Defense

• Safety Jaquan Brisker, cornerback Kyler Gordon and reserve linebacker Sterling Weatherford were all inactive with injuries. That’s in addition, of course, to the face that the Bears really don’t have a good cornerback situation opposite Jaylon Johnson. So Kindle Vildor, Jaylon Jones and DeAndre Houston Carsen started in the defensive backfield. The Jets took advantage to get a touchdown on the opening drive.
  
• In addition, Eddie Jackson went down in the second quarter and I honestly lost track of who was playing after that. Elijah Hicks seemed to be getting more time at that point. In any case, ugly break for a defense that was ugly to begin with.
  
• It appeared to me that the Bears started playing bend but don’t break and keeping everything in front of them. That works as long as you don’t have critical mistakes in the red zone, which the Bears certainly did. It was Vildor falling down and leaving a receiver wide wide open in the end zone.
  
• The Bears then switched to a more aggressive defense, playing more man-to-man and covering more tightly. The end result wasn’t great. The Jets racked up 466 total yards.
  
• The defensive linemen played better against the run this week. They were all over up and down the line plugging holes and they did get some penetration. The Jets still got 158 yards on 32 carries (4.9 ypc). It looked to me like the Bears simply had a lot of trouble getting off of blocks all over the field.
  
• As usual, the Bears struggled to get pressure on Mike White getting only 1 sack. That led to White having a lot of success. Credit to White for having a good day (22/28 for 315 yards and 3 touchdowns and a 149.3 passer rating). But let’s wait until he plays a real NFL defense before crowning him the next Jets franchise quarterback.
  

Offense

• Bears QB Trevor Siemian injured his oblique in pregame throwing doubt upon the possibility that he cold start. Nathan Peterman was next up for the Bears. Peterman’s last start was with the Bills against the Bears in 2018 — he threw three interceptions and had a 45.3 passer rating in a 41-9 loss. Fortunately, Siemian took a shot and managed to play. Otherwise this debacle would have likely been even worse.
  
• It was nice to watch Siemian operate the Bears passing offense in the first half. He looked to me like he was reading the defense dropping back hitting his back foot and throwing the ball on time to the correct receiver. It was an efficient performance (XXXX stats). Hopefully quarterback Justin Fields was watching closely. The Bears would be in heaven if they could get Fields to do that from the pocket in addition to his wonderful talent running with the football.
  
• Teven Jenkins was back a left guard. He did well to my eye. Larry Borom entered in place of Reily Reiff at right tackle after Reiff came up with some sort of injury early in the first quarter. Calling all I thought the line did a decent job, especially in the first half, of containing a very good Jets front seven. And in fact, the Jets did start bringing an extra man on occasion. That’s significant because they blitz very rarely.
  
• Borom also missed a block on an important third down in the third quarter that was a pretty ugly mistake. But, truly, I wonder if he had been playing the last few games instead of coming in rusty if he would’ve made that mistake. Even now, I think that the Bears would’ve been better off developing Borom as a young lineman rather than putting Reiff in.
  
• The second half wasn’t good for the offense. Siemian was holding the ball looking for receivers that evidently weren’t open and the Jets started to get pressure. The offense just couldn’t move. This was more like the offense that we saw the first half of the season before Fields started to use his legs. The end result was that Siemian was 14/25 for 179 yards and a 75.3 passer rating.
  
• The Bears apparently decided that it was time to get Chase Claypool more involved this week. Claypool was their endzone target on their first drive (the pass was incomplete) and seemed to be the guys that Siemian was trying to go to most often in single coverage when the Bears needed a play. He had 2 receptions for 51 yards as their big play threat.
  
• Darrynton Evans did a nice job at running back, apparently in place of the less than effective Trestan Ebner. Probably they have been waiting for Evans to become more trustworthy protecting the quarterback before they play him. Ebner’s play eventually forced the change. All things considered he did well with some decent runs (9 carries for 34 yards) and a reception for 33 yards.
  
• I didn’t think that this was Montgomery’s best game (79 yards on 14 carries and 3 catches for 34 yards). He seemed to be spending a lot of time running into the backs of his blockers.
  
• The Bears were a miserable 4 of 13 on third down. That is bad offense that being 2 of 3 on fourth down doesn’t make a lot better.
  

Miscellaneous

• Joe Davis (play-by-play), Daryl Johnston (analyst), Pam Oliver (reporter) were your announcers. Nice job by Johnston pointing out that the referees were going to allow some physical play in the defensive backfield today. Johnston also did a nice job of highlighting the play of Jack Sanborn (15 tackles, 10 solo and 1 for loss), who I think even the most average Bears fan is starting to notice.
  
• Crazy special teams mistake by the Jets in the second quarter. It appeared that the ball got a little bit slick with the rain coming down and the holder fumbled the ball on an easy field goal. The Bears had to pick it up a couple of times trying to advance it before they finally recovered it for good. Unfortunately, they ruled the initial fumble an incomplete pass and it all came back. But apparently the wet ball was like a greased pig out there. At least for that play.
  
• The Bears had only one penalty for 10 yards today. Unfortunatley the Jets also only had one for five yards.
  
• The Bears once again lost the turnover battle with a Siemian an interception near the end of the game with the Bears needing a play.
  
• Even considering that we all know that the team isn’t very good and that this year is all about development of young players, like it was tough to watch what I think is a rather mediocre Jets team destroy the Bears today. Players have started to go down like flies late in the season where they haven’t had a bye week yet. Eventually, what was already a bad defense simply broke. Such is life in the NFL. Better for it to happen in a year like this then in a year where the Bears have higher expectations.