Chicago Bears report card: Good grades are for closers

Matt Eberflus began his press conference after Sunday’s crippling 31-30 loss to Detroit by talking about what a great job the Bears did against the run in the second half.

“It ended up being 10-10 at halftime and I felt it was a lot better to stop the run on the defensive side of the ball,” Eberflus said. “We ended up being 3.1 (yards per carry). I think it was for the day so we certainly improved there.”

A traditional “Besides, Ms. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” is probably the best response in this situation.

Eddie Jackson was distraught afterwards at how poorly the Bears covered the pass against the Lions, and with good reason.

The Lions didn’t exactly have their A-Team playing receivers. Tom Kennedy caught a huge 44-yard pass right over the middle of the Bears. They lacked more decent recipients than the Bears likely have on their list.

“Definitely the same feeling,” Jackson said. “They (the Bears’ offense) gave us – keep giving us everything they’ve got – go on 14, let them drive down the field. You know, the game specifically doesn’t allow stuff like that. We have to get these stops. We need to be better on third downs.

They were actually much better in third place than the lions in this case.

The defense gave up its triumphal march, but it hardly had a monopoly on the suing of the losers.

If Justin Fields is constantly running through defense or playing big passes from the move in the first three quarters, it’s reasonable to expect something similar in crunch time.

To date, bears 1-5 are in tight and those crunched at crunch time. Fields couldn’t find any receivers and was running in circles when the Lions finally found out he was having trouble getting out of the bag.

And if you think special teams got off scot-free, then there’s Kicker Cairo Santos. He still has a consecutive field goal streak intact, but now he has two missed PATs this year and this one was for the game.

He also started out of bounds to pitch the Lions for a brief TD drive.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said. “It’s just the nature of the sport, of the position. I don’t know how many times I’ve stepped out of bounds in my career, but not that many. I think I can probably remember two. So it’s nothing that happens. I am not. But it happens and you just have to fix it.”

What’s next, an appearance on Good Morning America tomorrow?

The Bears gave one away to a really bad team that was shorthanded, not that they were any better than Detroit.

It’s just that after so many iterations of the same scenario, one might think they might change the outcome sooner or later.

Here are the grades for their Week 10 loss to the Lions, and Eberflus will be happy to know they get a good grade for stopping the run.

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Current game: A-

Justin Fields became the Bears’ first QB with consecutive 100-yard games, the first to rush for consecutive 100-yard games since Jordan Howard in 2016-17, most rushing yards gained in two games by a quarterback in the history of the league. jadda jadda jadda. None of this means anything, and Fields even admitted it. He rushed for 147 yards, they rushed for 258 yards with 35 carries, but surprisingly they lost possession time because they hit so fast and the Lions used passes to gain possession. Khalil Herbert and David Montgomery looked a little more like themselves, averaging 5.7 and 4.1 yards respectively.

Bears over 😀

It was good until it really mattered. Pass blocking broke in late in the game, but then again, it’s not realistic to expect them to hold out pass rushers when Fields is making eights in the backfield. Fields threw a 50-yard TD pass, but it was planned wide open. He really had trouble throwing out of the bag all day and even had a bit of trouble throwing on the move. His 12-of-20 performance for a 99.4 passer rating could have been so much higher were it not for his ridiculous pick-6 error against Jeff Okudah. The Bears spent a second-round draft pick on Chase Claypool and threw once to him. He had an 8-yard jet sweep that books as a pass but is actually a run. Active in place of N’Keal Harry and Velus Jones Jr., Byron Pringle caught a pass for 12 yards on two targets. It’s hard to believe that neither Harry nor Jones could have done that much.

Run Defense: B

Yes, Matt, it wasn’t bad as they were up against a very respectable offensive line from the Lions. Justin Jones with an impressive play on three techniques with two lost tackles and a quarterback hit. Jack Sanborn’s 12 tackles looked like Roquan Smith numbers. They held the Lions for 95 yards and that’s usually part of a winning formula. What they didn’t do well was stop Jamaal Williams or D’Andre Swift in the red zone as they had relatively easy touchdown runs, a 9 yarder from Swift and he could have gone into the end zone.

Pass Defense: D-

Wasn’t Tom Kennedy a game show host? The Bears made him a dangerous receiver with a huge finish from 44 yards. Sanborn’s pass rush was the highlight of the front seven, but the Bears didn’t have a pass rush when they really needed one on the Lions’ four-game march to the game-winning points. The Bears gave up 45.5% on third downs and complained that things needed to get better. That’s better. They came into play more than 50%. Is Amon-Ra St. Brown using the Harry Potter cloak of invisibility or something? He was nowhere to be found from the bears’ secondary school. Ten catches in 11 targets for 119 yards.

Special teams: F

Your kicker can’t miss an extra point in the fourth quarter – he just missed it. And he can’t kick out of bounds. Later in the game he almost kicked another wide. It rounded the pylon and rolled out in the end zone.

Coach 😀

HITS principle? They had nine penalties to the Lions two. Admittedly, three penalties looked like a misjudgment by the officials, but that’s still six they committed. Doesn’t the S in HITS stand for Smart Play or is it Stupid Play? Give Alan Williams some credit for regularly coming in with the blitz because Jared Goff doesn’t handle pressure well. The problem was they rarely got any real pressure with the blitz, except when it came from Sanborn, who excelled that day and had two sacks.

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