Quick Game Comments: Panthers at Bears 10/6/24

Defense

1. If the Bears defense has shown a weakness this, year its been against the run. So I was quite surprised that the Panther came out and didn’t try to do it more. Basically, it was run on first down to say that you did it, then throw for the first couple sets of downs. Then Chuba Hubbard broke for a 38 yard touchdown run (on first down) and I thought Carolina would get the hint. But evidently not. Sometimes young offensive coaches like Dave Canales like to throw the ball around the yard a little too much. That might be what happened here.
2. The lack of a running game allowed the Bears pass rushers to T-off on Andy Dalton and his offensive line. It was like watching the Bears offense the first couple weeks of the season.
3. On a related note, Andy Dalton is a master of getting rid of the ball at the last minute. He took a lot of shots but it was almost always just after getting the ball right to or very near to a receiver. The Bears had four sacks and Dalton was the reason that they didn’t have more.
4. I hope that Carolina’s Tommy Tremble is OK after a big hit from Jaquan Brisker caused a fumble. Tremble dipped his head and hit Brisker with the crown. When he went down it looked to me like he was showing signs of a concussion. This is why you don’t do that. Honestly, it should be every bit the penalty that it would have been if a defensive player had done it. Its for the player’s own protection.
5. Bryce Young showed some pocket movement. I think Canales might be working with him in the hope that after some time on the bench that they can bring him back later in the season.
6. Pretty hard to be too critical of the defense after such a nice game. The Bears held the Panthers to just three third down conversions and they got three turnovers. I’m not one to hyperbole but the word dominant fits today.

Offense

1. The Bears went no huddle early today. I know Caleb Williams is more comfortable in it but that will only get you so far…
2. So glad to see D’Andre Swift get going early. I’ve seen a lot of moaning about Khalil Herbert’s playing time. The Bears have been desperate to get Swift going. The bet here is that the Bears have been giving Swift more carries in order to allow him to get going. Many running backs will tell you that they need more carries to get into the flow of the game. Unfortunately those extra carries are probably coming at the expense of anything that Herbert would’ve gotten. The screen play that the Bears ran with Swift late in the second quarter to the 2 yard line was a good example of why the Bears prefer to go with Swift. He’s a much better pass catcher and he’s a little quicker in the open field. How many carries did Herbert get?Herbert got no carries today.
3. Speaking of getting Swift going, the Bears second possession was a wonderful example of what can happen when you have a quarterback out with a run game. I criticized Williams for not executing his run fakes last week so he made me proud by executing one this week to hold the safety in on a 34 yard touchdown pass to D.J. Moore. Admittedly it also looked like a broken coverage. But I loved it anyway.
4. Kudos to the Bears for starting the game running the ball from the get go, seeing that it was working, and leaning on it. They did a great job controlling the Panthers around up front. We saw what this offense is supposed to look like today. Run the ball (128 yards on 38 attempts), slow the rush and protect your quarterback with it and pass off of it (20/29 for 296 yards). The Bears ran on 57% of their plays. The trick will be doing it against better teams late in the year. But that’s trouble enough for another day.
5. I’ve no idea why the Carolina Panthers kept leaving D.J. Moore in single coverage this game. And the miscommunication on the back end of the defense was shocking. We/I love to talk about poor coaching on the Bears end. But this was a new level of terrible. I know that the Panthers roster is decimated by injury but that’s not an excuse. These guys are all professionals and they should be ready to play.
6. I thought Williams did a particularly good job of spreading the football around today. Moore got the most targets, and as well he should on a day like today, but nobody was really ignored.
7. I know that everybody loves watching Williams dance around in the backfield and avoid tacklers and scramble. But he’s got to get rid of the ball quicker. You can’t live like that.
8. Try as they might they just couldn’t avoid playing Nate Davis. He came on when Matt Pryor was ejected late in the fourth quarter.

Miscellaneous

1. It wasn’t as bad today (5 penalties for 46 yards) but I cringe every time the Bears get a pre-snap penalty. Going into the game, the Bears had nine false-start penalties, second in the league behind the Houston Texans (12). The Bears also had three illegal-formation penalties and two delay-of-game calls. So nearly half of their penalties are pre-snap infractions. And its not just one guys. Its everywhere on the unit.
   I know that the Bears won convincingly today and I’m not going to harp on this. I’m just going to say one thing here that everybody knows. Good teams simply do not do this. The Packers don’t do it. Nobody who’s any good year to year allows this to happen. This is fat flat out a coaching failure. The Bears once again weren’t ready to play at the beginning of this season. In the end the common denominator is head coach Matt Eberflus. Ultimately he has to bear responsibility for this problem and the fact that it took at least four games to clean it up.
2. Eddie Pineiro missed a relatively easy field goal going into half time and all I could think was “when it rains, it pours”.
3. Once again, winning the turnover margin was a big deal today. I’m not sure that they made the difference in a game like this but the three turnovers that the Panthers gave up certainly hurt.
4. I love that the guy on the commercial advertising next week’s match up with the Jaguars in London had an Australian accent. ?
5. Would that the Bears could play the Panthers every week.