The Chicago Bears fell to the Detroit Lions 34 – 30 on Sunday as they collapsed in the second half. When I say collapsed, I mean it was an epic collapse. With about 4:30 left in the 4th quarter, the Bears had a win probability of 99.1%. An absolute, complete implosion.
I said it before and I’ll say it again… the Bears’ season is over folks. Forget the math, no way is this team making the playoffs or beating anyone while doing so. The losing streak is up to 6 and Bears fans can only hope that the slide continues.
I wanted to simply throw up Good Bears: Nothing, Bad Bears: Everything, but I figure with only a few games left, let’s look a little deeper:
Good Bears
David Montgomery had another great game. He followed up what may have been the best game of his young career last week with another solid performance. He finished the game with 72 yards and 2 TDs on the ground and adding another 39 through the air. Encouraging to see as the season winds to a close. If Nagy actually ran the ball, he might not be in this position where he’ll most likely be losing his job.
The Bears actually scored. 30 points! That ties a season high! What an explosive offense! Juggernaut if you will. Crazy thing is, Trubisky didn’t even look horrible. He did lose a fumble at the end of the game, but the Bears should have never even been throwing. Great call Nagy…
Bilal Nichols had a pick. The defense as a whole played like shit, but it’s always great to see a fat guy pick. Gotta give the guy some love here.
The Bears lost in embarrassing fashion. I said something similar last week. This has to be the final nail in the coffin and everyone is going to get fired. This is a good thing, because Pace and Nagy ain’t it.
The offensive line hasn’t been horrendous. I’m sure this had a lot to do with it being the Lions, but the O-line wasn’t God awful. The bar is pretty damn low though, so this isn’t saying a whole lot. They’ve made some changes lately and maybe it’s working. Irrelevant though. That won’t be the same line that is in Chicago next year.
Bad Bears
The Defense. Bad, bad, bad. They gave up 400 yards through the air which is a season high. The 460 total yards was a season high, but it wasn’t much more than the 426 total yards they gave up in Week 1… to the Lions. Yardage aside, they just couldn’t shut down the Lions in the second half and put the game away. They should have been able to do it and couldn’t. The past two weeks have looked really bad and what has been a strength for this team all season just isn’t one anymore.
Play-calling. You can pretty much just copy and paste this for every game, but let’s focus on the end of the game. After Montgomery had been having another good game, Nagy decides to run the ball to get to the two minute warning, then has Trubisky drop back the next two plays. Now it’s not like the Bears could have just run the clock out completely, Detroit had their timeouts. Of course though, Trubisky fumbled the ball and Detroit got it at the 7 yard line. The Bears couldn’t stop a nose bleed at that point so it’s not like the Lions couldn’t have drove down the field regardless of the time even if the Bears punted, but the decisions by the head coach continue to be head-scratchers.
Robert Quinn looks like a horrible signing. Hindsight is 20/20 so I’m not completely blaming this on Pace because it looked like a good move at the time. But this dude didn’t even record a tackle or an assist Sunday, and it’s not like he didn’t play much. He was on the field for 79% of the plays, which is actually a season high for him. Extremely disappointing season for Quinn.
Hopefully some changes are coming here at the end of the season. It would be hard to believe that there wouldn’t be, it’s just a matter of time. Again, best case is for the Bears to lose and do so in embarrassing fashion. Being the laughingstock of the NFL might be the only way there is some actual change. I think that’s what finally did the Bulls front office and Boylen in. Just a punchline of the sporting world.
By the way… Bulls first preseason game is Friday!