Bears Struggle to Beat Hapless Lions

 

November 25, 2021

It would have been extremely embarrassing if the Bears had lost to the winless Detroit Lions. A Cairo Santos field goal with no time left lifted the Bears to a 16-14 win. The Bears would not have beaten any other NFL team. The Bears may not have won this game if the Lions best offensive player, running back D’Andre Swift didn’t get hurt in the second quarter. He may have been helpful on the Lions last possession. They were on the 50 yard line and without Swift they went to the passing game. Three consecutive holding penalties put them back to the 20 yard with a third down and 32 yards for a first down.

There are times watching football you may you see things you have never seen before. The Lions also had a third and 32 in the first half; Bears Coach Matt Nagy won a challenge. I can’t remember him winning any others. Something else I’ve never seen before is a delay of game penalty for two time outs without a play in between. 

This may sound like a broken record, but once again offensive guru Nagy’s offense scored less than 20 points. It’s hard to imagine this when your quarterback throws for over 300 yards. The Bears seem to be allergic to touchdowns. They move the ball into the red zone and become very vanilla. They always seem to settle for field goals. Throwing an interception in the end zone doesn’t help matters either. The only reason they had the one touchdown pass is that the man covering Graham had the ball slip right through his hands. The Bears didn’t get much from the running game. In Nagy’s tenure they have never been able convert in short yardage situations.  Third down or fourth down conversions with 2 yards are never successful. A good coach would figure it out after four years. David Montgomery averaged a measly 2.9 yards per carry. He had many runs that lost yardage. This is partly due to a bad offensive line. However, I have never seen Montgomery try to bump a run outside a pile of bodies up the middle.  

It was easy for the defense to stop this team.  The Lions don’t have many offensive weapons. They also committed 11 penalties, many of them holding on the offense. Bears linebacker Robert Quinn Jr. has been terrific and could be the comeback player of the year. The only bad news is the Bears best defensive player Roquan Smith left the game with a hamstring injury.

The Bears snapped a five 5 game losing streak with this victory. They will probably have a longer streak by losing their last 6 games. Matt Nagy is certain to be gone the Monday after the final game if not sooner. The Bears will also need to dump General Manager Ryan Pace. He has made multiple mistakes and they can’t afford him to stick around to pick a coach. John Fox and now Nagy will be gone before their contracts run out. Owner George McCaskey and team President Ted Phillips are responsible for
bringing them back for this year. I can’t believe they would be stupid enough not to make these changes.