Bear Digest

High marks on Chicago Bears report card for brutal physicality

Ben Johnson's strategy for beating Philadelphia's defense and offense was taking away the football and not giving it back, and the Bears executed it with precision.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears tight end Cole Kmet celebrates with D'Andre Swift after scoring a clinching touchdown against the Eagles.
Bears tight end Cole Kmet celebrates with D'Andre Swift after scoring a clinching touchdown against the Eagles. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

After Ben Johnson had put his shirt back on and the media got into the Bears locker room on Friday, defensive back C.J. Gardner Johnson was asked about the significance of beating his old team, the Philadelphia Eagles.

He felt closure, after two stints playing for the Eagles, including a world's championship last year.

"We could finally close the chapter on something," Gardner-Johnson said.

On a broader scale, it said something for the team.

"It's hard to get wins in this league, and to win in a stadium like this against the defending champs it just shows you that you have a lot of confidence in your teammates and this team has a lot of confidence in each other," Gardner-Johnson said.

The confident Bears seem to have caught the rapid elevator up, to have gone from a Matt Eberflus-induced 10-game losing streak to a point where their coach is stripping for the internet after wins so people get free hot dogs.

There was very little in between, but of such meteoric rises storybook seasons are made.

It's easy to find such rags-to-riches tales and but most don't end in a Super Bowl. It usually takes a year or two to build it, but Johnson has a team missing key defensive players at four starting positions still playing well enough to reduce the defending champions to rubble and send their fans scurrying for the exit as they booed.

As Gardner-Johnson said, they're playing with the confidence they need to do such things.

He saw it up close only a year earlier when he won a ring.

Here are the grades for a game when the Bears left no doubt they could bully even the biggest bullies with the best of them.

Running game: A+

They don't make a grade high enough for this. If all they did was produce 39:18 of possession time to keep the Eagles' offense off the field it would have been sufficient, but they not only held the ball, they stuffed it into the end zone. Starting Ozzy Trapilo at left tackle didn't prove a problem at all after their run blocking had slowed in his first start against Pittsburgh. Kyle Monangai and D'Andre Swift both ran hard off the edge of the wall in the zone blocking scheme and sometimes didn't get touched until they made it 10 yards downfield. This was definitely not cute or fancy. It was one big punch to the nose after the other and the much acclaimed Eagles defensive line couldn't take it.

Passing game: C+

When your running game dominated so thoroughly, it should be much easier to efficiently run the play-action passing game but the Bears looked wonky. It wasn't all on Williams, although he did throw one of the worst passes since Garo Yepremian turned from kicker to Bob Griese wannabe in Super Bowl VII. He also missed on an easy touchdown throw to Rome Odunze at the goal line. The intercepted screen pass very nearly wrecked the game. Receivers kept falling when Williams did deliver a good ball. Despite the terrible 56.9 passer rating, he made the one throw that counted most perfectly despite a bad wind, and that was the 28-yard TD to Cole Kmet.

Run defense: A-

They reduced Saquon Barkley and his spinning backward leaps to a distant memory with an inconsequential 56 yards. Jalen Hurts' running resulted in one 23-yard scramble and a tush push that ended without the ball in his hands. Cornerback Nahshon Wright struck a blow for those who hate the wretched play across the NFL by stealing it right out of Hurts' hands. Philly fans cried about forward motion being stopped. All football allows for second effort by the runner. They've been doing it for several years with their ugly, unwanted tush push play and no one in Philly complained then. You can't have it both ways, but if it makes them feel better, they'll like it next year when the play is finally and decisively banned.

Pass defense: A-

Their only real flaws came on Gervon Dexter's stupid play and also, as it has several times this season, after punter Tory Taylor pinned the Eagles back at their own 8-yard line. For some reason, they seem to let up in coverage with an opponent pinned deep. They gave up four quick first downs and a touchdown in five plays. The other Eagles' TD was more an act of playing soft zone and letting them eat half the remaining time off the clock while fans exited. Jaylon Johnson had a few plays where the rust was there and Nashon Wright got victimized for the 33-yard TD to A.J. Brown when he was in perfect coverage to knock it down, much like on a few other TDs he allowed this year. What the secondary did as well as they have all year was rally to the ball and make sure any gain didn't come with yards after catch.

Special teams: A-

It wasn't the Bears but the Eagles missing two kicks, including a critical extra point, and also a two-point conversion that they stupidly attempted at the wrong point based on a completely incorrect algorithm found somewhere out in cyberspace. You make it a one-score game when three minutes remain. Give Philly's Nick Sirianni the dunce cap. Cairo Santos got away with another low kick to the corner that reached the end zone and resulted in a touchback to the 20. Five straight times in the second half Eagles possessions after kicked footballs resulted in field position inside their own 28, and that's coverage with today's messed-up kicking rules in the NFL. 

Coaching: A+

The only weakness Vic Fangio's Eagles scheme has is if the opponent runs it on them and is patient enough and successful enough doing it to expose their desire to play back in a shell pass coverage. The Bears really didn't take advantage of a lot of underneath pass routes opening but their running game plan couldn't have worked better. And Ben Johnson had the mindset to stick with it when it was working. Dennis Allen loses another cornerback and merely moves Nahshon Wright over, then expertly blended in two players who have been out for weeks. He somehow has practice squad linebacker D'Marco Jackson and special teamer Amen Ogbongbemiga playing like Pro Bowl candidates wit Tremaine Edmunds, T.J. Edwards, Noah Sewell and Ruben Hyppolite II all out injured. Putting that kind of game plan together in a work week shortened by a few days didn't seem to be a problem for anyone on the coaching staff.

Overall: A  

To the late-arrivals from national media, this seemed like it would be the ultimate test for what the Bears are capable of but playing two games in three weeks in December against the Packers always was going to be more significant. Yet, the Bears have risen to every challenge to this point, so only a fool would doubt them capable of beating the Packers.

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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.