Bear Digest

Chicago Bears Winners and Losers from the Season Opener

Analysis: Not eveyrone in navy and orange came away a winner even if the scoreboard said Chicago 24, Tennessee 17.

Gene Chamberlain

Tyrique Stevenson is off to the races for a TD as the beneficiary of a really poor choice by Tennessee QB Will Levis.
Tyrique Stevenson is off to the races for a TD as the beneficiary of a really poor choice by Tennessee QB Will Levis. / David Banks-Imagn Images

The Bears all couldn't help but feel like winners after they won for the sixth straight time at home.

In the NFL, you need to win at home and at the very least split your road games if you're going to be taken seriously.

Then again, some of them should feel less like winners and more like losers after the 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans.

The time for everyone feeling like a winner ends after 24 hours. In the NFL, they go by the 24-hour rule. This says they forget about the win or loss after 24 hours, beyond looking at game film.

Some of them should have tried to forget about it earlier, and Velus Jones Jr. isn't the only one.

Here are the winners and losers for the Bears from Sunday's win.

Winners

CB Tyrique Stevenson

The Titans obviously tried to go after Stevenson and tried to avoid Jaylon Johnson, but Stevenson came up with two pass breakups and the game-winning play. Beyond that, he even had the touchdown throw to Chig Okonkwo diagnosed and covered well. In fact, he was in position to actually pick it off but lost his balance/footing in the back of the end zone at the worst possible time—when the ball was arriving. What was remarkable about the game-winning pick-6 was Will Levis insisted he was attempting to throw away the ball. Usually you needed to be a few blocks south of Soldier Field at Guaranteed Rate Field to see throws that errant. Considering how all teams came after Stevenson last year, targeting him almost twice as many times as they did Johnson, Stevenson's play is likely to give them pause to think otherwise.

DT Daniel Hardy

Not only did he get the blocked punt to turn the game, but he had a special teams tackle. Here's an undrafted player who barely made the roster, then was deemed active over fifth-round pick Dominique Robinson. He showed a player doesn't need to be with starters to make an impact.

S Jonathan Owens

This guy is no mere winner. He is like a lottery winner. He marries someone who is a renowned Olympic champion gymnast. And Sunday he was just standing there minding his own business when the blocked punt bounced right to him in the open field with no one left around to tackle him. People need to stand around him on the sidelines because maybe some of that good fortune will rub off on them.

LB T.J. Edwards

With 15 tackles, two for loss, and a fumble recovery after Darrell Taylor's strip sack, he's exhausting the ways to measure his impact. They need to come up with a metric for how hard someone actually hit someone. He'll be at the top of that chart, too. Some of his hits on receptions or on runs made by Tony Pollard after he had cut but was at or near the line of scrimmage were brutal. They were the kind no one has seen by a Bears linebacker since Roquan Smith, even harder.

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WR DeAndre Carter

Not only did he break a 20-yard punt return, average 12.8 yards on punt returns and explode for a vital 67-yard kick return when they had no momentum, but he would appear to be the beneficiary going forward as kick returner after Jones treated the kicked football like a biting ferret.

DT Andrew Billings

The stat line says two tackles, one for a loss but Billing did so much more. In the second half, he constantly plugged the point of attack in the running game so the Titans could run for only 25 yards after they had 115 rushing yards in the first half. And the big guy in the middle who is supposed to be occupying double teams to help Gervon Dexter did a little more than that on pass rush by providing two quarterback hits.

DE Darrell Taylor

For a guy in a backup and a guy in a rotation, Taylor had the impact of a keg of dynamite. Backups in a rotation don't make eight tackles in a game, especially those who have been on the team for about three weeks. They don't get enough reps. He did, and that was the third-highest total on the team. His two sacks, including a strip-sack that made a field goal possible, proved critical in providing a counter pass rush to Montez Sweat.

S Jaquan Brisker

His 10 tackles were the second-highest total. Often when a safety gets 10 tackles it's a sign the secondary broke down in coverage all day. In this case, this hardly was the case because Levis didn't complete enough passes downfield for it to happen. In the second half, Brisker was all over the field, delivering big hits and

RB Roschon Johnson

There's no way he'll be inactive again after Jones' performance.

WR Tyler Scott

Ditto. They'll need another active pass catcher even if Jones' offensive position really appears to be a running back now and not a wide receiver.

G Ryan Bates

His shoulder injury is done and while his play didn't seem exemplary, neither the starting center or right guard did anything to distinguish themselves. He looks like he can have his pick of the two positions.

C Doug Kramer

Coleman Shelton got pushed around like the Bears centers did in Eberflus' first two seasons and Bates might be needed to play right guard. Kramer seemed likely to be headed for the practice squad with the next roster move, even after a strong preseason at center. But now maybe he should be considered as starter.

OC Shane Waldron

How many times do offensive coordinators see their guys pile up the grand total of 148 yards combined running and passing and no one is calling for their job? Former OC John Shoop used to have calls for his head if they had only 200 offensive yards. Former OC Terry Shea would have given his game plan a B grade after that game. Luke Getsy never had a total that low. They haven't had so few yards in a game since their last quarterback's first start, when they had 47 yards at Cleveland with Justin Fields at QB and Matt Nagy in charge. Maybe only Owens on the blocked kick got luckier than Waldron because talk about an inept offense and coordinator would be unbearable if the special teams and defense hadn't pulled this one out. And how does Cole Kmet get on the field for only 27 plays, anyway?

Losers

QB Caleb Williams

The idea he would step into the regular season and be able to pull off out-of-pocket magic took a hit. Tennessee tried to keep him contained and their defensive line had the Bears' bootleg game all figured out. If a team with a defense that hasn't really played together in its scheme can so effectively keep him contained in the pocket, what happens against a good defense or a team that has Danielle Hunter at defensive end like the Texans do?

RB/WR Velus Jones Jr.

How many chances does he get. It's been three years now. His two runs and pass reception failed to justify being active on the roster after the way he let the ball go through his hands. Maybe he's trying to prove he can contribute as a kicker because he sure kicked the ball a long way when he reached down trying to recover it.

DE Austin Booker

Was manhandled on Pollard's 26-yard TD run. Stopping the run was always going to be a concern with a rookie who is 240 pounds at defensive end in this scheme. It sure was then.

C Coleman Shelton

Chalk up the 19-yard sack to him. Many will want to blame Williams himself or even Nate Davis, but Davis' block was supposed to be at the next level and Shelton needed to block the guy coming into the A-gap. He did nothing.

G Nate Davis

After the game, Eberflus said the plan was two possessions for Bates, two for Davis. As they alternated, it didn't become this. Bates wound up with 38 reps in the game. Davis had only 18. It would seem they've decided who the right guard starter should be.

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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.