317.9), 25th in yards per play (4.9) and 27th in passing YPG (183.5). The unit's struggles fall mainly on the shoulder of team's primary play caller.

Bears head coach Matt Eberflus was asked about the current standing with his offensive coordinator with many fans speaking out about his impact on the offense. Eberflus noted that Getsy's role, like many other's throughout the organization, will be evaluated once the season comes to a close.

“I love Luke," Eberflus said Wednesday. "He’s a great leader in the room. Like I said, I’ll evaluate everything at the end. We’re constantly evaluating things every single day, so today after practice, like normal, we’ll meet, we’ll talk about this play, that play, ‘Hey, we like this one; let’s try to do it this way,’ or, ‘Let’s make this correction there,’ so it’s constant communication during the course of the week and then into the game.”

Bears set NFL record but one that points to constant hindrance with coaching staff

The root issue remains the same in Chicago