January 7, 2019
The Chicago Bears had an excellent season, finishing
12-4. This was the third-best record in the conference, netting
them home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. But a heart-breaking, gut-
wrenching and mind-numbing 16-15 loss to the
Philadelphia Eagles put a pall on the entire season. General Manager
Ryan Pace has done a great job putting this team together with one exception. After
unceremoniously dumping Robbie Gould, last year’s kicker Connor Barth
was let go before the season ended. Spending big money, Pace signed
Cody Parkey, who ranked among the worst kickers this season. His
missed a 43-yard attempt for a field goal to win the game hitting the left
upright, then the crossbar before bouncing back onto the playing
field, knocking the Bears out of the playoffs. I thought they would make a
run to the Super Bowl, but my worst nightmare came true when I saw
Parkey coming out to try and kick the winning field goal.
Although Parkey was the main culprit, he
is not the only reason why the Bears lost. The defense was great all year. On
their first possession, the Eagles marched down the field deep into Bears’ territory.
Doing what they had done all year, the defense forced the Eagles to
settle for a field goal. With two interceptions, one in the end zone, those
were the only three points the Eagles could muster in the first half.
However, things changed after the intermission. Trailing 9-3, the
Eagles were trying to mount a comeback. On a third down incomplete pass, safety Adrian Amos was penalized for a helmet-to- helmet hit, so the Eagles
retained possession. On the next play the Bears committed another penalty for
too many men on the field. Two plays later, cornerback Prince Amukamara
was penalized for pass interference at the Bears’ 10-yard line. Eagles’ quarterback
Nick Foles threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to wide-open
backup tight end Dallas Goedert. Maybe he was wide open because the Bears
only had 10 men on the field. With about six minutes remaining, the
Bears had the ball at their 22-yard line. On a three-and-out,
which consisted of a two-yard loss and quarterback sack, punter Pat O’Donnell got
off a terrible kick, giving the Eagles a short field to
attempt a game-winning touchdown drive. People have been talking
about how great the Bears were in stopping the Eagles three consecutive times
on a first- and-goal at the Bears’ two-yard line. That
means absolutely nothing when your opponent scores on fourth down. The crux of
the matter is the Bears couldn’t get enough pressure on Foles to keep the
Eagles from getting to the two-yard line. They did stop the two-point
conversion, giving them a chance to win
.
Before you give Matt Nagy
the coach of the year award, consider this: The Bears
scored 15 points. Two weeks earlier in San Francisco the Bears scored 14
points. If you take away defensive scores, you’ll notice in many games the
offense didn’t score 20 points. This is your offensive genius? Against
the Eagles, the Bears had good field possession for 2½ quarters
and came away with three field goals. If you are close enough to be in Cody
Parkey’s range you need to score some touchdowns. To Nagy’s credit, quarterback
Mitchell Trubisky is getting better. On a go-ahead scoring drive, he
completed a 34-yard pass to wide receiver Josh Bellamy and a 22-yard touchdown
to wide receiver Allen Robinson (10 receptions, 143 yards). In the closing
minutes to put the Bears in field goal range he made two big
throws to Robinson. The reason he only needed two throws was a
terrific kickoff return by Tarik Cohen. Question to Matt Nagy: In
the biggest game of the year, why wasn’t Cohen in on all the other
kickoffs?
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