Bears experienced some familiar and concerning issues in Week 14 loss to the Packers that had nothing to do with Caleb Williams
The Bears’ defense once again struggled against the passing game.
The Chicago Bears dropped a tough loss in heartbreaking fashion on the final drive against the Green Bay Packers when quarterback Caleb Williams’ fourth-down pass was intercepted, putting a stop to the team’s potential comeback attempt on the road.
The Bears took a massive tumble in the NFC standings as well, which hurts even worse, and now it’s time to reassess how to move forward with little time left in the season.
While it wasn’t pretty to start or end the game, Williams is the reason this game stayed close for Chicago. He finished with 186 passing yards and two touchdowns, along with one interception. His completion percentage of 54.3 left a lot to be desired, but he responded in a great way in the second half.
“I thought Caleb was doing everything he could,” Bears head coach Ben Johnson said after the loss. “(He) put his Superman cape on a few times to not go down, extend the play, and he found a couple of big scrambles for us over the course of that game.”
While it’s true Williams could have been better at the start (he started the game 0-for-5 passing), he’s not the real reason the Bears lost this game. The overall issue should be viewed on the defense, showing a familiar and concerning problem.
Big plays allowed killed the Bears in Week 14
The Bears’ secondary was expected to get a major boost down the stretch with the return of Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon. After both returned last week, Gordon suffered a groin injury in pre-game warmups on Sunday and was ruled out; meanwhile, Johnson looks like a shell of his former self.
The unit as a whole was giving up big plays all game, including three 30+ yard touchdowns by quarterback Jordan Love.
“That’s one of those things where again I gotta go back and look at the tape,” Johnson explained. “But, it did seem like we were man-to-man on one of them, and their guy beat our guy. I know on another one, they seemed like they had a good play design based on our coverage, and that happens at times. I gotta go back and look at some of those and what we could have done a little better.”
Going into this game, the Bears had allowed 21 completions of 20+ air yards, the fourth-most in the NFL, and the most passing TDs (8) of 20+ air yards. Add three more touchdowns to that and multiple more completions. It’s not good to be leading in those categories if you want to compete against top teams like the Packers, and the Bears will face similar teams down the stretch if they manage to get into the playoffs.
When the takeaway stream runs dry, things have looked grim for this defense in the passing game all season long, and Sunday was a great example of it. It’s hard to say what’s really at fault from this specific game without watching the film closer and knowing the exact coverage responsibilities, but it’s something that needs to be addressed this week.
Chicago Bears News
Bears fall to the Packers in the most heart-breaking way possible and lose more than just a game when it comes to playoff positioning
Tough way to lose such a great game.
