Polls Treat Bears Like They're in Cement Shoes

The Bears earned the respect they deserved in weekly NFL power rankings, which is to say they are in free fall.

Sports Illustrated's weekly rankings have the Bears at 26th overall after the nine-sack day in Justin Fields' starting debut resulted in a 26-6 loss at Cleveland.

Like in all polls, the Bears have dropped significantly behind the Cincinnati Bengals even though they just beat Cincinnati a week earlier and it wasn't a close game until right at the end.

Still, the Bears built up the hopes with their constant praise of Fields and then he struggled. And their line struggled more.

"The criticism of coach Matt Nagy reached an even higher level—previously believed to be a statistical improbability—after the Bears' latest loss," Sports Illustrated wrote. "It wasn’t so much that Chicago lost to a clearly superior team. It was more that Nagy, a supposed offensive savant, gave his talented young quarterback, Justin Fields, an unimaginative game-plan that left little chance for the Bears to succeed."

ESPN dropped the Bears to 27th from 24th.

"The Bears had better figure out how to use Justin Fields. Chicago's loss to the Browns in Week 3 was an abomination," ESPN Bears beat reporter Jeff Dickerson wrote.

The worst ranking came from NFL.com. The Bears were placed 29th in that poll after being ranked 25th the previous week.

"The Matt Nagy era reached its nadir on Sunday," Dan Hanzus wrote for NFL.com.

This poll had the dramatic Bengals shift as well, with Cincinnati being 19th now after being 26th and behind the Bears only a week earlier.

It's why they say the NFL stands for Not For Long.

The Bears dropped to 25th from 24th in the CBS Sports poll, and Pete Prisco made a point all should have recognized. While it's Matt Nagy's burden to bear, the offensive line was miserable.

"Andy Dalton or Justin Fields? It doesn't matter playing behind that line," Prisco wrote. "The Browns maimed Fields last week, and now he's banged up."

Fields' throwing hand is injured and they'll know more about his availability on Wednesday.

In a few other polls, the Bears dropped from 23rd to 26th in the Associated Press poll and are now 25th in The Ringer's poll. The Sporting News had them ranked 24th after they had been No. 22.

"The Bears' quarterback optimism with Andy Dalton and Justin Fields has been quickly dashed with bad offensive line play, play-calling and lacking execution," Vinnie Iyer of The Sporting News wrote. "David Montgomery and the wide receivers weren't wasted so much last season."

Actually, at least Montgomery was wasted for much of last season until a late surge when they switched play callers helped the ground game.

Perhaps this is coming this week.

The one positive for the Bears in all the polls is they're still ranked ahead of the Detroit Lions, this week's opponent—at least for now.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven