It was all, or at least somewhat, good just 10 days ago. The Bears were coming off of a dominating 20 point win on the road at Washington and looked next to take out the Justin Jefferson-less Minnesota Vikings at home. The offense seemed to be cooking after 2 straight weeks of scoring 28+ points. The defense looked like an actual NFL defense against the Commanders. It seemed like everything was pointing in the Bears direction to win their 2nd straight contest.

And then the game happened.

On the very 1st play for the Bears Justin Fields was sacked for a 7-yard loss as the DE flew in untouched and drilled Fields. The offensive line would have pass protection issues all day as they gave up 5 sacks and 8 QB hits. Minnesota dialed up the pressure from the start and didn’t let up throughout the game. The Bears offense was stuck in neutral for long stretches of the game and seemed to revert back to the offense that was being run before the Denver game. DJ Moore, who won NFC Offensive Player of the Week after his 230 yard, 3 TD performance, looked like the invisible man for long stretches and finished with 5 catches for 51 yards. Cole Kmet was even more invisible as he only netted 2 catches for 9 yards. On the bright side, the Bears running game looked strong as D’Onta Freeman, Fields & Darrynton Evans led the team to 162 yards on a 4.5 yards per carry average. It was the pass game that was shut down.

Fields looked uncomfortable again, threw an INT(that was due to him being hit as he was throwing) and by the start of the 2nd half was knocked out of the game with a hand injury. Rookie Tyson Bagent entered the game and didn’t have much success as he turned over the ball twice in the 2nd half to help seal the Bears’ fate. Combined, Fields & Bagent went 16/24 for 113 yards, 0 TDs & 2 INTs for a 47.4 QB rating.

On the defensive end, the Bears held the Vikings to 19 points and 220 yards of offense. They also had 2 sacks, 4 QB hits and forced two fumbles. They should’ve had 2 fumble recoveries but the replay on the TJ Edwards fumble recovery was overturned. Matt Eberflus once again had to dial up blitzes from his back 7 because once again the front four weren’t getting home for most of the contest. The difference this week was that Eddie Jackson & Jaylon Johnson were back in the secondary.

Grading The Bears

Offense: 113 yards passing is a sure fire way to lose games in the NFL today. The pass protection was awful. Cody Whitehair has been a disaster at center. Fields & Bagent were harassed throughout the day. The run game even with the depleted RB corps wasn’t nearly enough to save this team today. The play calling reverted back to the nonsense Bears fans saw the 1st 4 weeks of the season. Grade: C-/D+

Defense: The defense did its job today. They held the Vikings to 2.1 yards per carry and 4.0 yards per play for the day. TJ Edwards & Tremaine Edmunds were all over the field today and the defense had 5 tackles for loss. Anytime you can keep a team under 20 points in a game you put yourself in a position to be able to win a game. It just didn’t happen today. Grade: B+

Special Teams: 2 FGs for Cairo Santos. A solid kick return game for Velus Jones, Jr. Special teams also blocked an extra point which put the team in a position to be able to try and take the lead. Grade: B+

Coaching: Coaching on offense was atrocious today. All the work that went into making the offense work around Justin Fields disappeared today. Sure, they drew up a few designed runs but they mostly kept Fields in the pocket and didn’t move him around. The play calling from Getsy left a ton to be desired. Grade: B for Defense/D- for Offense

The Good, Bad & Ugly

The Good: The defense stepped up and played its best game of the season. Despite the defensive line still not getting home for most of the game the rest of the defense continued to make plays and keep the game close.

The Bad: The passing offense was bad today. Both quarterbacks looked flustered and turned the ball over. Again, anytime you can’t even amass anywhere near 200 yards passing you’re going to have a problem winning football games.

The Ugly: Luke Getsy once again put forth a game plan that played right into the Vikings’ hands. The team that blitzes the most in the NFL did exactly that – blitz a lot. Getsy didn’t call for more line protection and it eventually got his QB knocked out of the game. That is egregious. Eberflus deciding to start Cody Whitehair at center when Lucas Patrick was activated to play is a dereliction of duty. It’s coaching incompetence. Week after week Matt Eberflus & Luke Getsy continue to show why this is the most unserious coaching staff in the NFL.

Head coach Matt Eberlus met with the media after the Bears 15th loss in their last 16 games:

Up Next: The Bears welcome Jimmy Garoppolo, Devante Adams and the 3-3 Las Vegas Raiders. After this humiliating loss the wins are going to be very hard to come by going forward.

About Author