Bear Digest

Bears disappointed in using the back door to take NFC's No. 2 seed

The storybook comeback ending was there for the taking after the Bears fell behind 16-0 but tied it, then both the offense and defense failed in a 19-16 loss to the Lions.
Gene Chamberlain|
Caleb Williams gets off a pass under heavy Detroit rush in the second half Sunday.
Caleb Williams gets off a pass under heavy Detroit rush in the second half Sunday. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Bears insisted all week they weren't the same team that lost 52-21 at Detroit in Game 2.

They were right.

That team at least managed to score 14 by halftime, but by halftime of Sunday's listless performance the playoff-bound NFC North champion Bears offense had zero points and 76 yards of offense.

Only a week earlier the Bears were fighting for top seed and a bye in the playoffs' first round. They lost that to San Francisco and for most of Sunday they looked like they decided to take a bye anyway in the regular-season finale, a 19-16 loss to the last-place Lions.

A second straight loss was anything but the way a team wants to finish the regular season heading into postseason. With their defeat, though, the Bears still claimed second seed when the Commanders beat the Eagles. Never mind that. This was the locker room afterward of a losing team that had been chewed out by coach Ben Johnson for the slow start.

"Not good enough, not good enough to win this game and not good enough to win the upcoming games," quarterback Caleb Williams said. "We’ve got to get better on all sides of the ball but speaking on offense whatever happens on the other side of the ball I’m not focused on.

"We have to control what we can and we’ve got to come out starting fast and be better and we’ll do that here coming up."

Promises, promises.

First they started slow, then when they did stage another lightning fourth-quarter rally from a 16-0 deficit to tie on Williams' touchdown throws to Jahdae Walker and Colston Loveland and two two-point conversions, they squandered it all.

The slow start with a second seed on the line couldn't be explained by Johnson.

"That’s a great question and it’s one that we’ll have to take a look at the tape and we’ll have to figure out why that was," he said. "I didn’t feel like that was one of our more elaborate (game) plans.

"I thought it was one of our more simpler plans and so we need a better job executing it and coaching it up."

Williams didn't have to worry about the 4,000 yards passing mark at all but did set the Bears' passing yardage record at 3,942 yards. He broke Erik Kramer's mark of 3,838 from 1995 on his 22-yard TD pass to Jahdae Walker.

The Lions had a 13-0 lead by halftime on 30 and 34-yard Jake Bates field goals and Jahmyr Gibbs' 15-yard touchdown pass. Bates added two more field goals in the second half, including the game winner from 42 yards as time expired.

"We can’t dig ourselves in a hole like that," Johnson said. "I was disappointed with the offense as a whole. I let those guys know that."

The Bears finally woke up and scored on a 65-yard drive. Walker's 22-yard TD catch with 14:15 left in the game, a play to the center of the end zone that gave Williams the team record. Then Kyle Monangai exploded in for a two-point conversion to cut the deficit to 16-8.

A trick play backfired on Detroit on third-and-1 as David Montgomery got sacked trying to throw a halfback pass and the Bears got the ball back at their 12 following a punt.

The Bears drove 88 yards for the tying points, Williams throwing a 1-yard TD pass over the middle to Colston Loveland and then the two-point pass in a crowd low to Cole Kmet with 5:25 remaining.

Then they actually had the comeback win in their grasp as Kevin Byard produced an interception. They never got a first down on a drive that reached their own 31 and Johnson wasn't in the gambling mood from there on fourth-and-5. He considered it, though, but punted and the defense force a punt or take it away again.

"Because we had three timeouts and we felt like we were going to get the ball back.," Johnson said.

It took a 26-yard completion by Jared Goff to Amon-Ra St. Brown to start the final drive rolling and in five plays the Lions went from their own 37 to the Bears' 24 to kick the winner. For the second straight week, their defense failed at the end just like the offense did.

The Bears started 0-2 with a loss in the second game to Detroit, then finished 0-2 with another loss to Detroit. Williams recalled the feeling after the first loss to the Lions.

"Frustration was there," he said. "We had losses that we felt like we shouldn’t have lost, frustration there.  And these past two weeks. We’re going to use this frustration. We’re going to get on a roll here this week, starting this week and that’s the focus."

If they extend the losing streak to three, it will be against the Packers. Then it will only make the pain of a season-ending playoff loss and a bad finish to a dream-type season that much tougher to accept.


"This is the second season, that's kind of how we're taking the approach to it," Loveland said. "So it's just clean it up, flush it and we're on to the next game."

If they can make the transition better then they have the last two games, their season won't be flushed away.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.