Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Defense

1. With injuries and backups all over the field on the Detroit offensive line, they still dominated the line of scrimmage. The Bears defensive line isn’t good enough yada yada yada.
2. The Bears struggled to get pressure on Jared Goff with their four man rush yada yada yada. Unfortunately, as has been the case recently, the blitz often didn’t get home either.
3. It looked to me like the Lions tried to pick on Nashon Wright. That has been happening with increasing frequency as well. The Bears may have to start thinking of playing Tyrique Stevenson more often in his place. That’s if Jaylon Johnson is healthy. Which he may not be because he got burned on occasion as well. Most of the passes that really burned the Bears were over the middle.
4. Similarly, I was surprised how often C.J. Gardner-Johnson was covering Amon-Ra St. Brown. That’s a pretty clear mismatch and the Lions managed to maneuver the Bears into it time after time. Gardner-Johnson hasn’t looked good in coverage the last few games.
5. The Bears played a lot of bend and don’t break defense but that meant that they were on the field a long time. The Lions dominated time of possession. There were times when the Bears were missing tackles and looked tired in the second half.
6. When Andrew Billings jumps offside, he really doesn’t do it halfway.

Offense

1. With head coach Ben Johnson being the Lions former offensive coordinator, the Lions obviously know the Bears offense better than any other team in the league. It was going to be interesting to see how the Bears handled that. There definitely were times when the Detroit defense looked like they knew what was coming.
2. The Bears came out and ran the ball 6 of their first 8 plays. Unfortunately he forgot about the run the rest of the first half. It ended about 50:50 run to pass. I understand that the Lions secondary came in weak. But the Bears have to run the ball.
3. The Bears seemed to want to attack the right side of the line with the running game. They certainly saw some success to that side.
4. As is usual, the Bears found some success throwing to their tight ends. Colston Loveland has literally become the center of the offense.
5. Caleb Williams played a reasonably good game. I thought the deep throw to DJ Moore that was intercepted was unfortunate. It looked like double coverage to me. But otherwise I thought he made good decisions and threw catchable balls. He eclipsed Erik Kramer for the most passing yards in Bears history.
6. The Bears seemed to me to put Williams on the move just a little more often in the second half. The Lions were getting decent pressure and were keeping him in the pocket.
7. Kudos to Theo Benedet. He stepped in for Ozzy Trapilo and did a pretty good job at left tackle today.

Miscellaneous

It would have been nice if the Eagles had played their starters and won their game against the Commanders this week. I actually thought they might be able to pull it off with their back ups. But no suchh luck.

The Bears won 2 division games this year and one of those was a miracle win against the Packers. Divisional opponents know you better than anyone and the other teams in the NFC North seem to have the Bears number. It would have been nice not to have to go to war against those same Packers next week.

Most fans outside the NFC North wouldn’t understand this because they consider the NFC West to be a superior division with better teams. But I would have felt a lot better had the Bears been playing an opponent from the West.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune writes about the travails of the Bears defense as the season winds up.

The Bears rank 28th in total defense, 28th against the run and 21st versus the pass. About the only category they’re doing well in — and it’s a huge one — is takeaways, in which they still rank No. 1 with 32. They have a league-high 22 interceptions but have allowed 57 pass plays of 20 yards or more. Only the Baltimore Ravens (61) and Bengals (59) have more.

Takeaways will be more difficult to collect against better teams in the postseason. The Bears have six in the last four games, but three were interceptions against struggling Cleveland Browns rookie Shedeur Sanders.

This is a better defense right now than the one the Lions crushed for 52 points in Week 2. Whether it’s ready for playoff football remains to be seen.

What was Allen’s message to the players?

“We’ve all got to be better,” cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “He took accountability for the part he played, and, as players, we took accountability for our part. We just talked about being better.”

And just like that, the Bears moved on to the Lions for the regular-season finale Sunday at Soldier Field. It’s going to be challenging to go a lot further if things aren’t tightened up.

First, the good news is that the Bears aren’t the only team going into the playoffs with a major weakness. Ted Nguyen at The Athletic provides plenty of analysis of the problems that teams like the Rams, Texans, and 49ers are having with various aspects of play as they enter the postseason.

The team that is most notably missing from the list in the article is the Packers. Before Austin Booker sacked him with poor tackle height and concussed him, Jordan Love was playing with about as much confidence as I’ve ever seen from him. The Packers have been up and down but they could be dangerous in the playoffs. At minimum, they always seem to be ”up” for the Bears.

Second, Biggs emphasizes in the article about how poor the defense has been the last two games against the Packers and 49ers. The bad news, and more to the point, is that the Bears defense has been a problem since well before that. Despite the turnovers that the Bears have been getting, I’ve been wringing my hands, waiting for a good team to play well and expose this unit since the season began. I could clearly see that they weren’t good enough for an extended playoff run, and certainly anyone who knows what they’re talking about has said the same thing.

The Bears have had an entire season to find ways to overcome deficits in personnel along the defensive line and haven’t been able to do it. If they haven’t “tightened things up“ by now, I don’t think it’s going to happen. The only real hope that they have is that the deficiencies in the other teams that they face turn out to be as bad as theirs.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

Why isn’t Tyrique Stevenson getting more playing time? He had some early season success, so much so that teams were going away from him. Jaylon Johnson has not been good and doesn’t even try to tackle. — @historyczar0

Johnson made a really nice play on the first snap Sunday when he read Jauan Jennings’ route and Brock Purdy’s eyes and broke up the pass, leading to T.J. Edwards’ interception return for a touchdown. Stevenson got into the game in the second half, playing 18 snaps when Johnson was rested. I asked Johnson about that after the game, and he emphatically declared that he’s 100% back from the injury that kept him on injured reserve much of the year.

Stevenson has been a little bit better this season. According to Pro Football Reference, opponents’ passer rating when targeting him is 86.3, a tick better than the 87.5 rating in 2024. Opponents have gone at Nahshon Wright with more regularity. He has produced some big plays with six interceptions but also has been the man in coverage on six touchdown passes as opposed to one for Stevenson. Wright took a poor angle on Christian McCaffrey’s 41-yard run.

There’s a decent chance we continue to see all three on the field Sunday and in the playoffs. They need to be better on the back end, but keep in mind pass defense is a combination of rush and coverage.

Johnson must be hurt. There isn’t a single doubt in my mind. And other teams know it. They’ve been targeting him far more often since his return than they did beforehand. And, as Biggs points out, Wright has been targeted a lot and was burned with regularity against the 49ers last week.

Having said that, let’s not forget the big picture. This question is off-base if for no other reason than because it’s the pass rush that is the biggest problem with this defense. If that was just average, the defensive backs would be plenty good enough for any reasonable fan to be OK with.

Brad Biggs at the ** Chicago Tribune **answers your questions:

Other than money, what levers do teams pull to keep their coaching staffs from being raided? What are the options beyond dollars? And do coaching salaries have any cap/limits to them? — @crickhowell

There are really no ways to prevent coaches from seeking career advancement. It will be a very good thing if other teams come to the Bears looking for rising stars in the coaching world in the next couple of years. That would be the result of a lot of winning. If the Bears are just getting started with Ben Johnson — and that’s surely what most everyone reading this is hoping for — then prepare for his staff to be raided in the future. Every team looking for a new head coach or to build out a staff will want a piece of Johnson.

Consider a partial list of coaches who once worked under Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams: Zac Taylor, Matt LaFleur, Kevin O’Connell, Raheem Morris, Brandon Staley, Shane Steichen, Brian Callahan, Dave Canales and Zac Robinson. You know the primary reason the Rams have kept rolling along? McVay…

If the Bears continue to excel, the time will come when Johnson’s staff is poached. He did a terrific job in building the current staff, and one thing that stood out is he made smart hires with key coaches he never had worked with, such as defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, secondary coach Al Harris and offensive line coach Dan Roushar. If the idea of Johnson losing coaches to other teams really irks you, I’d suggest putting your faith in Johnson to make quality hires for their replacements…

Winning coaches don’t just develop rosters. They aid in the development of coaches too.

These are all very good points. I’ve always claimed that hiring the right position coaches is an under rated part of being a head coach. But it’s more than just hiring them. It’s managing them in such a way that they actually become better coaches. The one feeds off of the other.

We’ve learned a lot about how demanding Johnson is of his players. How he makes a big deal out of every little detail. We’ve heard that coaches are detailed before but you always got the impression that it had to do with developing the game plan. Johnson is detailed when it comes to coaching the offense and, presumably to a lesser extent the, the defense. But on thing that you have to assume is that Johnson is just as demanding, if not more, when it comes to his coaches.

As Biggs says, judging by the results and the obvious development that many of the players have experienced at almost every position, he developing good coaches here. That’s something that we haven’t seen here in a very, very long time if ever.

It’s refreshing not to be thinking about who the Bears are going to be taking in the top 10 of the upcoming draft right now. But as it stands, the Bears are going to face a different kind of problem this offseason that is both less concrete and more important.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has 10 thoughts after the Bears win over the Packers. Here he’s addressing the similarities between the 2024 Commanders and the current edition of the Bears:

Here’s the comp that is intriguing: The 2025 Bears are like the 2024 Commanders. That’s what one pro scout said.

“Got hot, started catching a lot of breaks then started making breaks,” he said. “Got good enough to go out and win two playoff games on the road and reach the NFC title game.”

Here’s the comp that is not intriguing: The 2025 Bears are like the 2024 Commanders. Same pro scout.

“All the breaks that went their way worked against them and they’ve totally fallen apart,” the scout said. “Four wins this season and a big mess.”

This guy wasn’t drawing a clear parallel between the Bears and Commanders but he did say he thinks some of the instant success for the new coach — Johnson for the Bears and Dan Quinn last year in Washington — and some of the fluky finishes make for a real comparison. It’s not a comparison game the Bears would want to take into the offseason, I know that much.

It’s not a comparison that any of us likes. But it’s something that the Bears are going to have to face in the offseason.

The danger to having a season like this is that you come out of it thinking that you are better than you are. The front office thinks that they are just one or two pieces away from a Super Bowl, and the coaching staff thinks that they have a bunch of good players that they can ease off on.

The Bears are really going to have to work hard to guard against this. I don’t think that Johnson is the kind of guy who will ease up on the players. At least it didn’t sound like it when he was in Detroit. And I’m sure that GM Ryan Poles understands that his inability to draft defensive linemen is what has made the pass rush and, to an extent, the run defense what it is. Add a much tougher schedule as the likely NFC North champions, and you’re facing a real uphill battle next year.

The Bears aren’t that good. Despite the difference in their records, it looked to me on Saturday night that they were a few Green Bay blunders away from not even being the best team in the division.

And let’s not forget that the Lions put up 50 on them in week 2. I think we all understand that they aren’t the same team now. But are they really that much better?

To be honest, you could argue that it wouldn’t be a bad thing for their long-term future for them to lose a game or two down the stretch and to be one and done in the playoffs. Either way, they’ve got a battle on their hands in the offseason just to avoid complacency.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has 10 thoughts after the Bears win over the Packers. HE’s wondering about head coach Ben Johnson’s chances of being voted coach of the year:

Have to see what else happens over the remainder of Week 16, but Johnson has to move up a little in the race for Coach of the Year honors, right?

I checked Saturday morning and the field was pretty tight, and it was clear Seattle coach Mike Macdonald got a bump following his team’s win Thursday night.

Fanatics Sportsbook still had New England’s Mike Vrabel (+175) as the favorite followed by Macdonald (+200), San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan (+400), Jacksonville’s Liam Coen (+750), Johnson (+800) and Denver’s Sean Payton (+1000).

Like I said, Johnson for sure gets a boost for a prime time win over the Packers. Sometimes this award is just about done by now or a two-man race. You’re looking at a ton of possibilities here. That Johnson is even in the running is something is a testament to the work and belief he’s instilled in the building. I bet he’d be fast to want to include assistants, players, support staff and others.

Yes, it’s a testament to the job that Johnson is doing. But I can’t help but point out that Dick Jauron got this award in 2001 while employing a then over his head John Shoop as his offensive coordinator and Matt Nagy got the award in 2019 while carrying an inability to design an effective running game – which, judging by the Chiefs offense, he still has.

So, though its better to win the award than not, I’m not sure how much it means.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

“One concern: The Bears had 250 yards of offense in the first half against Cleveland and only 14 points. It’s been a problem all season. Lots of yards that don’t produce points. — Tim S., Chicago

Not exactly a question here but I will tackle it. The Bears rank fifth in the league in total offense (which is simply yardage), averaging 369.1 yards per game. They are ninth in scoring at 26.1 points per game. I’d say those rankings are pretty close. As a side note, the Bears have averaged more yards per game only once: in 2013, when they averaged 381.8 in a 16-game season.

To your point, they’ve left some points on the field or, as the players and coaches like to say, some meat on the bone. The 26-14 win over the New Orleans Saints and the 24-20 win over the New York Giants come to mind as examples of games that probably could have had a larger margin based on how the offense moved the ball.

“We’ve had some spurts like that where it’s been challenging to move the ball and score the points,” Ben Johnson said Monday [after the game]. “But it was just a matter of time for us. We moved the ball really well in the first half. We had a couple opportunities there before halftime that we’ll address when we get a chance to (Tuesday) with the group that we felt like we left something out there.”

This is something every team goes through on a weekly basis, dissecting why more possessions didn’t end with a touchdown. The Bears rank 15th in the red zone at 59.2%. It’s something to keep an eye on because if you start trading touchdowns for field goals in a close game against a good opponent, that’s a quick way to lose. But I don’t think the issue has been as pervasive as you might imagine.”

I think a big part of the problem early on was things like penalties in the red zone which pushed the Bears back. The Bears were penalized 10 times for 105 yards against the Packers but up until then they had been doing much better since October.

Hopefully Saturday’s emotional game was an anomaly and they are over the poor discipline that plagued them the first half of the season.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions:

The medical/training staff again pushed players to return [against Cleveland] when a week further would have been sensible. That needs clearing up immediately, maybe change of staff as it’s not an isolated incident. — @bigdelboy46

I wish I had as much deep insight into precisely what went wrong with wide receiver Rome Odunze on Sunday when the team ruled him out after declaring inactives for the game. Here’s what I do know: It’s a delicate business when players have injuries and are working to get back on the field. I can tell you for a fact there have been Bears head coaches in the past who got upset with the training staff at various times for not pushing players hard enough to get back on the field sooner.

There’s this idea that the medical and training staffs have failed the Bears this season because of a series of soft-tissue injuries that have cost cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon and linebacker T.J. Edwards a lot of time on the field. Odunze’s situation with a foot injury is different.”

I would speculate that this criticism of the Bears is off base. When [head coach] Ben Johnson spoke about Odunze, in particular, he talked about protecting the player from himself. It may very well be that Odunze a push to play and the medical staff let him do it rather than the other way around.

Offense

• Another slow start as the Bears got very good field position off of a very good return, and the offense wasted it. False start penalty on DJ Moore and a drop on a screen pass on third down. They ran the ball once on second and 15 to get back to the original line of scrimmage. In suspended, they scored on their second possession. But this first one remains jinxed.
• The Bears did everything they could to make sure that the action was away from Myles Garrett’s side. Wise decision.
• Caleb Williams has a habit of releasing to the right and heading for the sideline, looking for a receiver on a cross to try to hit at the sideline. It worked early in the season, but it isn’t working anymore and hasn’t for some time. Cleveland had the receiver covered like a blanket. I think the Bears need a better solution there.
• Cleveland has a good defense, but if I’m a Browns fan, I’m not happy with the missed tackles that I saw today.
• You could really see the effect that the play action had on the Cleveland defense. The Bears panned on the ground, led them to sell out or the run — they had no choice — and it really opened the passing game at times.
• Speaking of accuracy, I thought Williams’ was a lot better today.
• On the other hand, I saw too much of Williams holding the ball and scrambling today. My guess is that he was passing too much the short outlet.
• Happy to see the Bears find Moore so much more often today.
• I thought that it was interesting that the Bears attacked Cleveland mostly to the outside in the run game. Apparently the combination of a stout interior defense and a perceived lack of Browns defensive speed led them to that conclusion.

Defense

• Sheduer Sanders’ helmet communication apparently went out on the first play of their second series, and he had to run to the sideline to get the play. It resulted in a delay of game. Surely there is a better solution than that. Don’t they drill that in training camp?
• The Bears rushed four most of the time today and struggled to get pressure as usual. But with Sanders holding the ball, there was still time to get to him.
• I thought that the rush was disciplined. It’s obvious that they were concentrating on keeping Sanders in the pocket. They did a good job.
• A better team would have had more explosive pass plays against the Bears today. WRs seemed to me to be popping open deep.
• I thought the run defense was excellent. On a day like this, that was important.

Miscellaneous

• Special teams got off to a good start with a good return to the Cleveland side of the 50 and then a punt downed at the 1-yard line. I’ve been very critical of the kick off return game so I’ll shut up. For a week , anyway.
• Not happy with the way that Ben Johnson handled the end of the first half. 3rd and 1 from well inside your own territory when you are running the ball well and you call for a pass downfield? I suppose you are a hero if it works. But they gave the ball back to Cleveland with good field position and a lot of clock left in the half. Fortunately, Cleveland wasted it.
• Lots of stops today. Presumably, the weather played a big role in that.
• Add D’Marco Jackson to the list of players who came through unlooked for in this magical year for the Bears. Not only did he walk on to the team and perform like he’d been there all year – while calling the plays – but the interception in the third quarter was a thing of beauty. Jaylon Johnson’s interception in the third quarter was also a big play at that point in the game. CJ Gardner-Johnson made a nice catch on his fourth quarter interception. The turnovers were a big difference in the game.

• I liked the confidence that the Bears played with today. Though it did burn them on occasion.

  For instance, there was a fourth and 3 early in the second half where Williams had an open receiver to his right for the first down but never looked at him as he presumably looked for a deeper shot. Williams apparently needs to be more patient there. And that touchdown pass to Moore in the third quarter? [head shake] My heavens. That is not the spot for a risk like that despite the fact that it worked out.

  And I wasn’t too pleased to see Sanders with so many open deep shots. His answer to the blitz was to heave it deep to a receiver who was being covered one-on-one. And it worked too often. It’s one thing to be beaten like that by Jordan Love, it’s another thing altogether when it’s Sanders. A less conservative plan could have been even more successful and would have made more sense this week.

  On the other hand, I loved the pass to Colston Loveland late in the first quarter on 3rd and 3. Williams had the pass in the air as Loveland came out of his break. That’s a perfect example of what they are trying to accomplish here with Williams. When everyone knows the offense like the back of their hand, when everyone is in the right place at the right time, and when Williams gets over his accuracy issues, we’ll see that all the time, and it could be very hard to stop.

  I’m a broken record, I know, but I think it’s really important to remember that, despite their record, the Bears aren’t there yet. But the future is bright. And that’s still the thing to continue to focus on.

Offense

• Williams had some inaccurate passes once again, especially early in the game. I really think that this may have to do with the fact that head coach Ben Johnson hired a first-time quarterback coach in J.T. Barrett. Williams needs someone to diagnose this problem and work with him on it. I’m thinking that he might not get that until the offseason.
• You knew that the Packers were going to throw tight man coverage at the Bears because they always do. They’re among the toughest in the league to execute against when they are on their game, and it gave the Bears a lot of trouble. It’s the kind of defense that you need explosive plays against, both in the run game and the pass game. The Bears didn’t have many.
• The Packers got a lot of pressure on Williams in passing situations. Some of it was from Michal Parsons, but a lot of it was on guys coming up the middle. Williams is poor statistically when pressured. Though, in fairness, some of that was just getting rid of the ball today.
• I think about halfway through the second quarter that Johnson remembered the game against the Eagles where he said after the game that he wished he’d called more runs. Because he started calling a lot more of them at about that point.
• The Bears really attacked the Packers inside on the run. It was a good plan. They have a lot of speed on defense and they were missing their best defensive tackle in Devonte Wyatt. The running game really got going late in the third quarter and it was critical to their success at that time in the game.
• The end around didn’t really work today. They take a long time to develop and I think the Packers were very ready for it.
• For whatever reason, I thought too many players like D’Andre Swift and Cole Kmet were going down without contact. That needs to get better.

Defense

• The Packers came out executing and you knew that the Bears once again were going to get their best.
• It looked like the Bears were trying to keep everything in front of them and were giving up the shorter passes. The Packers were executing well when they took what the Bears were giving them.
• No one can be surprised that the Bears blitzed a great deal of the time. They can’t get pressure otherwise, and getting pressure on Love was something they were going to have to do. He’s not great statistically when he’s pressured. The Packers generally did a good job of picking it up and Love did a good job today.
• The Packers did a great job of running play action against the Bears. They drew the linebackers and the buckle back up and then did a superb job of hitting the receiver behind them. It was Johnson’s dream on the other sideline, run just like it’s supposed to work.
• Time after time, the Packers targeted Kevin Byard and C.J. Gardner-Johnson in coverage. They must have spotted something that others have missed there.
• Jordan Love is playing with about as much confidence as I’ve ever seen him play with. He seemed to have an answer for everything the Bears threw at him today. Again, it helps that the Bears got very little pressure on him.
• I thought it was interesting that though T.J. Edward’s was back, they played him at weak side linebacker rather than at middle linebacker.
• Too often there was a Bears defender in place on the outside who was isolated on a receiver behind the line of scrimmage who missed the tackle. The Bears will undoubtedly be working on that this week.

Miscellaneous

• Tom Brady had some interesting tidbits about what it was like to play in cold-weather games today. Most of it was new to me. I’m surprised at how much I like Brady on the call. He warmed my rugby-loving heart when he mentioned the New Zealand All Blacks.
• Once again, I think that there’s no escaping the fact that the Bears are at a disadvantage when it comes to starting positions on kickoffs. Most kickers nowadays seem to have a knack for kicking the ball just short of the end zone, and the Bears usually end up at about the 20-yard line when the opponent executes it right.
• Suffice it to say that both teams had some dumb penalties, especially Green Bay. The Bears were mostly clean after the first quarter.
• It was very evident that the players were into this game on both sides. I’d say some of the rookies got a good feel for what this rivalry should be like. It was a tough, physical, chippy game, and though I deplore the penalties that sometimes resulted, I didn’t mind it otherwise.
• Both quarterbacks did a good job of throwing the ball away under pressure today. You don’t see as much of that in the NFL as you should.

• I’ve found myself all season making excuses for why the Bears were winning. They played an easy schedule and when they played a really good team (the Eagles) they didnt’ play well. Not today. The Packers are one of the best teams in the NFL, if not the best, and they played well. This showed me something.

  In many ways, this loss was good for the Bears. They are ahead of schedule in so many ways. They’re still getting the offense under their belts, and Williams is still working through his accuracy issues, and I don’t think that’s going to get sorted out in the short term. He needs help that he isn’t getting yet. But he will. Defensively, they haven’t gotten their pass rush established, and I’m sure that will be the number one need in the offseason.

  Good, competitive game. Very good game.