Tuesday Morning Quarterback – Vikings 27 – Bears 24: A disgruntled Bears fan perspective
Offense
The Bears’ opening drive touchdown was encouraging. Save that, Chicago failed to capitalize on too many opportunities. They should have been up at least 10 going into the half, but let Minnesota hang around. Penalties that were frequent in the preseason continued again in this game. It seemed that Caleb Williams’ cadence was throwing off his own offensive line.
The second half was a trainwreck. Williams was missing wide-open looks and overthrowing receivers. He also threw a couple of hospital balls, including one that got D.J. Moore crushed. Caleb Williams led the team in rushing. D.J. Moore got 3 carries, 8 yards and Kyle Monangai got a checkdown reception and not a single carry.
Speaking of the running game, namely the lack of one – how did Ryan Poles not draft a running back until the 7th round in last spring’s draft? That was a missed opportunity, as is his failure to bring in a back knowing the Bears running back room is severely lacking.
Defense
They played well for 3 quarters. Admirably, in fact, considering they were without Jaylon Johnson, Kyler Gordon and TJ Edwards. Dennis Allen did a nice job getting pressure on JJ McCarthy early. Gervon Dexter played well as did Dayo Odeyingbo and Noah Sewell.
The Vikings averaged 6.3 yards per carry in the 4th quarter. The Vikings only ran 49 offensive plays, so can we really say the Bears’ defense was gassed? There were some quick turnarounds, yes, but the better and more accurate answer is we simply got outcoached and outplayed in the final fifteen.
Special Teams
In a word, awful. Tory Taylor’s lackluster punting often gave the Vikings excellent field position. One of his punts was blocked. His impressive punts in practice have not translated to the field.
Cairo Santos missed another very makeable field goal. And then, at the end of the game, he could not kick the ball out of the endzone to give the Bears any long shot possibility to send the game to overtime at the end. The Bears had another kicker come in during training camp. In my opinion, they should have kept him, given Santos his money, and bid the spaghetti-legged kicker adieu.
Coaching
Ben Johnson simply got outcoached by Kevin O’Connell. No doubt about that. He and Brian Flores made adjustments in the second half that the Bears could not answer. There should be a lot of tape to go over today, which will not be very pleasant to watch. Plenty of correction tape to study. At least Ben Johnson took accountability in his brief postgame presser. That’s more than any past head coach has done here. His decision to go for it on 4th down late in the second quarter, in hindsight, proved very costly.
Conclusion
Here we go again, Bears fans. Is Caleb Williams the guy? He didn’t have the game he needed to have to stop the recent controversial accusations from unnamed sources from ballooning into a full-grown cry to bring on the backup QB, which has dogged Chicago through too many recent Chicago signal callers to count.
Too many unforced errors. The Bears simply shot themselves in the foot. Again. They have their work cut out, now on a short week going into week 2. Ben Johnson can be excused in his first game as a head coach. I’m sure he will learn from it and move on.
It won’t get any easier next week, heading into Detroit. If we can’t get the cadence right at home and clean up the penalties, it could be a disastrous Sunday in Ford Field. The Lions will be out to answer for last week’s loss to the Packers, with the added motivation to beat the coach who chose to leave them for Chicago.
(Aspiring NFL Writer | Children’s Author | Chicago Bears Devotee in Chiefs Territory)