USA Today
Turnovers, COVID-19 and Mistakes for Bears
The Bears have bigger issues than being 3-4 after a 38-3 loss Sunday to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the first time this season they've lost consecutive games.
Tom Brady normally needs little help operating with efficiency but the Bears gave it to him nonetheless with three Justin Field interceptions. Brady threw for four touchdowns, including three to Mike Evans, and the Buccaneers (6-1) put it away early.
Two strip-sack fumbles against the Tampa Bay blitz added to Bears misery and made it easy for Brady. They started six of their 12 drives in Bears territory.
"You get behind vs. a team like this and have the turnovers that we had, it makes it difficult," Bears coach Matt Nagy said. "This is something that we've got to be able to rebound from and understand and learn from in a lot of different ways, you know, just not being efficient on third down, you know, having those sack fumbles.
"When you give Tom Brady and that offense, when they start inside the 40, whatever it was, four or five or six times, that's a lot. It's advantage them and they're going to make you pay for it and that's ultimately what happened."
One real problem the Bears must worry about is Fields' confidence after being transformed into a turnover machine.
Another issue is the COVID-19 which is running rampant through the team now with four players now on reserve/COVID-19, including starting right tackle Elijah Wilkinson and reserve Caleb Johnson just before the game on Sunday.
"That's just like when someone gets injured, next man up," linebacker Roquan Smith said. "It sucks, with guys having it and things of that nature.
"But everyone just has to protect themselves and just continue to get better. And the next man up just has to take advantage of their opportunity."
First it was Lachavious Simmons replacing Wilkinson, himself a sub who had replaced injured Germain Ifedi. Then it was Alex Bars coming in at right tackle after Simmons was ineffective vs. Tampa Bay's relentless blitzing.
Now Nagy says they will examine what to do about the COVID-19 situation, whether they need to start daily testing again or alter their schedule in some way.
"It's stating the obvious that we've had a few that have come up, so what we need to do is make sure that we're doing everything we can to be smart, to continue to follow what we follow and what we've been doing and listen to what everybody tells us to do, meaning the league," Nagy said.
Fields managed 22 of 32 for 184 yards and a passer rating of 44.3 due to the three interceptions.
"I mean, times like this, times when you get blown out, you got two choices—you can either say 'F' it, I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop working. I'm going to stop playing,' " Fields said. "Or you can go the other route and say, 'I'm gonna keep working.'
"And I know me, myself, no matter how many picks I throw, no matter how many Ls we take, I'm gonna keep going. That's just the fact. And that's just who I am. Never gonna stop. And I'm always gonna keep going."
The Buccaneers started their first scoring drive at the Bears 32 after a 43-yard punt return by Jaelon Dardon. They started drives at the Bears 40 and 37 after interceptions and their own 33, while starting at the Bears 25 and 35 after fumble recoveries on strip sacks.
The turnovers were so big a factor they made the 2-for-11 Bears effort at third-down conversions seem like a good offensive statistic by comparison. Brady was able to throw four TD passes by halftime with only 159 passing yards, and the Bears trailed 35-3.
Three TD passes were for 9, 8 and 2 yards to Mike Evans and the 9-yarder made it 600 career TD passes for Brady, who is the all-time leader. Godwin had a 4-yard TD catch while Leonard Fournette had the first score on a 2-yard run after the punt return.
The Bears did have 100 yards rushing from Khalil Herbert and a 35-yard Cairo Santos field goal but leaving the field might have been their biggest highlight of the day.
Perhaps the other big concern is whether the team can pull itself back together following what was their most lopsided loss under Nagy. It was the worst Bears loss since Marc Trestman's last Bears team lost 55-14 to Green Bay in November, 2014.
"It was a tough one," Nagy said. "I just know who our guys are and you go into this game and you're facing a pretty good team, a pretty good football team on the road, and a great quarterback. In these instances, you've gotta be close to damn near perfect. You really do, in a lot of phases."
The Bears were far from perfect.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
