As their 2018 schedule made its way through November and into December, the Bears were in the process of winning nine of their final 10 regular-season games. But within the heady blitz of the league, a stretch which matched that of the 1985 team's final 10, lay some questions that hang over the 2019 group.

First, some context: Over the span of the first five of those 10 games, all wins, the Bears scored six return touchdowns. The Bears won the five games by an average of 14 points. Then the faucet of defensive touchdowns stopped with Eddie Jackson's game-winning interception in Detroit.

The Bears lost to the Giants in New York the following game, then won the final four – by an average of 8.6 points. Over the final eight games, including the playoff loss to Philadelphia, the offense failed to score more than 17 points five times.

Obscuring any nagging shortcomings of the offense, the defense was throttling opponents such that six of the final seven rival offenses failed to top 17 points.

In three of the final five games, including the playoff loss to the Eagles, the Bears failed to top 15 points (15 vs. Rams, 14 at San Francisco, 15 vs. Philadelphia). This compared to the first nine games of 2018 in which the Bears scored 23 or more eight times.

The offense exceeded 390 yards five times in the first nine game, including 400-plus in four of those. The offense topped out at 376 through last eight games, and that in the loss to the New York Giants, in which Chase Daniel started for an injured Trubisky. After the 402 yards in the first Detroit game, the offense behind Trubisky max'ed out at 332 yards over the final five regular-season games before a "surge" to 356 in the playoff loss to Philadelphia.

The question arises:

The question all of that points to is that while coach Matt Nagy, quarterback Mitch Trubisky and the offense were settling in and living their learning process, how much was the NFL catching onto and learning them?

"I think what the league does and what defenses do in general is that they eventually do catch up to specific offenses," Nagy acknowledged. "And schemes you do the second time you see something, they can adjust to it."

Anecdotal evidence is inconclusive or conflicting. On one hand, the scoring slippage as 2018 wound down suggested loosely that opponents were in fact doing their due diligence in film study. On the other hand, the Bears had generally the same production of points, first downs and yards in games 1-2 vs. Green Bay and Minnesota. On still another hand, the Bears put 34 points and 402 yards on the Lions in Soldier Field, then managed just 264 yards and 16 points in that Thanksgiving game 11 days later, winning only with a Jackson pick-6 in the fourth quarter.

Hence the question: Was/is the NFL catching onto Nagy?

"I don't think so," said former Bears quarterback Jim Miller, now an analyst for SiriusXM NFL Radio. "I saw a lot of growth throughout last year and I really like the way Nagy brought Mitch along."

"Razzle-dazzle" out'ed

If there in fact are issues coming with league familiarity with Nagy and Trubisky, it wouldn't be the first time that the Bears' new, bright, shiny offensive toy was out'ed by an NFL that can stand for "Not For Long."

About this time 20 seasons ago, a flashy start in a new offensive system – 20 first-half points to produce a 17-point halftime lead against the Kansas City Chiefs under then-new offensive coordinator Gary Crowton – was followed by being shut out in the second half by the Chiefs, and coach Gunther Cunningham denigrating the Crowton offense as trite "razzle dazzle."

Cunningham's derision proved prophetic: The Bears averaged 17.0 points for the year, 25th in the NFL, a league that very quickly caught on to Crowton and his bubble screens and assorted razzles and dazzles.

That kind of precipitous drop-off for the current Bears offensive iteration isn't likely. The Crowton scheme relied on gimmicks; the Nagy offense employs gimmicks but isn't gimmicky, tracing its concepts to the longtime, proven-sound West Coast principles of Andy Reid and others.

"You want to be able to be different with what you do and not be predictable and not have tendencies," Nagy said during last season. "We always self-scout ourselves and we decide what we want to do going into each game."

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