Bears Progress Halted Fast

Maybe the Bears really are playing under a dark cloud or seeing black cats or someone just broke a mirror.

There's just no other way to explain how when they finally won a game and got their defense together enough to shut down the Minnnesota Vikings, they also lost Justin Fields to a right hand injury Sunday and then went on to lose 19-13.

Now the future looks as murky as Fields' diagnosis, but at least they know he didn't break a bone.

"We did take an X-ray," coach Matt Eberflus said. "The X-ray is negative in terms of that and then we'll see where it is tomorrow when we get the MRI.

"That's all I know right now."

He did know that Fields couldn't grip a football, but said he wanted to go back in the game anyway.

Instead, the Bears had undrafted Tyson Bagent playing quarterback in his NFL debut down the stretch with mixed results, but probably better than someone could expect from a QB who played at Division II Shepherd.

"I felt good," Bagent said. "Always a dream for every little kid, every young football player to play in the NFL. So the fact that I was able to make it here, get in the end zone, it felt good."

He personally got in the end zone on a quarterback sneak to end a 77-play march after Fields hadn't been able to get it there. Bagent completed 18-yard and 24-yard passes to DJ Moore to kick-start a drive early in the fourth quarter to cut the Bears deficit to 19-13, but then he had a chance with two minutes left to emerge the hero and couldn't close.

The Bears reached the Vikings 35 and he underthrew Moore badly, and Byron Murphy Jr. intercepted, returned it to the Vikings 45 but fumbled and regained his own fumble. The pick and a first down run of 8 yards by Alexander Mattison sealed the fifth Bears loss in six games.

"DJ Moore is one of the best receivers in the world one-on-one," Bagent said. "Any time we can get that, we like it.

"Underthrew it there a little bit and, you know, that's on me and that's on ... I've got to fix it going forward."

Bagent also gave up the ball on a strip sack that was returned 42 yards for a TD by linebacker Jordan Hicks to give the Vikings a 19-6 lead with 6:58 left in the third quarter.

"Yeah, a little bit of miscommunication, but at the end of the day I've got to keep two hands on the ball," Bagent said. "I've got to protect the ball—that's a big job of mine when I'm out there. Gotta keep two hands on the ball and be more efficient in that area."

Bagent was in with 10 minutes left in the third quarter after Fields took a Danielle Hunter sack and went out holding his hand. The Vikings beat up on him the entire 2 1/2 quarters he played, sacking him four times and deven getting in a few shots on his eight rushes for 46 yards.

"Definitely, for sure, there was some protection things in there where we had to do a better job," Eberflus said. "It wasn't clean all the time. But I certainly think we got a rhythm a little bit there going.

"Again we just got to do a better job with the overall execution there. But again, we gave ourselves a chance to win the game at the end and we just didn't get it done."

Fields had been ineffective passing before his injury, going just 6 of 10 for 58 yards, while Bagent went 10 of 14 for 83 yards. Fields' one big throw was a 39-yarder to Darnell Mooney to trigger a drive to one of two Cairo Santos field goals. Santos hit from 22 and 53 yards to match 53- and 51-yard field goals by Greg Joseph, but then the Vikings put together their only drive for an offensive touchdown just before halftime, 77 yards in 1:35 with Kirk Cousins hitting Jordan Addison wide open for a 10-yard TD and 12-6 lead. The PAT was blocked by Rasheem Green.

Beyond that, the Bears defense held Cousins to 21 of 31 for 181 yards as he played for the first time without injured receiver Justin Jefferson. They gave up only 2 of 13 on third downs, by far their best effort of the year to matcha season's best 220 net yards allowed.

"We did a lot of good things," said linebacker T.J. Edwards, who had a strip-sack that Tremaine Edmunds recovered. "Obviously we've just got to find a way to duel it out at the end. It's a group that we're going to come in and look at it and we're going to find ways to get better from what happened."

What the offense couldn't do was recreate the magic of Fields to Moore that they had against Denver and Washington. Moore had one 7-yard reception with Fields playing, then made four for 44 yards with Bagent playing.

Now, at least the immediate future of that passing connection and the offense are in question. There's little doubt they took a step back after the promising win when they ended a 14-game losing streak.

"We could look at it that way," Moore said. "We've got things to improve. We had a great game last Thursday but it didn't carry over to today. So we've got to go back to the drawing board and somehow figure out what we did on Thursday to take to the next game."

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