Ben Johnson voiced his frustrations with an issue the Bears can’t seem to shake and it’s something that can make the playoffs short-lived
Penalties continue to be a constant problem for the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears earned a massive win over the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night showing the entire league what true grit and belief can achieve from all three phases.
The Bears had absolutely no reason to win that game for the way they played during the first 3.5 quarters of that game, but late in the fourth-quarter and in overtime Chicago made all the right plays at the perfect time to earn a hard-fought victory.
“I don’t think I’ve been around a team where it’s this late in games, they don’t bat an eye,” Bears head coach Ben Johnson explained. “You don’t feel any despair on the sideline from any of the phases. You might feel it in the stadium a little bit, I could feel the fans coming to life again once we got a little momentum going in the fourth-quarter. But, our guys, they don’t miss a beat. They just keep plucking along and they know good things will come if we just keep swinging away.”
It was a miracle moment for the Bears, coming away with a huge victory to extend their lead in the NFC North, but there’s one area Johnson still was concerned about after the game.
Ben Johnson shared his frustrations for the amount of penalties in Week 16 win
“What I wasn’t happy with were the number of penalties we had,” Johnson explained after the game. “We had a couple of those 15-yard variety that I thought we could have done a better job just making sure we didn’t commit those. That would have helped us a long way. Every yard mattered in a game like this.”
All in all, the Bears finished the game with 10 penalties for over 100 yards. That’s unacceptable and rarely correlates in winning football for any team in the NFL. Here’s the full list of penalties enforced on the Bears from Saturday night.
| Player | Penalty | Yards Enforced | Situation |
| LB D’Marco Jackson | Unnecessary Roughness | 15 | Opening CHI Kickoff |
| DE Austin Booker | Roughing the Passer | 15 | 3rd-and-1, 1st Quarter |
| RT Darnell Wright | False Start | 5 | 3rd-and-8, 2nd Quarter |
| DE Austin Booker | Roughing the Passer | 15 | 1st-and-10, 2nd Quarter |
| Offense | Delay of Game | 5 | 4th-and-4, 2nd Quarter |
| S Elijah Hicks | Holding | 10 | GB Kickoff, 3rd Quarter |
| QB Caleb Williams | Intentional Grounding | 10 | 3rd-and-9, 4th Quarter |
| S Jaquan Brisker | Unnecessary Roughness | 15 | 1st-and-10, 4th Quarter |
| C Drew Dalman | Holding | 10 | 3rd-and-10, 4th Quarter |
| WR DJ Moore | Illegal Shift | 5 | 3rd-and-4, 4th Quarter |
Looking at this, Johnson has every right to be frustrated because all of these could have easily been avoided and were detrimental to multiple drives and in key situations. And it’s not just a one-game issue for this team, which only adds even more frustration.
Penalties have been a season-long issue for Chicago
Through 15 games this season, the Bears have been called for 109 penalties, the seventh-most in the entire league. Of those 109 penalties, 40 have been offensive pre-snap penalties (false start, illegal motion, etc.) an area Johnson has mentioned multiple times throughout the season, with three occurring during Saturday’s game.
Chicago is well above the league average in false starts (26 vs. 18.16), illegal formation (5 vs. 3.19) and illegal shift (4 vs. 1.25).
Winning teams tend to avoid these issues and certainly don’t let them continue to linger this late in the season. If the Bears want to make some serious noise in the playoffs, they’ll have to cut down on the number of penalties in a hurry.
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