Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Defense

• The Vikings won the coin toss and chose to receive rather than defer as is normally the case. We rapidly found out why. Minnesota’s game plan was evident from the get-go in this game. The first drive was almost entirely running the ball with Dalvin Cook and feeding Justin Jefferson on play action passes. Jefferson had four receptions for 55 yards Cook had a touchdown in less than a half of a quarter of play. The game couldn’t have started better for the Vikings.
• Bears game plan was obviously to sit back, stop the run, and keep everything in front of them. Essentially they were counting on Minnesota beating themselves and shooting themselves in the foot. The problem is that Minnesota wasn’t doing that. They were executing to perfection. Kirk Cousins’ first incompletion of the day came with 3 minutes left in the first half. That was obviously a big problem.
• It was very obvious from the first pass that the Bears did not have a defensive back on the field that could reliably cover Jefferson one-on-one. The Vikings wide receivers were running routes that were turning the Bears defensive backs every which way and upside down. It was like a circus back there. The Vikings passed for 312 yards and 7.3 yards per pass.
• Just after the beginning of the second quarter was the first time that color man Mark Schlereth used the term “bad eyes” to describe a Chicago Bear. It was when Jaylon Jones got sucked in to the interior of the defense and allow Cook to get outside of him to score the Vikings second touchdown. It was far from the only time that Schlereth could have used this phrase or something similar. The Bears are definitely a work in progress and are still cleaning this up.
• The defensive line once again wasn’t getting penetration against the run and the linebackers weren’t playing down hill. The Vikings ran 117 yards. The Bears also had a very difficult time getting pressure on Cousins despite the fact that they used a variety of different stunts upfront. They generally avoided blitzing, especially in the first half.
• Once again the Bears came back and played some sneaky good defense in the second half. It’s tough to tell exactly what they were doing differently. Although they were doing a lot more run blitzing, Cook was still running over them and they were still giving the Viking receivers plenty of room. One thing was very evident – the Vikings weren’t playing as well as they did in the first half. In that respect, they definitely let them back into it. At minimum, give the Bears credit for holding steady through adversity to allow this to happen.

Offense

• The Bears offense came out looking very discombobulated. Fields was either late with Dante Pettis or early with Darnell Mooney. It’s hard to tell who’s fault for these missed connections. But it’s fairly obvious that the offense was very disjounted at times.
• It wasn’t a good sign when Khari Blasingame got on the field late on the very first drive and the Bears took a delay of game. And then Justin Fields had the ball snapped into his gut when he wasn’t expecting it as he was trying to perform a check at the line. That was the first play of the second “drive”. The performance was barely professional.
• In fairness, it did occur to me that Justin Fields may have been trying to throw with anticipation on some of these plays that weren’t connecting. If so, that’s a good sign. He needs to be able to do that if he’s going to succeed and it may take time for it to come together.
• As Schlereth so aptly put it, the Vikings were “establishing a new line of scrimmage” upfront. The Bears offensive line simply got whipped much of the time. The Bears ran for only 78 yards and 3.3 yards per carry. Allot of the was Fields. This is becoming a recurring theme.
• Heck of a 39-yard catch by Mooney late in the first half. It was a one-handed grab falling backwards to the ground. One of the best catches that I’ve ever seen. It set up a David Montgomery touchdown.
• Fields did a lot of damage on the ground today again. He ran for 47 yards on eight carries. The Vikings did a poor job of keeping him in the pocket the way that the Packers did a couple weeks ago and it burned them. I thought that this played a major role in bringing a little bit of offensive competence for the Bears to this game. It was a major factor in allowing them to come back in the second half. The timing in the passing game got a little better, as well.
• On a related note I fear for Field’s health.

Miscellaneous

• Adam Amin, Kristina Pink and Schlereth were your announcers. Schlereth does a good job in my book though I do understand why some people might not be fans. He usually points out the salient points during the game, which is a bare essential, but he specializes in talking about blocking technique and line play. Its something that no one else gives you and I appreciate it though I know that its not for everyone. Amin is a rising star and he always does a good job, especially for hometown Chicago.
• The Bears onside kick in the second half was an interesting call. My first thought was, “What are they doing? They’re only five points down with plenty of time left?” But on the other hand, are the Bears really headed to the playoffs or something? I mean what do they have to lose, right? So I say good for Matt Eberflus. What the heck.
• Ditto with going for it on fourth and four with three minutes left in the third quarter.
• Certainly helps except the failure of the onside kick knowing that the Bears did a nice job of blocking the Viking field goal attempt that followed. Good work there.
• The Giants win over the Packers was a good game. That’s two weeks in a row for London. Good for them. They deserve it after some of the crap that they’ve seen over the years.
• The Bears tied the Vikings with a turnover a piece and had fewer penalties (six versus seven). But a block in the back by Ihmir Smith-Marsette brought back a 52 yard touchdown run by Fields. And, of course, Cameron Danzler stripped Smith-Marsette for the game winning turnover.
• This was a fascinating game to me in that it encapsulated the Bears season to this point and likely in H and H the season to come. The Bears aren’t talented to beat many teams. In fact they may have beaten the only team that they could and the Texans a few weeks back. But they are capable of allowing you to come up against them and beat yourselves.

  The first half of this game the Vikings were virtually perfect. They executed their offense against the Bears defense, moved the ball like a knife through butter and scored almost at will. The third quarter and for part of the fourth quarter, however, they made numerous errors and didn’t play as well. The Bears blew it in the end but for most of the second half they laid back and before you knew it, they were a head in the game.

  So far, to my eye, they come up against some teams that have played reasonably well at home. I’m convinced that eventually they’re going to come up against some teams that are going to take them too lightly or who are going to simply have a bad game. Those games have a good chance to be wins. It will be interesting to see how many of them there will be.

You can find Tom Shannon on Twitter @bearingthenews

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune answers your questions.

What should the top priority be? Wins this year or developing the team/culture for the future? — @dmaz2488

I’m a firm believer that your culture is about as good as your record. You know which teams consistently talk about their culture and how it’s getting better? Teams that are trying to dig themselves out of big holes. What do people talk about with the excellent teams that are consistently in the postseason picture? They analyze the strength of the roster and how good the players are.

Nothing develops players and a roster better than winning. It raises the level of buy-in. It’s a heck of a lot easier to coach corrections in a week coming off a victory than coming off a loss. Everything in the building is better when a team is winning. If the Bears are able to achieve modest success this season, it would be with young players who are improving and making a difference. Why wouldn’t you want to see the Bears win this season?

I’m not sure the Bears can improve by prioritizing development while making winning a secondary goal. I never will understand that line of thinking and I will take it one step further: If the players in the locker room don’t sense that the coaches are doing everything in their power to put them in a position to win every week, those coaches are going to lose the locker room in a hurry. Players put in work to win games. No other messaging will connect with them.

Spot on.

I will never understand people that claim that tanking is the way to long-term winning in the NFL. I understand the desire to get a better draft pick but when you tank, all you do is teach your players to lose. That is not the way to develop a team and that is why tanking never works in the NFL. Never.

If you’ve got a good front office and a good coaching staff then it doesn’t matter where you draft. You can always find good players and even good quarterbacks. The Green Bay Packers are A good example of this. On the other hand, if you don’t have a good front office, it won’t matter where you pick. You’ll never pick enough of the right ones to be any good.

Tanking is a scourge upon sport. It hurts everyone from the players to the league that is trying to sell tickets to games that aren’t competitive. Organizations should never do it.

Defense

• The Giants obviously watched the last couple games closely becuase they definitely noticed the Bears weakness against the run. Running the ball with Saquon Barkley is what they do anyway so it’s a good combination for them. Barkley ran 31 times for 146 yards.
• One of the things that the Bears tried to do to stop Barkley was to bring Eddie Jackson on a run blitz. It was a risky play. When it worked it worked very wellwas disruptive. But when it didn’t work, perhaps because the Giants ran the ball to the other side, it basically took Jackson completely out of the play with no chance to involve himself. Was it surprising in that it didn’t seem to be the kind of risk that Matt Eberflus would ordinarily take.
• The Bears were also flat out stacking the box against the Giants tight formations i an effort to stop the run.
• And the Giants also obviously noticed that the Bears weren’t very doing a very good job of containing the run outside on film. They took full advantage of it. Daniel Jones was constantly rolling out on bootlegs and, in fact scored the first and second Giants touchdowns were run to the left on such a play. Jones burned the Bears badly with his mobility today.
• The Bears have real problems on their defensive line. They are having a great deal of trouble penetrating against the run. It’s going to cost them this year if they don’t get better there soon.
• Nice to see Jackson get another pick today. This defense definitely seem to suit him.
• I also thought Roquan Smith had a good game. He had 10 tackles.
• I saw a lot of missed tackles out there.

<>Offense

• Not surprising. The Bears came out running the ball. Also not surprising, the Giants were ready for it and played a heavy box. It was uphill sledding for Khalil Herert who averaged 4 yards per carry with his better runs coming in the second half.
• The Bears offensive line as a whole just got whipped at the line scrimmage today. They had a very difficult time protecting Justin Fields, especially Braxton Jones, and the run game really struggled. They averaged 4.7 yards per carry on the ground but much of that was from Justin Fields scrambles.
• The Bears also came out targeting Darnell Mooney. He seems to have finally gotten going. He was the Bears most productive receiver with 4 catches for 94 yards.
• I don’t think that Trestan Ebner runs with the same authority that Herbert and David Montgomery do. He’s sometimes just a little tentative when hitting the hole. Perhaps he just needs more experience in the league to gain more confidence.
• Rookie wide receiver Velus Jones Jr. made his NFL debut after a lingering hamstring issue. He went without a catch but his fumbled punt return with 2 minutes left in the game was probably not what he envisioned for his first game.
• The Giants were missing defensive lineman Leonard Williams (sprained right MCL) again and they had been struggling to stop the run without him. Really managed to stifle the Bears run game without him today.
• Nice to see the Bears finally start to execute those screen plays. They caught the Giants a couple times and got some nice yardage. It was an interesting way to get Cole Kmet involved in the game.
• Fields sees pressure coming up the middle and his eyes dilate and his brain freezes. Instead of quickly getting rid of the ball he looks like a deer in the headlights. It looks like he’s going to be susceptible to this.
• Fields did a good job of running today. In fact, he was the run game for most of the contest. But he and the Bears should take a lesson from the Giants where both Jones and Tyrod Taylor got hurt doing the same thing.

Miscellaneous

• Joe Davis, Daryl “Moose” Johnston and Pam Oliver. I’ve always liked Johnston more than most people but I thought he really did a superior job of dissecting plays today.
• Michael Badgley was 4 for 4 on his field goals in his first game as a Bear. Long way from the days when the Bears tried out like 50 kickers and couldn’t find a decent one.
• Velus Jones was your kick and punt returner. I’m not surprised. Trestan Ebner wasn’t exactly showing himself to be dynamic and Dante Pettis looked like he flat out didn’t want to be out there. Then Jones fumbled the punt away down by 8 points with 2:00 to play… not better.
• The Bears are only going to win this year through superior discipline and by winning the turnover battle. They committed only 5 penalties to the Giants’ 7 but did not do that latter as it was 2 turnovers all.
• Sometimes football is a simple game. Bears got beat on both sides of the line of scrimmage today. When it’s all said and shifted, that was an awfully big reason why they lost. We can hope that this will get better over the course of the year. But I’m reasonably sure that, like most of the areas of the team, this is a place where they’re going to need an influx of talent in the off-season. I guess we’ll just have to add it to the list.
• To the New Orleans Saints: Welcome to our world.
• I’ve been as big a supporter of Matt Eberflus and his staff as anybody. But I can’t help but wonder if the Bears weren’t out-coached and outplayed today. The Giants coaching staff seem to have a very good idea what Bears were going to do and had just the right plan in place to stop it.

  With Ryan Poles as a first time general manager, Eberflus as a first time head coach, Luke Getsy as a first time offensive coordinator and Alan Williams having not been a coordinator in 9 years, it seemed to me like there was going to be a learning curve for everybody going into the season. I think the Bears may have paid the price for that today.

  I think that might be OK in a developmental year where the players are young and learning and you really don’t expect to win. Eventually we can hope that the Bears coaches grow into their positions in the same way that we can hope that the Bears players grow into theirs.

Dan Pompei at The Athletic gives his comments on the Bears Texas games Sunday.

Running back David Montgomery’s performance one week ago was an argument that he belongs in the Bears’ long-term plans. Khalil Herbert’s performance Sunday was an argument that the Bears can afford to let Montgomery sign elsewhere.

They can afford it. But they shouldn’t do it.

Teams like the Bears need two running backs. In fact, the injury to Montgomery during the game shows you exactly why that is true. And right now Tristan Ebner has not shown that he can carry the load is a second bag.

Can you always draft a new running back? You can. Very easyily. However, who wants to use a draft pick to fill a hole that you created by not signing your own player? One that you already know is good?

It would be different if we expected Montgomery to draw an excessively high salary. But that should not be the case. Assuming that the market demands that he receive a salary commensurate with the average NFL running back, I see no reason at the moment why the Bears wouldn’t want to try to resign him.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune talks about Justin Fields development. Here he quotes an anonymous personnel man about the situation that Fields finds himself in with the Bears this year.

“You look at Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia. He’s throwing to freaking A.J. Brown and he’s got a young guy on the come in DeVonta Smith, who was the Heisman Trophy winner. And he’s got a young tight end in Dallas Goedert, and the offensive line there is one of the best in the league. If you put Fields behind that line, how good would he look?

The answer to that question is “better“. But still not as good as Hurts.

I’m not at all convinced that what we’ve seen from Field so far this year is simply a result of the talent that he is surrounded with. Fields simply has been unable to throw from the pocket. He was only able to do it in college. And he’s unable to do it right now.

That doesn’t mean that he can’t do it. It doesn’t mean that he won’t learn to do it. But he’s not.

I dont doubt that surrounding him with more talent would make him better. But I don’t think it would make him good.

Fields needs to learn to at least occasionally drop back, hit his back foot, and get the ball out on time to the correct receiver. If he can do that, he’ll look a lot better no matter what talent he is surrounded with. I look forward to the day that that happens.

If it doesn’t by the end of the year, I think the Bears will once again find themselves in a situation where they are searching for another quarterback. As is part of Biggs’s point, it’s too early to make that judgement. But don’t fool yourself. By the end of the year the Bears will be able to do it. They must.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune talks about Justin Fields development. Here he quotes an anonymous personnel man about the situation that Fields finds himself in with the Bears this year.

“You look at Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia. He’s throwing to freaking A.J. Brown and he’s got a young guy on the come in DeVonta Smith, who was the Heisman Trophy winner. And he’s got a young tight end in Dallas Goedert, and the offensive line there is one of the best in the league. If you put Fields behind that line, how good would he look?

The answer to that question is “better“. But still not as good as Hurts.

I’m not at all convinced that what we’ve seen from Field so far this year is simply a result of the talent that he is surrounded with. Fields simply has been unable to throw from the pocket. He was only able to do it in college. And he’s unable to do it right now.

That doesn’t mean that he can’t do it. It doesn’t mean that he won’t learn to do it. But he’s not.

I dont doubt that surrounding him with more talent would make him better. But I don’t think it would make him good.

Fields needs to learn to at least occasionally drop back, hit his back foot, and get the ball out on time to the correct receiver. If he can do that, he’ll look a lot better no matter what talent he is surrounded with. I look forward to the day that that happens.

If it doesn’t by the end of the year, I think the Bears will once again find themselves in a situation where they are searching for another quarterback. As is part of Biggs’s point, it’s too early to make that judgement. But don’t fool yourself. By the end of the year the Bears will be able to do it. They must.

Colleen Kane at the Chicago Tribune quotes coach Matt Eberflus on Kyler Gordon’s performance on Sunday.

In the third quarter, Gordon charged forward on a third-and-1 blitz and batted down quarterback Davis Mills’ pass. But Gordon also gave up a couple of big plays, including losing wide receiver Chris Moore on a 52-yard catch in the first quarter that led to the Texans’ first touchdown.

“The breakdown on that was … we were playing single-high coverage. We have to do a better job of just staying on that guy,” Eberflus said. “That was his guy. He has to stay on him.”

Eberflus was asked whether the Bears would consider keeping Gordon at one position to lighten his mental load.

“You always have got to look at that, especially when you’re working with a rookie, a guy that’s been in there and it’s the first time,” Eberflus said. “But he’s shown that he can do it. His techniques are good. In terms of knowing his assignments are good, inside and outside, so we’re pleased with where he is relative to that.”

If you watch replay where the Texans’ Moore caught the 52 yard pass, you will see that Gordon was with him until he heit about midfield and then he let him go, obviously thinking that another defensive back was going to pick Moore up. Realizing his mistakes too late he tore after more but Moore was wide open.

It was not the first time that Gordon has looked confused in coverage over the first three games.

The evidence does, indeed, support the suggestion that Gordon is overloaded and that he might be better off concentrating upon one position. But it doesn’t sound like they are ready to restrict him just yet.

We all knew going in that there would be growing pains for the Bears this year. I htink eveyone was prepared to be patient with quarterback Justin Filds But I think it behoooves us to remember that the other guys are only feeling their way through right now as well.

As it is it looks like we’re going to have to just wait and see how fast Gordon can pick things up and handle what the Bears have given him.

Offense

• Nice to see Byron Pringle start off the game by running a shallow route across the middle on the second play. It’s a route that I see teams run against the Bears all the time where the linebacker has to pick up the wide receiver in zone coverage and can’t do it. Nice play.
• Justin Fields was under pressure but it was mostly because he was holding the ball too long. He has to get rid of the ball faster.
• I like the way that Khalil Herbert runs. He’s one of those short, compact guys that are just hard to bring down. He’s like a bowling ball.
• Related note it’s interesting to contrast Herbert and Trestan Ebner as running backs. Herbert had a much better game, seem to be shiftier and broke more tackles. Ebner seem to struggle in both departments despite being seen as being more gifted in this respect. Herbert also ran with better vision. Herbert had 157 yards on 20 carries (7.9 yards) while Ebner had 23 yards on 7 carries (3.3 yards).
• It’s really interesting watching what the Bears do to make the running game effective. Khari Blasingame is often in the field for some of their biggest runs because he brings an extra blocker to the point of attack. On Herbert’s touchdown in the third quarter they actually brought over an extra offensive lineman and line them up right where the hole was going to be so they saw that they had an two extra blockers with Blassingame.
• On a further related note, the Texans were missing tackles all over the field. That does not sound like a typical Lovie Smith defense.
• Glad to see that offensive coordinator Luke Getsy didn’t abandon the run after all the pressure he was under to pass the ball last week. The Bears had 281 yards rushing on 40 carries. The run pass ration was 70:30. The Texans have not shown the ability to stop the run in their previous two games and the second drive of the game where the Bears scored a touchdown was a great example of what you can do if you can run over a team.
• It was interesting that they chose to continue to rotate Teven Jenkins with Lucas Patrick. My guess is that Patrick isn’t ready to snap the ball yet with that right hand surgery.
• Justin Fields flat out struggled with his accuracy early today and some relatively simple passes were not completed. Fields completed 47% of his passes with only 3.7 yards per attempt.
• Fields just cannot take a sack in field goal range like he did toward the end of the half. Cairo Santos made the field goal anyway but it went from an easy short one to a very difficult long one. He has to read the blitz on that play and go to his heart read immediately. If it’s not there he has to get rid of the ball. There was a sack at with just a little more than 2 minutes left in the game where the defensive back was on the line of scrimmage and was obviously looking to blitz. Fields never saw him.
• Fields burned the Texans so badly by breaking the pocket that they finally assigned a spy to track him around the field. If the runner with a ball went to the left and Fields went to the right there was always one linebacker following him.
• I think that Luke Getsy is finally figuring out how to use Darnell Mooney. Defensive backs were playing him deep and giving him a lot of room because they are wary of his speed. Up until now gets Getsy wasn’t really taking advantage of that but he had Mooney stopping his routes short and it was leaving him pretty open. You don’t get the long deep shot this way but at least you get some completions with some helpful yardage.

Defense

• Theirs came out in this game playing a fair bit of their bass defense with a strong side linebacker and I don’t know what the percentage was but it looked like a higher percentage than usual. This was probably a good plan since up until this game the Texans really hadn’t shown the ability to complete in the passing game.
• The Texans came out attacking Kindle Vildor which I thought was an interesting decision since undrafted rookie Jaylon Jones was starting on the other side in place of the injured Jaylon Johnson. My guess is that the Texans planned to go after Vildor all week because they expected Johnson to play. When he didn’t, I guess they saw no reason to change. Vildor had a rough start to the game but it’s worth noting that he did tip the ball that Eddie Jackson ultimately intercepted toward the end of the first quarter. He made some nice plays after that.
• 58 yard completion to Chris Moore in the Texans second Drive was a broken coverage. Kyler Gordon had him in coverage and then slow down obviously thinking that somebody else was going to pick them up. The Bears have to clean these things up.
• Once again, the Bears defensive line struggled to get penetration against the run. Blockers were easily getting to the second level to take linebackers out in spring runners free. Admittedly the linebackers didn’t help and weren’t playing downhill until late i the game when things improved. a bit

Miscellaneous

• Andrew Catalon, James Lofton and Michael Grady were your announcers. Lofton was interesting in that he concentrates more about game situations and really plays more head coach during the game than anything else. There wasn’t a lot of revelatory X’s & O’s or the anatomy of a play in this broadcast. Unfortunately, that’s the stuff that I like.
• Dante Pettis is either needs to catch the ball or let it go on the first Texans punt. Instead he appeared to let it bounce right in front of him and then he was darned lucky that it bounced right to him. Dangerous play. Pettis seemed me to take a fair catch when he had room to run but then didn’t take a fair catch when he had a guy or two bearing right down on him. I question his decision making and perhaps he needs to be replaced.
• But that the Bears were prepared for the fake pipe toward the end of the third-quarter. They were certainly lined up in a way that should have stopped it. The problem is that they simply got blown off the ball.
• A little bit disappointed that the Bears didn’t win the turnover battle (2-2) and committed more penalties (6 Vs. 3) than the Texans did in this game. I think the path to winning for this team is going to be strong disciplined play and they’re going to have to win games by doing both of these things. In fairness, 6 penalties is by no means an outrageous amount. And, of course, it was the final interception by Roquan Smith that basically won the game. But I think that they can do better.
• This was a good win for the Bears. I thought these two teams were pretty closely matched in that they’re both young and both rosters don’t have a lot of talent. And, as I mentioned above, I think the path to winning from both of these teams is going to be not beating themselves. So in that respect they really do match each other pretty well and it was good that they came out o top.

  Having said that both the offense and the defense need to keep getting better.

  The running game has been a revelation and I couldn’t be more pleased with the way that there making yardage that way. But passing is the way that you win against good teams and the Bears simply have not shown that they can do it on a consistent basis. Fields has to get his feet underneath him and throw with better accuracy on time to the proper receiver with the proper read. Until he learns to do that they’re not going to be able to compete with the big boys. We need to be patient but it still mildly concerns me that he hasn’t made more progress, now well into his second year.

  The defense also has its problems Against both run in the pass. Their inability to stop the run as well documented above. The depth is being tested in the defensive backfield as well. I was not at all surprised to see the Texans target Kindle Vildor just as Green Bay did last week. And to a certain extent it worked. But what did surprise me was they did not test Jaylon Jones on the other side who is an undrafted free agent and certainly is untested. The Bears future in terms of coverage may depend upon the performance of these two men. It’s not a great thought.

  So bottom line the Bears have a lot to work on after this win.

Adam Jahns at The Athletic quotes Bears head coach Matt Eberflus on what he thought happened on Justin Fields‘ touchdown pass to Dante Pettis. Fields got outside the pocket and ran to his left and found Pettis open downfield on his right.

“As soon as the quarterback scrambles, you got to plaster your man in your area, and what happens is you got to plaster him with your eyes and your body,” Eberflus said. “Because what happens is, you start to look back and all of a sudden (the receiver) wiggles away and you lose him.”

It doesn’t matter if the secondary is playing zone — “(the 49ers) play a lot of zone; we play a lot of zone,” Eberflus said — or in single-high coverage, he explained.

“That’s probably what happened,” Eberflus said. “I’ve got to go back and look at the tape.”

“The vision by Justin to see that and throw it back there was a great play,” Eberflus said. “And that’s the kind of plays he can make. That’s what makes him dangerous because he can throw on-schedule throws but, man, he’s got the off-schedule throws, too.”

A couple things here.

First, Pettis didn’t just “wiggle” away from the 49ers coverage. The 49ers literally turned around and ran away from him in a mad effort to chase Fields down. It was a moment of terrible disciplne from the 49ers and one of numerous examples of the way that they handed the game to the Bears on a platter. You can bet that the Packers will not do that this week.

Second, the Packers are going to know very well, if not based upon the 49ers video then certainly based upon what happened last year, that they have to keep Fields in the pocket.

Fields did not perform well from the pocket in the first half of the game. He holds the ball too long just as he did last year. He will not truly develop as a good NFL quarterback until he learns to drop back and get rid of the ball quickly, especially given that the Bears offensive line is young and developing and not likely to protect provide him with long periods of protection. I understand that’s not easy to do when your wide receivers aren’t good enough to get open on their own. But Fields has to learn to throw them open.

The Packers pass rush will be far more disciplined than the 49ers.

Offense

• Offensively this was really a game of 2 halves. Let’s start with a bad news with the first half. Bottom line, the Bears really lost the line of scrimmage in this half. The off lineensive line struggled against one of the best front sevens in the game. They had trouble protecting Justin Fields and they had trouble blocking the run.I was a bit surprised that they had the most trouble blocking on the inside of the line rather than on the outside with the office of tackles. I think we’re going to see a lot of that this year.
• Perhaps related to that point. I I did notice that the Bears rotated Lucas Patrick in at right guard for Tevin Jenkins on occasion. I’ll be interested to hear what Matt Eberflus have to say about that after the game.
• One thing I have to say is that Justin Fields is really going to have to learn to get rid of the ball quicker when he’s under pressure. Too often he dropped back and just simply couldn’t let go of the ball. He got better as the game went on. Going to have to be a lot better if it’s all offensive line is going to perform like that.
• Fields was also having trouble with his accuracy early in the game. The balls seem to be flying rather high. I’m not sure what the trouble was but it did get better as the game we’re on.
• As expected, the Bears wide receivers had a very hard time getting open when covered one on one by the 49ers defensive backs. They’re not a very good group and they’re going to have to get open with scheme. Which is exactly what happened in the second half. But that’s not going to be true and every game with teams that play better.
• I think when you want to know what the Bears office looks like ideally, you look at the way the 49ers executed theirs in the first half. They establish the run, and then ran to play action pass off of it. And it was reasonably effective. There’s probably will add some Packers flavor like sceen passes and the rollouts. But that’s pretty much what they want the offense to look like.
• On a related note, all the work that the Bears did on their screen passes in the off-season, they didn’t look very good running them this game. It’s obviously still a work in progress and probably will be all year.
• It was hard to figure out exactly who Justin Fields was throwing the ball to on his first interception. Darnell Mooney was behind the safety who made the play. But I’m not sure it was intended for him. It did look to me on the replay like maybe the ball had been slightly tipped at the line and that may have deflected it just a little bit. But even so I really didn’t see anyone else in the area. Hard to figure that one out.
• At one point in the second quarter, Trey Lance drew the Bears defensive lineman offside on a hard count, and I’m wondering when Justin Fields is going to start doing the same thing. 10 minutes later he did it.
• I like the combination of David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert in the backfield. They have different running styles, Herbert being quicker and more elusive with Montgomery eing more straight ahead, running angles and breaking tackles. I think that they complement each other very well. Perhaps they could play Herbert just a little bit more. They could use his skill set. They could send both guys out on pass routes to little bit more.
• In the second quarter Justin Fields started running, which was nice to see. Fields on the run should be a part of the Bears offense and hadn’t been up to that point. But it can’t be the entire Bears offense which is certainly what it was looking like.
• The touchdown to Dante Pettis was a great example of what happens when a defense smells blood in the water. Fields was rolling out to the left and in trouble. Everybody left Pettis in order to pursue him thinking the play was on that side of the field. They were being aggressive and they couldn’t help themselves. Great job by Fields spotting it and getting him the ball.
• Having said all of that, what happened in the second half of this game was really interesting. About midway through the third quarter all the Bears had done was throw short passes and try to run the ball. And the 49ers were stopping them cold. They were sitting on the short routes and they were crowding the box frequently putting eight men near the line in order to stop the run. Suddenly the Bears went to the play action pass and that’s where their big plays like the touchdown pass to Equiminius St Brown came from. When the 49ers backed off, the run game suddenly opened up and they started to move the ball that way. That was really good to see. That’s how the offense is supposed to work.

Defense

• The 49ers came out running. Two reasons for that. First, it obviously the way that they prefer to play. Establish the run and go to the play action pass. And they did that reasonably effectively even if it didn’t result in many points. More on that later. The second reason was that they were trying to protect Trey Lance by not asking too much of him too soon.
• Hard to tell watching television, but it looked at me like the Bears played mostly zone on early downs. But they went man-toman an awful lot on third down. My understanding is that that’s exactly what Matt Eberflus did it with the Colts so I think we can can anticipate seeing that the rest of the year.
• I was a little bit disappointed that we didn’t see more of the speed on defense that we’ve been told to expect, especially in the first half. The Bears seem to be just a step slow on most plays. I certainly hope that gets better over the course of the year. There’s potential there but there were times when they didn’t look like they were playing with confidence and flying to the ball. Perhaps it was affected by the weather. But the 49ers didn’t seem to be affected. Play speed overall was lacking for the Bears on both sides of the ball.
• Good job by Jaylon Johnson doing a peanut punch to get that ball to fall out on the Bears first fumble recovery. Looks like Tillman’s visit to the Bears training camp might have stuck with some of the players.
• I think the good news is that the Bears seem to be getting decent pressure on Trey Lance with their front four. It wasn’t consistent. But it was definitely there. That’s absolutely necessary for success.
• Having said that, the Bears seem to be having a very hard time stopping the run. They seem to be holding their position OK but they’re getting very little penetration on the defensive line. The result is that the 49ers were getting positive yards on every run. That has to get better.
• It was great seeing Eddie Jackson come up with an interception in the first game. Let’s hope it’s the first of many this year and we’re seeing the 201 version of him.
• Surprised that the 49ers didn’t go after Kindle Vildor more. It seemed they were concentrating more on Kyler Gordon.
• Seeing Jaylon Johnson go down in the fourth quarter was not a good thing. The Bears do not have a lot of depth at cornerback. He returned on the next play but it was a reminder of what could happen.

Miscellaneous

• Daryl Johnston and Joe Davis were in the booth with Pam Oliver the poor sole on the sideline in the rain this game. I’ll start by saying that I’m OK with Johnston. We could have done a lot worse for this game. Having said that, I thought Johnston and Davis spent a little bit too much time in the first half complaining about the referees. Yeah they were calling it close but it wasn’t that close. Those were legitimate penalties. In particular the push off by Brandon Aiyuk that they said “really didn’t affect the separation” was definitely a push off. Johnson’s head actually jerked back with the contact.
• At the end of the first quarter the 49ers had 70 rushing yards and were averaging 5.8 yards per carry. The Bears had 15 rushing yards and we’re averaging 1.4. At the end of the game it was better at 4.8 Vs. 2.7 yards per carry. But still not good. When you can’t run the ball and you can’t stop the run that is an extremely bad sign. The Bears absolutely, positively have to be able to run the ball if they are going to have success this year. The entire first quarter was played in their half of the field.
• Yes, the field was very wet. And I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant. But, in fairness, it sure looked to me like it was still a lot of green on the field at the end. It wasn’t exactly a mud bath. Kudos to them.
• Kudos to the Bears crowd. They were pretty loud today on a really crappy day.
• The great day for special teams. Two missed extra points might have really have hurt the Bears in this game.Penalty on Trenton Gill may very well have taken three points off of the board. Though, in fairness, I wasn’t aware of the rule that said that you couldn’t dry off the place where you were going to put the ball was illegal either.
• This was a great game and that I think it showed us about a lot about how the season might go. First of all the Bears won the turnover battle 2 to 1. I think that’s something that they would like to see happen on a fairly consistent basis. Second they committed far fewer penalties with 3 than the 49ers at 12.That was an indication of the kind of discipline that they would like to play with. If you play with discipline and you manage to get turnovers, you can win a lot of games that you have no business winning. That’s what happened today.

  I said that, I think we also saw some of the problems that they may face. Both lines were dominated in the first half and to some extent in the second half.Doesn’t worry me so much on the office of side where the Bears have some young players who are still developing and who may get better over the course of the season. However on the defensive side, it’s a little bit of a different story. The defensive front seven has guys have to do better against the run.

  In additione, the wide receivers struggled to get open in man-to-man coverage. that, too, was as expected and I don’t think that there are going to be a lot of surprises. The 49ers did a very good job of keeping the ball from Darnell Mooney and, though the other guys made some plays, most of them were a result of play action rather than pure talent. A team that plays with more discipline than the 49ers did today will cause the Bears a lot of trouble because they don’t have the talent on the roster to win games with matchups.

  This was a good win, it was a win that the Bears had no business getting. And, If they are going to be a really good team this year, this was an indication that they could do better than many people expect.