Bears late game decision-making against the Seahawks proves the team has no trust in the one player you need to have trust in
The Chicago Bears' latest loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night Football was another embarrassing outing but thankfully the last one the fans will have to watch at Soldier Field in 2024.The game concluded with quarterback Caleb Williams throwing his first interception in months on the final drive with fans starting a resounding "Sell […]
The Chicago Bears' latest loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday Night Football was another embarrassing outing but thankfully the last one the fans will have to watch at Soldier Field in 2024.
The game concluded with quarterback Caleb Williams throwing his first interception in months on the final drive with fans starting a resounding "Sell The Team" chants as the players walked back to the locker rooms.
The result, as with the last few weeks, wasn't what the fans were hoping to see but it also included another puzzling late game decision by the coaching staff.
Down three points, the Bears' offense backed themselves into a tough spot after two incompletions forced a 4th-and-10 on the 40-yard line with 20 seconds remaining. From that spot on the field, it would have been a 57-yard field goal attempt to tie the game. Instead, the Bears kept the offense on the field and Williams had to throw a desperation jump ball up to wide receiver DJ Moore. Here's the full breakdown of what went wrong on the final drive.
No matter what went down with the clock management, the decision not to kick the potential tying field goal tells you everything you need to know about the team's faith in kicker Cario Santos. This season, 17 different kickers have hit from 57+ yards. That mean 17 other teams would have chose to kick in that spot, but not the Bears.
Santos, whom the team signed to a four-year contract extension through 2027 last December, has a career-long of 55-yards. Since re-joining the Bears in 2020, Santos is 20-26 on 50+ yard field goals. Santos has been a solid kicker for the Bears but this is the kind of game you can have a better chance of winning if you have a better guy, with a longer leg, on the roster.
To add insult to injury, Williams' interception on the jump ball was his first since Week 6 against the Jacksonville Jaguars, ending a streak of 354 attempts without an interception, the sixth-longest in NFL history.
After the loss, interim head coach Thomas Brown explained that he wanted to ideally get to the 34-37-yard line to consider kicking the field goal instead of keeping the offense out there. That means he only trusts Santos to make it from a max of 54 yards.
Brown is right to feel that way. The Bears already had two games earlier in the season with blocked field goals, one of which was to lose the game. No one wanted to see a similar outcome but it honestly speaks more to the makeup of the roster than it does to the decisions made by the coaches.
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