After having such an ugly loss against the Cincinnati Bengals in the second week of preseason, it was good to see the Chicago Bears wrap up the preseason with a dominant 24-15 win over the Tennessee Titans in the finale.
The Bears’ first offensive play of the game was a 97-yard touchdown from quarterback Tyson Bagent to rookie wide receiver Zavion Thomas. Thomas would continue to impress throughout the game with plays on offense and special teams while Bagent arguably had the best game of his career with a near-perfect quarterback rating of 156.9.
Here is a look at the good, bad and ugly from the Bears’ win against the Titans in their preseason finale:
The Good
Zavion Thomas: Welcome to the NFL, Zavion Thomas! If he had put up this performance in the regular
season, he would be the NFC Offensive Player of the Week. He started out the game with a 97-yard touchdown but had a total of 140 yards on six receptions and added a 39-yard punt return and 22-yard kick return. No one on either team had a performance like Thomas did and was certainly the player of the game for Chicago.
Tyson Bagent: The runner-up for player of the game for the Bears would be backup quarterback Tyson Bagent. Bagent delivered a beautiful ball to Thomas on the 97-yard touchdown but also had other impressive throws and finished the game 16-of-17 for 208 yards and two touchdowns. His touchdown pass to wide receiver Maurice Alexander looked like a throw Caleb Williams would make. This may have been his best performance in the NFL so far.
Takeaways: Tyson Bagent has the talent and potential to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Zavion Thomas was worth the third round pick. Chicago has a lot of players, especially on offense, that have the potential to be really special in his league. They will have some difficult decisions to make when finalizing their initial 53-man roster, but they will also have a lot of playmakers on the roster this year.
The Bad
Third Down Efficiency: Chicago’s third down efficiency was not terrible, but it could have been better. They converted six of 15 third down attempts which is a 40 percent conversion rate. That is definitely an improvement from last week, but this is still a point of improvement for the Bears to work on. Luckily, they made up for their missed third down conversions by having an 80 percent conversion rate on fourth down attempts, including one attempt inside their own 25-yard line.
Brittain Brown: He probably will not make the roster anyway, but I was expecting more from running back Brittain Brown since he could still be picked up by one of the other 31 teams in the NFL. However, he only mustered 11 yards on six carries, an average of 1.8 yards per attempt. Chicago may not have needed the run game as much in this game so his performance did not critically hurt the team, any running back in the NFL should be able to get more than 1.8 yards per attempt.
The Ugly
Penalties: This is actually concerning given it was an issue last week against the Cincinnati Bengals and was also a problem in this game. Chicago probably would have put up more points if it were not for their 10 penalties for 71 yards. In total, they finished the preseason with 23 penalties; 21 of those were in the past two games. They will need to improve their discipline, especially along the offensive line, in the regular season.
Lack of Sacks: With Will Levis and Hendon Hooker at quarterback for the Tennessee Titans, Chicago should have been able to get more than two sacks for a loss of six yards. There have been concerns about the Bears’ lack of depth on the defensive line and barely having any sacks in this game shined a light on this concern. However, this should also be taken with a grain of salt given none of the starters were in the game.
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This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: Good, bad and ugly from Bears' preseason win vs. Titans
