The Chicago Bears were unable to take advantage of a team missing their starting quarterback on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens, losing 16-13.
After working out pregame, the Ravens decided that Lamar Jackson (who is battling some sort of virus) would not be able to go. Second-year QB Tyler Huntley would be getting the start. This was great news for the Bears, as they now didn’t have to deal with one of the most dynamic players in the NFL. Matt Nagy wouldn’t let that stand in the way of him getting to 0-4 coming off of a bye week though. Matt Nagy has a history of losing to backup QBs in those situations. In 2 of the last 3 games he’s coached coming off of a bye, he’s lost to backups Brock Osweiler and Teddy Bridgewater. Add Tyler Huntley to that list. Oh and by the way, the Bears scored 0 points in the first half. ZERO coming off a bye…
It was another week of being under prepared and a clueless, disorganized coaching staff.
Let’s get into it…
Good Bears
Darnell Mooney. Since there isn’t much good from this game, it’s a good time to highlight Mooney who had another good game. He racked up 121 yards on 5 catches, most of it coming on a 60-yard catch and run, and 1 TD. On the 60-yarder, he was able to spin and make a few defenders miss on the way to a long TD that broke the shutout for the Ravens. The second-year wideout has almost matched last years production already just 10 games in, and we’re probably looking at the #1 WR for next year. Not sure if he’s a legit number 1 quite yet, but it looks like he’s going to be a damn good WR.
Roquan Smith and Robert Quinn. Roquan ended the game with a new career-high in tackles (17) and Robert Quinn came up with 3.5 sacks. Two dudes absolutely playing their asses off. Roquan was seen on the sidelines at the end of the game yelling at the defense while Robert Quinn was pretty emotional after the game calling the loss “sickening”. They’re giving it their all to try and get some wins.
The weather was nice in Chicago this Sunday. Bright, sunny, crisp, Fall day. Great conditions. Yeah I know this has nothing to do with the Bears, but gotta fill this section with something…
Bad Bears
Coaching. More chaos and indecision. There were multiple times during the game where it seemed the coaching staff had no idea what they wanted to do. There were punt teams running on the field on 4th downs when the Bears should have been going for it, followed by timeouts, followed by penalties, followed by questionable calls. It never ends with this team. The coaching staff, mainly Nagy, is lost. This guy needs to go ASAP. If he were fired this week, the team would be no worse off than they are now. Chris Tabor would do just as good of a job, if not better. Here’s a sequence that ended one of the Bears’ drives:
- Throw a bomb on 3rd and 1
- Send out the punt team, confusion ensues… some BS with Nagy’s headset that he freaks out about
- Call a timeout
- Decide not to punt
- Put Montgomery in the wild cat, gets stuffed. Even if he didn’t there would have been a penalty
- Turnover on downs
This type of shit happens multiple times a game. Add the decision of not knowing whether or not to go for 1 or 2 at the end of the game to either put the Bears up 5 or 6 is almost laughable at this point. They just have no idea what is going on. They also had to burn timeouts on both of those situations, so when they realllllyyy could have used them on their final drive to try and get into FG position, they had nothing. No timeouts left and 22 seconds left on the clock.
Lack of run game. They were doing so well with running the ball prior to the Steelers game. Everyone thought the light bulb finally turned on for this coaching staff. Fast forward and the last two games Montgomery has run the ball 27 times and Herbert 5. Herbert had ONE carry yesterday after he all but carried the offense when Monty was out. What is this game plan? I would say that Fields being a mobile QB is going to eat up some rushing opportunities, but the coaching staff doesn’t design runs for him anyway. Most of his rushing comes from scrambling/running for his life. Oh and he only played one half yesterday. Why not use your two RBs to help a QB in Dalton that hasn’t played in weeks and was thrown into the game mid 3rd quarter?
Offense as a whole. Just when we thought they turned the corner a bit on offense, the Bears come out, off of a bye, score 0 points, and have 3 completions in the first half. Those first 1 or 2 drives should be like your best shot to make something happen coming off a bye. They did miss a field goal, but that’s still only 3 points. Just bad bad bad offense.
Justin Fields turnovers. Ok he’s a rookie and he needs to grow, but one thing that is getting a little worrisome are these fumbles. He had another one on Sunday bringing his total to 9 on the year. This puts him in first place in the league. Now there are some pretty good players awfully close to Fields (Prescott – 8, Carr – 7, Murray – 7, to name a few), but this is not a stat you want to be at the top of the list for. Most of this comes from strip sacks, but there needs to be more of an emphasis on ball security.
Justin Fields injury. Fields left the game in the 3rd quarter and it sounds like a rib issue. Initial reports are kind of all over. I’ve seen ribs aren’t broken and only bruised, to a spleen issue. More will come out about his status Monday and as the week progresses.
The Bears have lost 5 in a row. After that Packers loss we knew this was going to be an ugly stretch. The Lions are next and might be the lone, winnable game to end the season here. It honestly would not shock me one bit if the Lions win that game to get their first W on the season. They’ve hung tough in the majority of their games this year, but they will most likely be starting a backup QB on Thursday. Another break for the Bears. Can they take advantage of it? Probably not. Betting on a Nagy-led team isn’t wise, no matter what the situation.
All signs point to this being another disappointing game. You might want to make it a Thanksgiving breakfast on Thursday and sleep through this one…