Quarter One
There were four stories to this quarter.
- The strip and recovery by Jonathan Owens stabilized the game for Chicago. There’s a different game script that plays out if the Vikings score easily there.
- The Bears don’t have a pass rush. Zero. Ryan Poles has so much work to do on both lines this off-season.
- The touchdown drive for the Bears was Caleb Williams’s best drive as a professional. That was superstar stuff from the kid, and continued evidence that Thomas Brown is not a coach to be thoughtlessly discarded after the season.
- Last thirty seconds of the quarter are everything wrong with Matt Eberflus as the head coach. Bad, undisciplined penalty. Inexcusable deep completion. Eberflus is the team’s primary vulnerability.
Quarter Two
- After the Keenan Allen overturn, Eberflus takes the ball out of his quarterback’s hands on fourth and short. Once again, Flus displays that he has no feel for the football game in front of him. But more importantly, it’s far more valuable long-term for Caleb TO FACE that situation. The team is going in multiple directions because the organization refuses to move on from Flus.
- If you lose a game on a blocked FG, and the next FG attempt is blocked, that is coaching, coaching, coaching. (The broadcast made this clear in their subsequent commentary.)
- Bears end up with a field goal on the final drive, after their sideline shows no urgency or command.
Vikings 14, Bears 10
