Bear Digest

Chicago Bears Week 2 preseason report card: Panic turns to cheers

Analysis: Going overboard with praise for preseason wins seems over the top but warranted after the way false disaster narratives on the team were thrown around like fact.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears special teams might have been one of the only average looking aspects of Sunday night's 38-0 win.
Bears special teams might have been one of the only average looking aspects of Sunday night's 38-0 win. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It had to be a good night for the Bears in their 38-0 win over Buffalo when even left tackle wasn't even a big issue.

Only on a few occasions did Braxton Jones get beat and none of the tackles struggled much.

They may need to accept the fact Jones simply needs to play himself into the starting shape after his ankle injury and move on from there.

"He's shown flashes of his old self, and yet there's been some moments where I know we're going to get beat in this league," coach Ben Johnson said. "When you're playing tackle against some of these pass rushers in this league, you're going to lose a rep or two. There's two things. One is how do you bounce back when that happens? The other one, how do we slow down from losing too fast?

"If we're going to lose, we want to lose slow."

Johnson wanted to defer to the game film review on the pass blocking but it will be difficult to find the fast beatdowns as well as even the slow ones in this one.

The Bears played about as efficiently as they have all training camp in all aspects of the game including pass blocking and as a result they landed the prize of questionable value known as a preseason rout.

Hey, it beats losing a preseason rout. As Bills coach Sean McDermott.

"We'll see what we look like here tonight, but I certainly didn't ... I felt like we had good protection throughout.

"There were times when we were running the ball. You could feel that as you're calling the game to stay on schedule there so we'll see what that looks like.”

It looked like easy victory and as a result the Bears grades do, too.

Passing Game: A+

If only they could capture that 9.46 yards per pass attempt and 8.9 yards per dropback. It's what happens when yards after the catch are easy to find. Then the 35-yard, 36-yard and 29-yard passes are possible and big gains don't need to come via forced go routes or seam routes. Caleb Williams and Cole Kmet adjusting on the fly based on coverage with the 29-yard completion was the kind of thing passer and receiver do in established offenses.  The backup line did give up one 12-yard sack of Bagent but the best thing the line did was only one presnap penalty and it probably was more the result of a receiver's mistake than the line. Three QBs had passer ratings over 100 by the Bears? Getting someone to 90 in other years seemed impossible for them, even in preseason.

Running Game: A

Considering who did the running, this came off as a huge success. Because of injurie, Deion Hankins had to start and then he suffered a knee injury. It was left to Brittain Brown and Ian Wheeler to carry the rock. Brown had been with them about a week and Wheeler is coming off an ACL tear but they powered through Buffalo's front with good lean and gained consistently. A 171-yard rushing day wasn't uncommon when they had Justin Fields but this running attack needed only 8 yards from quarterbacks.

Pass Defense: A

Much of the backup secondary consisted of players who just arrived at Halas Hall during the off day last week after being picked up off the street. Injuries to Jaylon Johnson, Josh Blackwell, Kyler Gordon and now Terell Smith meant Mark Perry, Mekhi Garner and Kaleb Hayes had to combine for 48 reps after they just left O'Hare. Nick McCloud continues to display great versatility in the secondary for a guy who was a street-level free agent. There's more to pass defense than the DBs and linebacker Amen Ogbongbemiga delivered a good imitation of the Peanut Punch with his strip of the football to end a possible scoring drive. Austin Booker's pass rush looked every bit as improved as it did against Miami and the interior rush stepped up a level in this one. A 55.7 passer rating allowed, 120 yards passing and 42.8% completions for the game is nailing the big three for any pass defense.

Run Defense: B-

The first-team run defense received only one running rep and it went for a loss, while the backups got gashed twice up in the middle when Zacch Pickens, Jonathan Ford and the backup linebackers were playing.  Most of the time teams don't mind giving up ground yardage when they're winning 38-0 in preseason, but the players fighting for roster spots who were responsible know it meant something. The Bills averaging 5.9 yards a carry from backup backs was one of the few negatives in the game. 

Special teams: C+

The numbers in Buffalo's kick and punt return game didn't look good -- 13.0 on one punt return and 27.4 on seven kick returns -- would never excite any special teams coordinator but at least they looked somewhat better than last week's debacle.  Tyler Scott never has been very effective on kick returns and his 10-yard botched opening kick return probably means he won't get much of a chance to do it again. The good news? J.P. Richardson broke a punt return 22 yards. The bad news? J.P. Richardson suffered an ankle injury and left the game.

Coaching: A+

If Ben Johnson can come up with ways to scheme receivers as open as they came throughout Sunday night's game, the left tackle shuffle and Williams' inconsistency at training camp will quickly fall into the false narrative category or possibly ancient history. Johnson lauded their defensive communication on the field but let's also have a few chuckles about Dennis Allen blitzing almost every big down to keep the Bills from scoring a point in a preseason game. In the second half, it was Al Harris calling the blitzes in a rout because they let some of the assistants do the play calls then. Hopefully they maintain that edge in the regular season instead of playing shell coverage. They can accept getting beat on a few gambles defensively if their offense is going to be this explosive.

Overall: A

It was as good as a team can look playing starters on offense for one series and defense for one series against another team's backups. It means nothing in the standings, but in terms of supplying needed confidence it is invaluable.

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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.