Again and Again Fumbling for Those Six Soft Points
Rare fumble aside, Allen Robinson showed why the Bears signed him in win over 49ers
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When Mitch Trubisky saw the 49ers were going to play more zone defense, he thought: "Playmakers not plays."
That meant trusting Allen Robinson, who returned to the game after getting the wind knocked out of him on a 43-yard diving catch in the first quarter. Just as the Bears hoped when they signed Robinson to a sizable free-agent deal in the offseason, the two linked up six times, including four third-down conversions, in a 14-9 win at Levi's Stadium.
" Especially at the end, you're thinking playmakers not plays, and when you've got the matchup you want and you've got a guy like Allen on the outside who you have that trust in, you just let him work a little bit and put the ball in a spot where only he can go grab it," Trubisky said. "He separates and makes big plays for this offense and I've got a lot of trust in a lot of guys in this offense and that was just the matchup we were liking, him on their DBs, and we've just gotta continue to go to that and that trust will help us as far as we go."
For Robinson, this game had a little bit of everything, including a big catch, an injury and subsequent trip to the locker room, an offensive pass interference penalty (it was declined), and most notably, the first lost fumble of his NFL career, on his 257th career catch, wasting a third-down pickup that would have ended the game.
" Just trying to make plays," he said. "That's on me. I need to make sure I protect the ball at all costs. That's on me. I can leave it to our defense at that point in time. We had the game won based on it being a first down. I have to make sure I secure the ball, get the first down and we win the game."
Even with the lost fumble that gave the 49ers life, Taylor Gabriel thought it was one of Robinson's best games as a Bear.
"For him to step up like that after the injury, I feel like that's big time," he said. "For a receiver to do that with that type of injury, he had to focus in and make those plays and he did."
The Bears defense forced a turnover on downs to end the game, and obviously Robinson wasn't surprised they cleaned up his mess.
"I knew our defense would pick us up," he said. "I had never fumbled in my career before. That was the biggest thing. That's something that you never want to do. It shouldn't have to come down to that. I could have ended the game right there. We won, so I can move forward and learn from it. But at the same time, it shouldn't have been left in our defense's hands like that."
When the 49ers played zone Robinson found soft spots to be a target for Trubisky. When they were in man, like the two third-down receptions on the Bears' last drive, he won on his route to get open.
Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky was efficient, if not spectacular, in a 14-9 win over the 49ers on Sunday. (Cary Edmondson/USA TODAY Sports)
The "playmakers not plays" sentiment is a similar one to what allowed Trubisky to be so efficient against the Packers last week, and after a major error in the first half on a fumble, then an almost-disaster of an interception in the end zone that was nullified by a holding penalty, he settled down.
Trubisky completed 25-of-29 passes, an 86.2-percent accuracy rate that is the best for a Bears quarterback dating back to 1960, helping his team escape the Bay Area and clinch no worse than the No. 3 seed in the NFC.
For the first time this season, Trubisky went back-to-back games without throwing an interception, and he put his faith in the playmakers Ryan Pace spent millions of dollars on in March and April. Robinson finished with six catches for 85 yards. Trey Burton caught all five passes thrown his way for 30 yards. Gabriel and Anthony Miller each caught the three passes thrown to them for a combined 52 yards, with Miller ending his catch drought with a touchdown before halftime.
From that touchdown throw until the start of the fourth quarter, Trubisky completed 11 passes in a row.
" He was doing good," Gabriel said. "Locked in and dissecting a zone like that I feel like is a big challenge for him and he stepped up and did his thing."
"I think this is one of his best games," Robinson said. "Especially with the defense, how they were playing and what they were giving us, I think for him, he didn't get impatient. He took what the defense was giving us, continued to move the chains, made plays with his arm, made plays with his legs, kept drives alive, so it was big."
Sure, Trubisky wasn't dropping 40-yard dimes, but these kinds of games and defenses have sometimes stymied him in his two seasons. Getting the ball out quickly and avoiding negative plays and turnovers is all Matt Nagy asks of Trubisky, considering the defense the Bears have, and that's what the QB did in the second half.
"I know he threw a lot of completions," Nagy said. "Any time you throw a lot of completions in a game, you give yourself a chance to win because you stay ahead of the sticks and you don't get into third-and-long situations. He did that. When you do that in this league, good things happen. He made some big-time throws there at the end of the game, third-and-5 and third-and-4 to A-Rob. He's now taking the next step and I love to see it."
"From an offensive standpoint, I think this was one of our best days," Robinson said. "Points-wise, it may not have shown. I think we got into a flow where for us, some games we have a lull and then create some big plays, but I think we were able to create some momentum when we were needed to.
"For Mitch to complete 11 straight passes, that's pretty big, especially how the defense was playing us. It was a bend-but-don't-break defense. They were trying to make us drive down the field."
Last week, Trubisky showed a lot of growth from his second-half struggles in Green Bay in Week 1. After that game, he admitted that he wasn't ready for the Packers' zone defense. Most of their calls were designed to beat a man defense.
When the Niners played more zone than normal Sunday, Trubisky was accurate in picking up first downs, allowing the Bears to dominate time of possession (35:30 to 24:30).
Gabriel noted the Bears' use of the RPO game after halftime was key to the offense's success in sustaining drives. Jordan Howard had only 13 carries, but he went for 53 yards to keep the 49ers honest.
"When we're just moving the ball down the field, it's hard to stop us," Howard said.
The 49ers were down to their final timeout with 3:25 remaining and the Bears facing a third-and-4 from their 43-yard line. Trubisky hit Robinson on an out route on the left sideline for six yards.
"It's a concept we were familiar with," Robinson said. "It was third-and-4, it was up to me to make a play, to beat my defender one-on-one and make a play to keep the chains moving."
The trust Trubisky had in Robinson, to be at the spot where the ball would be, is like the trust he has in Robinson to make a diving catch on a 43-yarder down the field. The Bears don't want that trust to get to a point where Trubisky is taking too many risks, but that's not how this offense works anyway.
Robinson has been a victim of the spreading of the wealth, per se, considering he's a "No. 1" receiver with "only" 55 catches for 754 yards this season. That hasn't been an issue for him.
"When I had my prolific numbers or whatever that was on a 5-11 team (in Jacksonville)," he said. "So at the end of the day, to continue to be part of this team and help us win games, that's the most important thing."
In the playoffs, Trubisky is going to face a team that might not let him off the hook for the two bad plays in the first half. Once again, he can be thankful to learn from them after a win. But he's also going to need to maintain that reliance on his playmakers in the postseason, knowing that the big-money guys will come through and he doesn't have to do it all himself. In the second half Sunday, he did that. Now he's stacked consecutive clean games together. He wasn't fazed by a zone defense like he was on Sept. 9 at Lambeau Field.
Trubisky is the reason Bears fans can't go ahead and book their tickets to Atlanta, but he's also showing improvement and Sunday's addition to his growth is having the faith in his pass catchers.
"Just trying to make plays when my number is called. Fortunately for us we have a lot of different players we can go to down the stretch," Robinson said. "So being able to have my number called down the stretch was big and that's what you play for. That's what I was brought here for, to try and make plays for my quarterback."
(Top photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Source: https://theathletic.com/732028/2018/12/23/rare-fumble-aside-allen-robinson-showed-why-the-bears-signed-him-in-win-over-49ers/
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