10 thoughts after the Chicago Bears continued to have problems stopping the run in a 20-12 loss to the New York Giants on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
1. There might not be an NFL team more comparable to the Bears than the Giants.
Both made massive overhauls in the offseason, hiring a new general manager, head coach and staff. Both have ongoing issues at quarterback, with the Giants seemingly closer to an expiration date. Daniel Jones is in the final year of his rookie contract, drafted two years ahead of Justin Fields. Both have well-documented issues on the offensive line and badly need upgrades (emphasis on the plural) at wide receiver.
Put a Bears fan and a Giants fan in the same room and ask about their team needs, and the lists will sound similar and might be in the same order. They are indistinguishable in a lot of ways, especially in that both have run the ball well and have struggled to stop the run.
The Giants will have an easier time coaching corrections this week coming off a victory that lifts them to 3-1, a surprising start for a team that played so poorly last year. But make no mistake about it, this is a badly flawed team much like the Bears. It will be a rough week for the Giants, who had 10 players leave the game with injuries and who might be scrambling for a quarterback before departing Thursday for London, where they will play the Green Bay Packers on Sunday.
It should be a rough week for the Bears as well, as some of their early issues are reappearing — and not just the inability to throw the ball. ESPN’s Matt Hasselbeck compared the Bears to a service academy offense Sunday morning. That doesn’t mean they are patriotic. It means they can run the ball but not much else.
The Giants ran over the Bears defense, piling up 262 rushing yards, the most the Bears have allowed since the Eagles ran for 289 in a 54-11 drubbing on Dec. 22, 2013, in Philadelphia. Sunday’s total was the fourth-most rushing yards the Bears have allowed since the start of the 1977 season, and it’s no wonder they rank last in the NFL against the run, allowing 183.3 yards per game.
The sample size remains small — something you keep hearing about the team’s passing statistics — but that puts the Bears on pace to surrender 3,116 rushing yards this season. Only two teams in league history have been trampled for more. The 1978 Buffalo Bills allowed 3,228 rushing yards and the 1948 Brooklyn Dodgers gave up 3,146.
The problem with Sunday’s showing is the Bears were run over by a team that had next to no intention of throwing the ball. It’s not like they didn’t expect the Giants to serve up a big dose of Saquon Barkley (31 rushes, 146 yards) while mixing in some runs for fleet-footed Daniel Jones (six rushes, 68 yards, two touchdowns).
The Giants receiver corps makes the Bears group looked polished. Giants wideouts combined for three receptions for 25 yards. And tight ends Daniel Bellinger and Tanner Hudson won’t be mistaken for Jeremy Shockey, Mark Bavaro or any other Giants tight end of yesteryear.
So the Bears knew they would get a big dose of the Giants rushing attack and still allowed 6 yards per carry. Jones wound up leaving the game late in the third quarter with a left ankle injury, and his backup, Tyrod Taylor, was put in concussion protocol after a helmet-to-helmet hit from cornerback Kyler Gordon. Jones came back in as a receiver and the Giants ran wildcat plays with Barkley taking the snaps.
“Obviously in the first half we needed to do a better job of stopping the run with the quarterback,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. “I thought we did a good job of adjusting to that in the second half. Saquon ended up popping some runs on us, and they ran the ball too effectively for us to win the game.”
When the opponent drops 262 rushing yards on you, it’s a lot more than getting hit here and there with some quarterback bootlegs — though Jones is a magician when it comes to executing a play fake. He’s as good as it gets at selling the handoff. Taylor added 30 rushing yards during his short stint, so the Giants got 98 from their quarterbacks.
“We kind of knew after the first drive what their game plan was going to be — to load the box up a little bit,” Barkley said in explaining why Jones and Taylor could get loose. “If they are going to do that, they don’t have enough guys out there. We did a great job of, even though they loaded the box, the O-line was leaning on them, making the right calls, creating movement. I was able to make some of the right reads, put a little pressure on the defense.”
Giants center Jon Feliciano said he had no idea until returning to the locker room that they rolled up 262 yards on the ground, the franchise’s most since a 301-yard performance in an overtime victory over the Carolina Panthers on Dec. 21, 2008.
“The (Bears) did a good job,” Feliciano said. “They rolled in a Cover-6 look. They were bringing that safety down. They went to diamond sometimes and they blitzed the safety. They were doing all they could to stop it. We had a special guy (Barkley) behind us.”
Let’s put this in perspective. The Bears defense has allowed 733 rushing yards in four games. In 2018, the Bears allowed 1,280 rushing yards in 16 games. If there’s an overarching point — besides that the Giants and Bears both have a lot of improving to do — it’s that while determining how the Bears are going to fix the offense in the offseason (wide receiver, offensive line, quarterback?), don’t overlook a defense that has been beaten badly up front. This is a total overhaul that’s in the beginning stages, and the first month of the season reinforces that.
Eberflus talked last week about the need to get the pass rush going. He knows as well as anyone you have to earn the opportunity to get after the quarterback, and you do that by stopping the run. In this situation, the Giants had no intention to throw the ball and still ran wild.
2. Justin Fields was better in the loss than he has been this season, but the bar is so ridiculously low that we’re not talking about a lot.
He completed 11 of 22 passes for 174 yards, including a 56-yard deep shot to Darnell Mooney. Fields had good protection and let it rip downfield with Mooney going against single coverage. Good play. Good throw.
What did the Bears do five plays later on third-and-3 from the Giants 5-yard line? Handed off to Khalil Herbert for a run into the middle of New York’s line. A field goal followed.
Fields had two 18-yard passes to Mooney and a 23-yard pass to tight end Trevon Wesco. That was pretty much it for downfield throws. Cole Kmet had a nice 15-yard gain, much of which was the tight end being physical, and Herbert gained 24 yards on a screen pass. Other than that, Fields was quick to pull the ball down and scramble, and a Giants pass rush that had three sacks through three games totaled six Sunday.
Still, this counts as progress. The Bears reached the red zone three times but couldn’t get in the end zone, and ultimately that was the difference. It’s challenging to throw the ball in the red zone and even more difficult in the low red zone (inside the 10). When the Bears can’t do that, it will be tough to score touchdowns.
Fields is up to 34 completions on the season and is completing 50.7% of his attempts. For reference, entering the Sunday night game seven quarterbacks had 100 or more completions.
“Who said the passing game wasn’t working?” Fields said after the game when asked why the team has had so much success running the ball but can’t get anything done consistently through the air.
The nice answer to Fields is it would take him a lot less time to compile a list of those who believe the Bears passing game is working. Nothing about it has been good and it has been hard to watch as the quarterback, offensive line and skill positions all need to be better.
“I thought it improved,” Matt Eberflus said when asked about the passing game. “We were playing a blitz team, so I thought he handled that relatively well. I love the way he was throwing the ball down the field. That’s going to open up more things for us.”
The Giants wanted to pin Fields in the pocket — a lot easier to plan than it is to execute — and make him throw the ball. He got out on the edges and hurt them some. The Bears offense converted 5 of 15 third downs, and three of them were Fields scrambles.
“Oh, man, he’s an athlete,” said Giants defensive end Azeez Ojulari, whose strip-sack of Fields in the second quarter led to a New York touchdown. “You keep him in the pocket and make him play quarterback, try to make him throw the ball, you can get pressure on him.”
Getting Mooney 94 yards was a huge plus and something the offense needs to aim for on a weekly basis. Kmet got three targets and I’m not sure that constitutes progress. It’s being kind to call the passing game disjointed, no matter how many ways the coaches try to express confidence in it.
“Numbers don’t matter,” Fields said. “As long as we win, like I said, that’s all I care about.”
That’s fair and I don’t doubt for a second that Fields is a team-first guy who prioritizes winning over all else. It’s also fair to say the 2-2 Bears won’t win many games — certainly not against teams better than the Giants — unless the passing game becomes a lot more consistent and productive.
“I see positivity there in the passing game,” Eberflus said. “I think we ran the ball relatively well today, but I do see progression during practice and I saw progress today. That’s a defense that has a lot of pressure and we still got the ball down the field, which was a positive to me.”
3. Interesting decision by Matt Eberflus to punt with the Bears trailing 20-12 on fourth-and-2 at their 45-yard line with 3:15 remaining.
Maybe it would have turned out to be the right move if Velus Jones hadn’t muffed a punt return, but Eberflus was putting more faith in a run defense that had been roughed up over his offense.
Trenton Gill’s punt looked a little ugly but he got a nifty roll and wound up with a 52-yarder that pinned the Giants on their 3-yard line.
“I think it was a great decision, the punt and pin,” Eberflus said. “We had three timeouts, we bang the first two right there. Then when Velus gets the punt there, we were going to have one timeout above two minutes at midfield. So that way we were going to flip the field right there. That gives us a chance to go score that touchdown and go for the 2-point conversion to tie the game.”
Flip the field? The Bears were on their 45-yard line before the punt. You have to commend the defense for forcing a quick three-and-out, but it feels a little odd saying the Bears did anything well defending the run there. My interpretation is Eberflus let us know he felt better about stopping the Giants’ effort to burn time off the clock — relying first on a very good punt and coverage — to then get the ball back near where the offense was when it needed 2 yards for a first down.
4. The Bears had letdowns in all three phases, with Velus Jones’ muff eliminating any real chance to tie the game.
No, I didn’t consider the crazy lateral party on the final play a legitimate chance. On the muff, it looked like Giants punter Jamie Gillan outkicked his coverage, just as he did earlier in the game when Jones had a 19-yard return. Jones had room along the New York sideline but never secured the ball.
“The wind was carrying the ball a lot, especially in that direction,” Jones said. “You just have to beat the ball to the spot. I felt like I didn’t do that. I was still moving with it instead of beating the ball to the spot.”
The first rule for returners is to secure the ball, and Jones wasn’t able to do that in his NFL debut after missing the first three games with a lingering hamstring injury. He didn’t play on offense Sunday and only handled returns, an area where the Bears have been seeking a spark with the offense struggling.
“We had great blocking,” Matt Eberflus said. “There was a wide space for us to go to return that ball.”
He’s right about that, and the miscue took away from an otherwise solid effort for the special teams. Rookie Josh Blackwell forced a fumble by Giants punt returner Richie James. Blackwell was able to recover it as well, netting the Bears 45 yards of field position and ultimately resulting in a field goal.
Jones was more of a kickoff returner during his long college career and didn’t return punts until last season, when he had 18 for Tennessee. He has the ability to be a threat on punts but is much more experienced as a kickoff returner, and it was gusty in a stadium where the wind is known to swirl.
5. It looked like the Bears were creating a situation in which they would have to choose between Sam Mustipher and Teven Jenkins as a starter.
I don’t know that they will have to do that anytime soon after left guard Cody Whitehair exited with a right knee injury. The Bears are sometimes slow to provide injury updates during games, but they quickly announced Whitehair was doubtful to return and he left the locker room afterward with a large brace on his right leg, getting a cart ride to the buses.
If Whitehair misses time, Lucas Patrick would stay at left guard, Mustipher at center and Jenkins at right guard. The reason it looked like Mustipher and Jenkins were potentially competing for a starting job is the Bears targeted Patrick in free agency with a two-year, $8 million contract to be a starter. So with his right thumb healed, Patrick is going to be in the lineup and it’s only a matter of where.
Jenkins has been settling in as an interior lineman with each passing week of experience, and it was setting up a decision for the coaches of having Mustipher at center and Patrick at right guard or Patrick at center and Jenkins at right guard. Making it a real decision is that Mustipher has played pretty well. The Bears weren’t going to rotate centers and Mustipher is definitely best at center, not guard.
This was Whitehair’s 99th regular-season start, and he has missed only two games, both in 2020 when he had a calf injury. He is expected to undergo an MRI on Monday, when the Bears will get a better understanding of the nature of his injury.
6. Michael Badgley lost a kicking competition Tuesday, won one Friday and made the only kicks that mattered Sunday.
In a week in which the veteran kicker racked up some frequent flier miles, Badgley made four field goals — hitting from 29, 22, 40 and 35 yards — to account for the Bears’ only points as a fill-in for Cairo Santos, who missed the game for personal reasons.
It was only the fourth time in Badgley’s career he made four field goals in a game and the third time he was 4-for-4, a nice ending to a whirlwind week and a performance that should help him get looks elsewhere with the Bears hopeful Santos will be available soon.
The Chiefs reached out to Badgley last Monday after kicker Matt Ammendola faltered while replacing injured mainstay Harrison Butker. Badgley, who lives in Huntington Beach, Calif., was on a flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City later that day for a tryout Tuesday. The Chiefs wound up picking the other competitor, Matthew Wright, so Badgley flew back to Los Angeles.
He was at home around noon Pacific time Thursday when his agent, Brian McLaughlin, called to let him know the Bears wanted him for a tryout the next day. By 5:30 p.m. he was on a flight to O’Hare, getting in after midnight Central time. Badgley outperformed Brian Johnson and Josh Lambo, and the Bears signed him to the practice squad Saturday morning before elevating him to the game-day roster.
“These are the situations you want to happen,” Badgley said, not referring to Santos’ situation. “You show up, you want to win the job and be able to go kick on Sundays.”
The Bears brought in a long snapper and holder for the tryout, so it wasn’t until pregame warm-ups that Badgley worked with Patrick Scales and rookie holder Trenton Gill. That’s the life of a free-agent kicker, waiting for a phone call and hoping for an opportunity.
What made the entire adventure a little better for Badgley is that he was raised in Summit, N.J., about 20 miles from the stadium. He was a Giants fan growing up and had friends at the game rooting for him in a new uniform, one he might not wear again.
7. Defensive tackle Armon Watts is really looking forward to Sunday’s meeting with the Minnesota Vikings at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Watts spent all of training camp and the preseason running with the first team in Minnesota before the Vikings made the 26-year-old part of their cuts to a 53-man roster at the end of August.
Watts had one sack and three tackles in the preseason and figured he would be in the Vikings starting lineup in Week 1. The Vikings drafted him in the sixth round from Arkansas in 2019, and he developed under the former coaching staff as a solid rotational player, reaching a peak last season when he played in all 17 games (nine starts) with five sacks, 33 quarterback pressures and two forced fumbles to go with 46 tackles.
Watts played defensive tackle in Mike Zimmer’s scheme and was moved to end in the 3-4 scheme under new coach Kevin O’Connell. The Vikings wound up trading with the Houston Texans on cutdown day to acquire Ross Blacklock to replace Watts.
“I am pretty sure everyone in the state (of Minnesota) was surprised,” Watts said. “It definitely was a letdown, but it’s part of the game. I had to adapt fast coming over here to Chicago. You know, everything happens for a reason, so I am excited to be here.
“I’m not blind. If I’m with the second or third team maybe you see it coming. But it hit hard for me, especially being there going on four years (and) producing like I did last year. I am here with the Bears now, I am still in the NFC North and I am excited.”
The Bears have used Watts in the interior rotation, and the scheme probably plays to his skill set. He has some interior rushing ability and playing the run is probably not his strong point — and has been an issue for the group as a whole. In my unofficial snap count (the MetLife Stadium press box is high above the field, making it challenging), I had Watts for a season-high 26 snaps.
With the Giants not throwing much, it made pressuring the quarterback challenging. Watts has eight tackles through four games and now gears up to face his former team.
“That is probably the one I’ve got marked off on my calendar,” he said. “Is it circled? Most definitely.”
8. The first NFL all-star game was played in 1939 at Wrigley Field as the NFL All-Stars played the Giants.
It was an experimental game for the young league, and the Pro Bowl was born in 1951 with the game being held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the first 22 years. It then moved around to different cities before Aloha Stadium in Honolulu began hosting the game in 1980. With costs a factor, it came back to the mainland in 2015 before one more trip to Hawaii and then stops in Orlando, Fla., and Las Vegas.
The game — a tackle football game — is no more as the NFL announced last week it is replacing it with the Pro Bowl Games after this season. There will be skills competitions during the week and a series of 7-on-7 games to conclude the week.
It’s the end of an era for a game that over the last several decades rarely resembled what you’re accustomed to in an NFL product. Many veteran players would back out with legitimate and sometimes not-so-legitimate injuries, and it became increasingly challenging for the league to put on a game that didn’t draw criticism from viewers.
The development is a win for the players, who no longer have to risk injury in a game that doesn’t pay them a whole lot. But I was curious how Bears linebacker Roquan Smith, who was a legitimate Pro Bowl candidate the last couple of seasons despite not being selected, felt about the game being canceled.
“That was actually cool,” Smith said. “A lot of guys may go out there (now). I’ve never been out there, but a lot of guys just look forward to being out there and being able to just enjoy each other’s company and not so much trying to take other guys out (in the game) but all about having fun. So I think it’s great. No more risking injuries.”
Former Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long was added to the Pro Bowl as an alternate three times, and those trips were some of the most memorable of his career.
“I remember the first time we played against the Packers,” Long said. “T.J. Lang and Josh Sitton walked up to me after the game and I had so much going on as a young player in the league, and when they first walked up to me, I remember T.J. going, ‘You’re going to go across the pond sometime.’ I had no idea what he was talking about. At year’s end, there was an injury, I was an alternate and I was able to go as a rookie and it was a lot of fun to go.
“Showing up in Hawaii as a young player and getting to see legends from both conferences, both sides of the ball, with their families and girlfriends and getting to hang out with them in a noncompetitive setting all week was really priceless. These are the best in our game and I feel like the Pro Bowl has been diluted a bit with people who don’t show up to the game, people that don’t compete in the game.
“When I was playing, guys were going hard. J.J. Watt is trying to win MVP, he’s trying to get that pickup truck at the end of the game. These guys have things to play for. But I understand now with a longer season the willingness for players to say, ‘No, we don’t want to do this anymore,’ and fans saying, ‘No, we don’t see the product that you’re showing anymore.'”
Long kicked around the topic on the Green Light Podcast last week with his brother Chris Long, discussing different ideas that could be incorporated in the future. The league has said there will be dodgeball, a best catch competition and quarterback drills, including a “thread the needle” competition.
“One idea I had was to get the helmets off the guys, get them in Pro Bowl jerseys and have them be doing ‘American Gladiator’-type stuff,” Kyle Long said. “Patrick Mahomes shooting a tennis ball gun at linebackers trying to run across a court. Or have Aaron Donald do King of the Hill with an offensive lineman. Stuff like that. Find a way to make it entertaining, and the options are endless with the talent and the personalities we have in this NFL.
“People want to see offensive linemen do things that are uncharacteristic of themselves. So if you had a 7-on-7 draft only consisting of big guys and then you get a real quarterback back there, you could have a fun product on the field. You could have Lane Johnson running routes against Myles Garrett. Are you freaking kidding me? You want to see how athletic these guys are? You want to see the definition of a skills competition, put those two guys out there. Lane Johnson hasn’t given up a sack since middle school. If you put him out there, people don’t notice him because he doesn’t give up sacks. He’s the best player on the football field. That is some stuff I would watch.
“None of us are strangers to the names of Pro Bowlers on our teams. The history of this league is what makes it so special and to match the history with our current talent … getting to be invited to the Pro Bowl, knowing you are one of the best guys in the universe at what you do is important. And I feel like it is a cherry on top for a season for guys like, let’s say Roquan Smith, who is not going to be playing in the Super Bowl this year. But he is balling in obscurity and it’s an opportunity to get more eyeballs and more recognition for guys like that or a guy like Khalil Herbert. That’s just the Bears. There are guys like that who do not get celebrated enough. I’d love to see it.”
9. The Giants were one of the teams that passed on Justin Fields in the 2021 draft as they traded the No. 11 pick the Bears used to select him.
Quarterbacks went with the first three picks — Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance — and the Giants can be considered one of three “quarterback-needy” teams that passed on Fields after that. The Carolina Panthers used the eighth pick on cornerback Jaycee Horn and the Denver Broncos chose cornerback Patrick Surtain II with the ninth selection. The Panthers still need a quarterback, the Broncos acquired Russell Wilson and the Giants figure to be in the QB market after this season. They declined the fifth-year option in Daniel Jones’ contract, and he will be a free agent in March.
If you’re looking for a winner in the Bears-Giants trade, happy searching. I’m not sure one exists. Fields’ struggles are well-documented. The Giants used the No. 20 pick in 2021 that they got from the Bears on wide receiver Kadarius Toney, and he has produced very little, missing Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury. The Giants used a fifth-round pick from the Bears in 2021 to trade up and choose cornerback Aaron Robinson, who played a little as a rookie and returned Sunday after missing time to have his appendix removed. He exited the game early with a knee injury.
The Giants had two picks from the Bears this year, using a first-round choice (No. 7) on right tackle Evan Neal and a fourth-round pick on tight end Daniel Bellinger. Neal has been up and down — he was much better against the Bears than he was in Week 3 against the Dallas Cowboys — and Bellinger had a team-high three receptions for 23 yards.
Maybe one side will emerge as a clear winner of the trade in the next couple of years, but it would be disingenuous for either side to claim victory at this point. It might be easier for the Giants to nudge ahead simply because they have more options. The Bears are leaning on Fields alone.
10. This is the beginning of a challenging slate for the Bears with four of their five October games on the road.
The last time the Bears had four road games in a five-game span was in 2015, the first season for coach John Fox. However, a bye week was sprinkled in the middle of that stretch, and this year’s bye doesn’t come until Week 14, the final week for byes. In 2014, Marc Trestman’s final season, the Bears were on the road for four games in a five-game stretch without the benefit of a bye.
The back end of the schedule is kind to Matt Eberflus’ team when it comes to travel. Four of the final five games are at Soldier Field as the Bears travel only once after returning to MetLife Stadium for a Nov. 27 game against the New York Jets.
10a. I don’t know if the Bears seriously pursued St. Rita and Northern Illinois product Kenny Golladay in free agency in 2021. Some reported the Bears were in the mix for the former Detroit Lions star, and he eventually landed with the Giants for four years and $72 million. What’s the old saying? Sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make. In 17 games with the Giants, Golladay has 39 receptions for 543 yards and no touchdowns. He parlayed consecutive 1,000-yard seasons in Detroit in 2018 and 2019 into a big payday. I asked a veteran personnel man what the issue is.
“He was injured that final season in Detroit (2020) and missed a lot of that year and then missed time when he got to New York last year,” the personnel man said. “He’s not the kind of athlete that is going to get by not playing and not practicing, not in my mind. The rust stays on him. He doesn’t have elite speed. He’s one of those bigger receivers that would make contested catches downfield. You’ve got a quarterback downgrade (Matthew Stafford in Detroit to Daniel Jones in New York) and now there’s a new regime in place and they’re probably looking at Golladay and wondering, ‘What the hell?'”
10b. Through four games it sure looks like Eddie Jackson has rolled back the clock three or four seasons. The Bears free safety made a nifty center-fielder play to run under a deep shot by Tyrod Taylor intended for Darius Slayton, going a long way to haul in his third interception of the season. The last time a Bears defender had three picks through four games was when Kyle Fuller had three in the first three games of his 2014 rookie season. Jackson is tied with Minkah Fitzpatrick of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Marcus Williams of the Baltimore Ravens for second in the NFL with three picks, one behind Jordan Poyer of the Buffalo Bills.
10c. The fumble that happened when Justin Fields got stripped will be a coaching point for the Bears. It looked like Cody Whitehair could have made an effort to fall on the ball, and more egregious was wide receiver Equanimeous St. Brown not reacting and looking at the ball that Giants defensive end Kayvon Thibodeaux fell on.
10d. The Bears’ Week 5 game in Minnesota breaks a 15-year streak of late-season trips to the Twin Cities, with seven of those games played after Christmas. Here are the dates of the last 16 trips to Minneapolis:
2021: Jan. 9, 2022
2020: Dec. 20
2019: Dec. 29
2018: Dec. 30
2017: Dec. 31
2016: Jan. 1, 2017
2015: Dec. 20
2014: Dec. 28
2013: Dec. 1
2012: Dec. 9
2011: Jan. 1, 2012
2010: Dec. 20
2009: Nov. 29
2008: Nov. 30
2007: Dec. 17
2006: Sept. 24
10e. The Vikings opened as seven-point favorites over the Bears at Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas for Sunday’s game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
