Bear Digest

Chicago Bears Report Card: One More Devastating Defeat to Endure

Grading the Chicago Bears for their Week 12 loss to the Minnesota Vikings, their fifth straight as the march of misery continues for a 4-7 team.

Gene Chamberlain

T.J. Hockenson is tackled by Terell Smith in the second quarter of Sunday's 30-27 Bears loss.
T.J. Hockenson is tackled by Terell Smith in the second quarter of Sunday's 30-27 Bears loss. / Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
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Never underestimate the ability of the McCaskeys to put their collective heads in the sand and remain oblivious to defeat.

They always say it's the opposite, that they suffer so much with losses, but the late Michael McCaskey did it in 1997, the fifth year Dave Wannstedt had been coach. The team arrived DOA that year, losing seven straight out of the gates before a miracle comeback win in Miami on a night when the immortal Sid Luckman himself came to watch them.

They never fired Wannstedt after that season, a 4-12 campaign, then mercifully did it the next year before botching the hiring of his replacement and turning instead to Dick Jauron. And they kept Jauron after a 2002 season when they lost eight straight and then four of five for good measure.

Their tradition is not to fire the head coach during the season.  In Indonesia, a finger-cutting festival is a tradition, too.

The McCaskeys watched Marc Trestman’s team melt down before their very eyes and lose 51-23 and 55-14 back-to-back to the Patriots and the Packers without showing him the door until the season’s end. They made fans sit there and take it until the end of the season.

Even worse, they let fans endure three years of John Fox's slow parade toward retirement.

When you’ve hand-picked the coach yourself  like with Wannstedt, or forced your general manager to pick your guy the way they did with Fox and with Matt Eberflus, there is always tolerance. But to do it to the extent that you keep around a coach with a 14-game losing streak and now a five-game losing streak can only be interpreted truly as turning a blind eye.

Actually, it’s more like spitting in the face of your fans, who buy your tickets.  

You’ll hear Virginia doesn’t like the losing and is  angry, or George McCaskey will say a few things to indicate he is growing impatient.

These Bears are playing too hard still to get rid of the head coach, it’s often said. They are playing hard but it shoudl have nothing to do with a decision on dismissing the head coach. If confidence is lost in his ability to suddenly start winning and turn it all around, he shouldn't be here. It's pretty simple. A show of hands from Sunday's 57,000-plus fans wouldn't produce more than 10 who had confidence in Eberflus to turn it around now.

The fans are devoting way too much time to watching someone perfect the art of losing close games to endure any more of this.

They brought in a new buffer in Kevin Warren and he was in the Vikings locker room on Sunday shaking hands after the game and talking with his former team.

All the while, defeat had enveloped Soldier Field. Suffering fans can only hope Warren was doing more than renew old acquaintances and was scoping out a new head coach.

Someone not named McCaskey needs to do it. But before they can find a new one, they need to address the one who has lost five in a row, three in a row and 14 in a row during a stretch of 45 games, while winning more than two in a row one time.

Enjoy your turkey this week as the sixth straight loss gets stacked onto the pile.

No doubt it will be something more spectacular than mere overtime, a Hail Mary or a blocked kick as the final gun goes off.

And remember there will still be five more of these to endure until the McCaskeys finally get around to taking action.

Here are the grades for the fifth straight.

Passing: A-

The only real flaws in an otherwise incredible passing day for a rookie QB in comeback mode were Caleb Williams standing forever in overtime, waiting to take a crushing sack instead of throwing away the football, and his receivers treating the ball at times like at had been coated with grease. Keenan Allen even dropped a pass. If you’re being real critical, he actually dropped two. In between, it was not  only enough to get everyone excited about the future with a new, offensive-minded head coach but also you have to remember why Williams had so much time to throw in OT on that play with the foolish sack he took – the pass blocking was possibly the best the Bears ever had in Eberflus’ three seasons. And it came against a team that lives by the blitz.

Rushing: D-

They ran seven times in the second half, which says it all. It’s not easy to run against the Vikings when they overload the line of scrimmage. You have to at least keep them honest and there are certain types of runs that can break. They let D’Andre Swift carry 13 times when he was nursing a groin injury and gave Roschon Johnson only two attempts. The type of runner who punishes a blitz best is a back who runs through tackles. Johnson does this and had two carries. Swift has the fewest broken tackles (5) for the most carries (168) in the league. It was thought Swift might get a few less carries this week than normal and he did, but it was because everyone got a few less carries. All told, 78 yards rushing usually won't beat anyone in the NFL.

Pass Defense: D-

Montez Sweat and the pass rush surfaced again for air, but even when it did they took too many downs in between getting the heat on Sam Darnold and he did damage then. The coverage breakdowns they had against deeper passes were predictable considering how far down the depth chart they’ve gone at safety.  But the biggest breakdown by a safety was Kevin Byard’s in overtime. On thrd-and-10 he was giving Jordan Addison a cushion like he was covering Bob Hayes. Naturally Addison converted the first down to trigger the game-winning drive. Putting Jaylon Johnson on Justin Jefferson helped limit the Vikings great to a season-low two catches for 27 yards but the rest of the secondary turned Addison into Jerry Rice.

Run Defense: D

Vikings running backs averaged 5.0 yards per carry and it seemed they only really got stopped by their coaching staff getting bored with calling runs when they have so many other weapons. Some of the holes the Vikings line put in the Bears’ defensive front were big enough to drive a truck through sideways. It looked at times like the entire line and the linebackers has all been rendered invisible. Allowing a 41-yard run to Aaron Jones in the first quarter is what college defenses from Division III schools with directional names, not what even bad NFL defenses do. At least get worn down before giving up the yards in chunks.

Special Teams: F

Only the onside kick and the 48-yard field goal to end regulation prevented this from being the rarely achieved “F-.“ Getting consecutive kicks blocked defies all odds in Pop Warner football let alone the NFL. They very nearly had the 48-yarder to tie the game blocked, as well.  In two decades of covering high school games I never saw a punt returner do what DeAndre Carter did and wave everyone away from the bouncing punt only to have it bounce off his own leg. True Three Stooges material here.

Coaching: F

Even Thomas Brown’s ability to keep the offense from getting buried by Vikings blitzes couldn’t offset what the Bears defense and special teams did in this one. Going for two is something to do when you want to win a game or absolutely have to do. It’s not a source of amusement. It made no sense to go for two when down 24-16. None. If the chart said to do it, then Eberflus needed a new chart. A fourth-and-4 that they botched up with confusion in getting the play called could have been remedied with a timeout, even if they had already wasted another one. And why not kick a 45-yard field goal then? It was the third quarter still and not desperation time. Perhaps they just feared yet another blocked field goal. The logic behind going for it wasn’t entirely missing but when there was even less time left later, they had the chance to gamble on fourth-and-3 from their own 43 and opted to punt.

Overall: F

They should trade Williams for a sixth-round conditional draft pick. They don’t deserve to have him on their team.

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.