It was hard to determine how the Bears were handling Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase. It didn’t seem like they were doing anything special in single coverage, leaving the corners to handle them as usual. I guess you can only do so much to stop two such excellent receivers at once. The Bears couldn’t do it. In fairness, on some of those catches, the coverage couldn’t have been much better.
I thought that maybe the Bears played a bit more zone than usual. That would be a sensible move.
Not to be forgotten, Bengals running back Chase Brown had a good game receiving for the Bengals, too.
It seems to me over the course of the season that opponents have preferred to attack Tyrique Stevenson in coverage over Nashon Wright. That surprises me. It isn’t like Wright has been anything more than a journeyman before he got to Chicago. Maybe it’s an indication that Stevenson has been overrated by the Bears and their fans.
I was surprised at how often the Bears blitzed Joe Flacco. Flacco is a veteran who always appeared to me to be effective when blitzed. I can’t say that it never worked today, but Flacco seemed to handle it pretty well to me. Some of the Bengals’ bigger plays were against the blitz. I guess this is a statement about where the Bears defense is right now. Problems along the front require desperate measures.
Andrew Billings is a warrior. He has been sitting in the middle of that defense down after down this year clogging up the middle. He seems to be playing a lot more than usual as he stands between the defense being questionable against the run and being bad against the run.
Huge game for Montez Sweat. Nice to see him breakout.
I’m not at all sure Higgins had control of the ball on the Bengals third quarter touchdown with 5 minutes left in the third quarter. I was surprised that touchdown stood.
Offense
In contrast to what you would expect, the Bears came out throwing the ball with their scripted plays rather than trying to take advantage of a bad Bengals run defense.
Having said that, I’m glad to see that they made up for it in the series after that where they leaned a lot more heavily on the run. What a game from Kyle Monangai and the Bears offensive line!
Williams was staring down receivers again today. That has to stop.
He was holding the ball again, too. You can’t stand back there forever waiting for something to open up. If it’s not there, throw it away or take off.
It really does sound like a broken record, but Williams does have to be more accurate on those short and intermediate throws. He’s not been consistent. Hopefully, I won’t be continuing to say this deep into the second half of the season.
I thought that it was telling that the Bears went to a trick play in the red zone to score their first touchdown. This is what Matt Nagy resorted to when his offense couldn’t score in the red zone either…
Not a great day for Rome Odunze who had some drops and seemed to struggle at times.
Miscellaneous
The last time the Bears had Adam Archuleta as color analyst, he decided that Caleb Williams couldn’t work under pressure and kept saying so despite a wonderful performance under constant pressure from Maxx Crosby. I thought he was more fair today with some points that, while critical, were on point.
Last week, I was very unhappy with the Bears’ average starting position, especially after kickoffs. Starting the game with a Bengals return to the house did not enhance my opinion of the kick coverage unit. Getting it out to the 45-yard line on the next return didn’t help either. This unit needs work. In addition, Cairo Santos missed two field goals, one of which didn’t count. And, of course, the Bears blew the onside kick late in the fourth quarter, where a recovery would have ended the game. So bad, bad day for special teams, and Richard Hightower has a lot of work to do this week.
The Bears still have a penalty problem. It just seems like big play after big play gets called back. And that’s not counting the declined holding and pass interference calls.
Austin Booker’s forced fumble was such a huge play at that point in the game. Anything that gives you a possession in such a back-and-forth offensive game is going to be bound to be big. And of course, Tremaine Edmunds’ interception was as big as turnovers come.
I had flashbacks to some really bad challenges by the Bears as I watched Zak Taylor challenge that DJ Moore touchdown in the fourth quarter. Every angle I saw was that the ball broke the plane before it came loose. The only question was whether he was in bounds or not when it happened. I know first and goal from the 1 sounds like a touchdown waiting to happen, but the Bears have struggled down there. That was a bad challenge.
I continue to believe that most of Williams’ problems have to do with a lack of comfort in the offense. We continue to see all of these things we’ve been seeing. But I really do think we saw less of them all this week. It just seems to me that these struggles are the result of that lack of comfort leaking into Williams’ mental space where it affects everything he does. From inaccurate, easy throws to holding the ball instead of letting it loose, I think that we are seeing things that may well take care of themselves as both he and those around him fight their way through this to come out on the other side. You can accuse me of being a meatball fan if you want. But I have to say that I don’t think my wishes usually interfere that much with what my eyes see.
