Bear Digest

Bears Didn't Have a Prayer in Blowout Defeat by Cardinals

Arizona running game tramples Bears defense in 29-9 blowout a week after the embarrising Hail Mary defeat.

Gene Chamberlain

James Conner looks for running room against the Bears defense en route to 107 yards rushing in a 29-9 Arizona victory.
James Conner looks for running room against the Bears defense en route to 107 yards rushing in a 29-9 Arizona victory. / Michael Chow/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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So much for rallying the troops in the face of adversity.

The Bears went to the desert and it literally rained on their parade back from the Hail Mary pass, as the Cardinals dominated them from the middle of the second quarter on Sunday in a 29-9 defeat.

It was the kind of defeat to leave legitimate questions about the team, the coaching staff and even GM Ryan Poles' role in all of this. The Cardinals (5-4), like the Commanders last week, are a team to fire coaches and begin rebuilds well after the Bears started theirs but are better teams.

"We've got to circle the wagons, we've got to do a really good job of staying tight," coach Matt Eberflus said. "That's what you do in times of adversity."

It's adverse, all right. Instead of all the heat on Tyrique Stevenson for one Hail Mary at game's end, the whole team is going to absorb heat now after they collapsed.

It all started to come down shortly after the rain came down with some hail in the Phoenix area, a real oddity. Without the roof up, it even threatened to affect a Bears field goal attempt. This was unfortunate considering they never actually got closer than the Arizona 11-yard line to try anything more than a field goal. 

Shortly afterward, the Bears were watching the Cardinals running game roll right through their defense. James Conner ran for 107 yards on 18 carries, Emari Demercado ran for 59 yards and Trey Benson for 37 as the Cardinals rambled for 213 yards on the ground. They only required 155 yards passing from Kyler Murray to win it.

The crushing blow came before halftime after Cairo Santos followed field goals of 53 and 29 yards with another 53-yarder to close the deficit to 14-9. With 26 seconds left after the kickoff, the Cardinals moved it 17 yards and with 12 seconds left in the half, Eberflus called a blitz. Demercado rambled with a handoff off the right side all the way for a 53-yard.

"Good play call by them," safety Kevin Byard told reporters. "Obviously they got us in a blitz or whatever. He was able to come through the line untouched or whatever. It was tough luck."

Eberflus didn't see the bad luck involved.

"The score at the end of the half, to me, that's on me," Eberflus said. "I called a pass defense, a pass pressure and they ended up running the ball. I can make a better call there.

"That's on me. I do believe that our run defense needs to shore up."

It was like a tire blowout.

"At the end of the half, you don't want to give something like that up," linebacker T.J. Edwards told reporters.

They did it at the end of the game the previous week, this time the end of the half.

From their 21-9 halftime deficit, the Bears went straight downhill and the offense never got past the Cardinals 40 in the second half.

Arizona's offense, which scored on Trey McBride's 2-yard run and Trey Benson's 1-yard run in the first half, simply bullied the Bears defense the whole second half. The added field goals of 29 and 55 yards from Chad Ryland and then a safety because of a cut block in the end zone after the game was out of hand.

Williams struggled to a 22-of-41 effort for 217 yards and was sacked six times. He took a hit late in the game and again on the final play and limped off the field.

Why they had their franchise quarterback playing on the final series of a 29-9 game, absorbing shots with right tackle Darnell Wright leaving in-game with a knee injury and left tackle Braxton Jones missing the full game seems questionable at best.

"We're just getting work and getting and getting timing and getting timing in the two-minute operation," Eberflus said.

Williams limped off with an ankle injury but said he'll be all right.

"It's not my decision," Williams said. "You fight to the end of the game if you're in the game. If not, coach makes a decision like that you have to deal with it and figure out the next steps."

The Bears now are 3-18 under Eberflus in road games, 4-17 if you want to give him credit for a win in London when they were officially the home team.

They'll return home for a game with New England best labeled their biggest of the year not because it could prevent a three-game slide but because losing another one to a bad team at home, another one to rebuild since Eberflus became coach, will invite plenty of demands for an in-season firing.

The one positive was no one cared about the whole Stevenson situation by the end of it. He didn't start as a penalty for the previous week's Hail Mary pass but he had to play because his replacement, Terell Smith injured his ankle and joined Andrew Billings (pectoral muscle), Darnell Wright (knee) and Jaylon Jones (shoulder) in leaving the game with injuries.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.