When you lose a game as grossly as the Chicago Bears did on Monday Night Football, there are no shortage of ugly moments to point back to as the point where it all fell apart.
The one I’ve seen people post the most is the generally reliable Cairo Santos missing a field goal that would’ve put the Bears up 20-6 in the fourth quarter. And yes, missed field goals in crunch time hurt. It’s also one play we can easily point to, just as we can always rail against Cody Parkey for the double-doink and not
talk about how terrible Mitchell Trubisky was for three quarters of that 2019 Wild Card Round. But I digress.
If I’m being honest, my bad-feeling-about-this-alarm started blaring on the Bears’ first offensive possession out of halftime on Monday night, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
The context matters. Chicago looked poised to go into halftime up 10–3 with JJ McCarthy looking every bit like a guy who’d never started an NFL game before. Then, with less than two minutes to go in the half, McCarthy and the Vikings scratched out a field goal to make it 10–6. On paper, it wasn’t much. But it was progress from Minnesota—a sign that the game wasn’t over, even if the Vikings could only manage to scratch out field goals from here on out.
That’s why the opening series of the second half was critical. A good team with the offense the Bears think they have comes out of the locker, goes on an eight-play, 70-yard drive, makes the score 17–6, and forces the Vikings into panic mode.
Instead, it was the Bears who blinked.
Three straight incompletions from Caleb Williams after starting off the game strong in the completion percentage department. The second down one looked like a rushed decision to pass up Colston Loveland in the middle of the field, as outlined here by former NFL quarterback Tim Jenkins. The third-down throw from a clean pocket might not have converted regardless, but it also just felt completely noncompetitive. The Bears punted in 32 seconds.
Funny thing is, the Bears got a pick-six on McCarthy that next possession to go up 17-6, and Minnesota didn’t score on their second possession of the half. But after that opening-half sinker, the seeds of offensive incompetence were already in place. Even if Santos had managed to hit that field goal, it wouldn’t have put the game out of reach because of Chicago’s failures before that point.
The worst part: that opening three-and-out wasn’t just a wasted possession. It was likely a scripted series, like the game’s first drive that Chicago scored on. Not to say that Bears drive was particularly smooth sailing either, but it got the job done. When you have the advantage of having drilled those plays over and over again, you have to execute better than that.
Bottom line: they had their chance to step on the Vikings’ neck before that pick-six even happened. Once they failed to do it, anything was possible. And anything ended up happening.
So yeah, Santos missing that kick sucked. But that would be letting the offense off the hook for failing to do anything before the game rested on his leg early in the fourth. And we can’t have that.
Back to the drawing board.
