Struggles on offense, defense, and special teams doom the Chicago Bears again as they suffer their fifth straight loss.
Watching Chicago Bears games is becoming an exercise in futility. The team dropped its fifth game in a row. Their record now stands (barely) at 3-7. Additionally, any talk about them possibly making a run to the playoffs should now end.
The loss was also the fourth straight that the Bears, under head coach Matt Nagy, suffered coming out of the bye week.
The team again looked ill-prepared not only in the game plan but in actions on the field. They called timeouts at bad times, thus leaving them with none when they really needed them. They also failed to call timeouts when they weren’t ready and it cost them three points before the end of the first half.
The disarray surrounding the Chicago Bears becomes more embarrassing by the game. They continued to have trouble with third-down conversions. Against the Ravens, they were 2/11. They actually performed better on fourth downs, where they were 2/3.
After going on record-setting consecutive field goals made streak, Cairo Santos now missed two in a row. Of course, the first one he missed against the Pittsburgh Steelers was a hail Mary attempt, but he missed a chop-shot against the Ravens. It ended up being the margin of loss, so it really hurt.
The offense again struggled for most of the game. Coming into the game, the thought was that they needed to go deep to test the porous Baltimore secondary. In fact, that is where they got most of their yards. Justin Fields, who had to leave the game with a rib injury in the third quarter, and Andy Dalton combined for 261 passing yards. Six of their 15 completions went for 20 yards or more.
There just weren’t enough of them, however. When they needed to make key plays, like on third and one or fourth and one, they failed to convert.
The defense actually had a very good game. That was, until late in the game when the team really needed it. They recorded six sacks for the game. Robert Quinn, stepping his game up in Khalil Mack‘s absence, recorded 3.5 by himself.
The Bears held the Ravens to just three field goals for 58:19 of the game. Then, with Chicago holding onto a 13-9 lead, the defense collapsed. Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley, who filled in for a sick Lamar Jackson, took the Ravens offense 61 yards on nine plays in just 1:19.
That left the Chicago Bears suffering another loss in a heartbreaking fashion. In Week 9, they gave up a field goal late in the game that won it for the Steelers.
Now we’re left with hoping Fields isn’t too injured and he doesn’t miss many, if any, games. His and some of the other young Chicago Bears players’ development is the most important issue for the rest of this season. Victories don’t really matter anymore as the playoffs are only a target for next season.
Additionally, the Bears need to make sure the embarrassment doesn’t get worse in the form of giving the Detroit Lions their first victory of the season when the two teams meet on Thanksgiving.
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