A cliche former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick consistently turned to at this time of year was the idea that “football season starts after Thanksgiving.”
That was easy to say when Tom Brady was his quarterback and there was a good chance the Patriots would be playing deep into January or even February. For the Chicago Bears, their season is close to being over after losing a fifth consecutive game, falling to the Minnesota Vikings 30-27 in overtime Sunday at Soldier Field.
The Bears (4-7) are mired in last place in the NFC North. They are twice as close to the No. 1 draft pick — two games ahead of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders and New York Giants, who are tied for the worst record in the league — than they are to third place in their division. That’s right, the Bears are four games behind the Green Bay Packers, five back of the Vikings and six behind the Detroit Lions, whom they face Thursday at Ford Field.
The Bears won’t wind up with the No. 1 draft pick for the third consecutive year. But it’s impossible to say when this losing streak will end.
Here are 10 thoughts after another loss on the game’s final play.
1. Talented rosters with good coaching find ways to consistently win close games. Bad rosters that are poorly coached do the opposite.
The next six weeks, as the Bears trudge through a difficult schedule against opponents all firmly in the playoff hunt, will help distinguish precisely what their issues are as they begin shaping plans to overhaul things and try to create a path out of the NFC North cellar.
There are enough on-field examples to feel good about the roster — but not great and probably not as good as anyone hoped when the season began. Quarterback Caleb Williams is trending up again with two solid showings in a row after an offensive slump that cost coordinator Shane Waldron his job. Much more on Williams in a bit.
Playmakers are getting the ball again and getting a chance to show what they can do.
- Keenan Allen, playing through an injury to the same foot that plagued him two months ago, had a season-high nine receptions for 86 yards with some clutch grabs and run after the catch.
- DJ Moore was targeted seven times and had seven receptions for 106 yards, hauling in a 27-yard pass on a deep in-breaker to set up the tying field goal at the end of regulation.
- Tight end Cole Kmet had seven receptions for 64 yards, reappearing as the reliable target he should be every week in the middle of the field.
- Rome Odunze had a 14-yard gain on fourth-and-3 before the touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
- Running back D’Andre Swift looked like a natural hauling in a 30-yard pass down the sideline on a terrific extension of the play by Williams.
All of that checked out.
The pass rush came to life again as seven players combined for nine hits on Sam Darnold, and the Bears had three sacks: one each by Montez Sweat, DeMarcus Walker and Jacob Martin. But they didn’t get enough pressure to force Darnold into the interceptions that plagued some of his earlier performances.
The Bears hung in there when it looked like they might be blown out. They scored 17 points in the fourth quarter for the first time since Week 9 of 2021, when they scored 21 in a 29-27 loss in Pittsburgh. They scored 11 points in the final 22 seconds Sunday to force overtime, getting a clutch onside kick from Cairo Santos.
But here they are again, sifting through the aftermath of another loss that came down to the final play — Parker Romo’s 29-yard field goal after the Bears went three-and-punt to open overtime — and trying to identify silver linings.
“I don’t think we expect things like that to happen,” coach Matt Eberflus said when asked about losing on the final play for the third time since the Week 8 stunner at Washington. “I just believe that we have to execute better down the stretch. We’ve got to coach better down the stretch. It’s an everybody thing.
“Is it difficult? Yeah, it is difficult. You lose three games like this, it is difficult. You’ve got to be tough. This league, it’s not going to feel sorry for you. We’ve got to go and get ready to play Detroit. That’s important that you own everything in front of everybody in terms of your teammates. Then work to find good solutions. The coaches have got to put them in position. We’ve got to do a great job of finding the right answers to execute.”
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If it’s beginning to sound repetitive from Eberflus in the postgame setting, that’s because it is. He’s frustrated — more than anyone out there clamoring for him to lose his job — and the players are frustrated too.
“Obviously we didn’t do enough offensively there when we first got the ball (in overtime),” Kmet said. “You never want to put it in their hands at the end of the game. Just unfortunate but proud of the way the guys fought today.
“The result is the result. It hurts. We’ve had quite a bit of heartbreaking games now. I don’t think we’re a bad team by any means. It’s just unfortunate.”
Add in a troublesome 21-16 loss in Indianapolis in Week 3 plus the poundings the Bears took from the Arizona Cardinals and Patriots in the aftermath of the Hail Mary debacle against the Commanders, and there’s just too much adding up against Eberflus.
So many games come down to three, maybe four snaps out of 130 overall. Entering Week 12, 78 games had been decided by six points or fewer, the most in NFL history through 11 weeks. Four more fit that description this week entering Monday night.
In this instance, one of the 138 snaps could have tilted the outcome in the Bears’ favor, but they couldn’t come up with it and ultimately that will probably be the biggest factor that dooms Eberflus. He hasn’t been able to guide his team to success in crunch time.
“Very disappointing loss,” he said. “Told the guys how proud I was of (them) staying together, the grit, determination that they had to be able to make that an overtime game. A lot of good things there in terms of that. Played a good football team today. Again, give all the credit to Minnesota.”
It has a carryover effect because the Vikings were in the same situation as the Bears on Monday morning, reviewing game film and looking for corrections. It’s so much easier to go through that process when you’re pulling out the close games and taking notes on where you need to be better and what needs to be emphasized.
The Bears had to go through that Monday — an expedited process with the next game on Thursday — while trying to spin it forward in a positive manner, but that’s hard to do because they keep going from week to week without getting the respite a win would provide.
I don’t think the Bears have a bad roster. Does their roster have flaws? Sure. So does about 28 or 29 other rosters. It would be easy to fill this column each week with an offseason to-do list for general manager Ryan Poles, to point to the areas where they need upgrades, replacements or competition.
Are the Bears better than their 4-7 record suggests? Perhaps marginally, but remember the old Bill Parcells quip: “You are what your record says you are.” They’ve played a tough schedule and proved they can hang in there against the Packers and Vikings at home. But they’ve done what bad or poorly coached teams do, and that’s find new and inventive ways to lose when the game is on the line.
That’s an ongoing problem and one Eberflus is running out of time to correct.
2. Amid the turmoil as the Bears changed offensive coordinators, Caleb Williams is blossoming into a legitimate prospect — and that’s reason to have hope.
Williams’ development was the No. 1 focus for this season, and he’s beginning to emerge. The Bears have a big gap to close in what is the league’s best division this season, and Williams won’t do that by himself. But they have a real chance moving forward with Williams, which you couldn’t say without wishcasting when watching previous young Bears quarterback prospects.
Williams finished 32 of 47 for 340 yards with two touchdowns and led the Bears with 33 rushing yards. In the process, he set a franchise record for passing yards by a rookie (2,356), moving ahead of Mitch Trubisky (2,193 in 2017), and tied Charlie O’Rourke (1942) for most TD passes by a Bears rookie with 11.
As you know, Bears rookie passing records are the lowest bars imaginable to clear, and Williams is on pace for 3,641 yards and 17 touchdowns. He has attempted 193 consecutive passes without an interception, the Bears’ longest streak since Brian Hoyer had 200 attempts in 2016. Williams is the first Bears rookie to go five consecutive starts without an interception since at least 1950.
More important than the numbers was what Williams accomplished in crunch time. He connected with Rome Odunze for a 14-yard gain between safety Camryn Bynum and cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. on fourth-and-3 at the Vikings 33-yard line, then found Keenan Allen for a 1-yard touchdown with a 2-point conversion pass to DJ Moore to bring the Bears within 27-24 with 22 seconds remaining.
After a successful onside kick gave the Bears possession at their 43-yard line, Williams knew he had maybe one play to get in field-goal range with no timeouts. The Vikings defended against a sideline route, giving the Bears precisely what they wanted — a higher-percentage deep shot over the middle to Moore for a 27-yard gain.
“We discuss many times: ‘If this happens on this play, this is what we’re going to do. This is where I’d like you to be. I’ll be right there with you to be able to rip it and get the ball to you,'” Williams said. “The other guys did a great job. Obviously everybody’s a target, but the other guys grabbed the attention and allowed that hole to open up. I saw it and ripped it to DJ. Made a great catch and got down.”
Williams’ playmaking ability was on display early. He threaded a pass to Allen, just beyond the reach of diving outside linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, for a 40-yard gain in the first quarter. Two plays later, with Van Ginkel pressuring him out of the pocket and linebacker Kamu Grugier-Hill bearing down, Williams lofted a pass down the sideline into the hands of running back D’Andre Swift, who was between linebacker Blake Cashman and safety Harrison Smith.
“The drop in the bucket (to Swift) and one to Keenan, he put that on a thread,” Cole Kmet said. “There’s no defense for the perfect throw. There were some of those that were pretty … the one at the end of the game (to Moore) is really unbelievable. Really shows off the arm talent that he has, and I think everyone, (the Vikings) included, kind of knows where the ball should be going in that scenario.
“To be able to layer the ball like that and fit it in that window, get it to DJ and execute that scenario, really impressive. Obviously something I haven’t seen here. Those are all the positives. Obviously the result, that’s the thing that we need to change here.”
The Bears no doubt were concerned with how Williams would handle the pressure created by aggressive Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores. He can fluster experienced quarterbacks with veteran offensive lines, yet Williams never appeared flustered or lost.
He noted that he miscounted the front on the long pass to Swift and therefore didn’t use the running back as his hot read on the play. Even on a play in which he made a mistake before the snap and had some level of confusion, he was able to turn it into a huge positive.
It wasn’t perfect and there’s a lot to clean up. The Bears let presnap confusion cloud their effort to go for it on fourth-and-4 from the Vikings 27-yard line with 10 minutes remaining in the third quarter and trailing 17-10.
Cairo Santos started to run on the field, but the Bears wanted to go for it and that caused the play clock to get near zero before the snap. Matt Eberflus said it was a green light all the way to keep the offense on the field and the sideline operation wasn’t communicated as well as it needed to be.
“In those moments you don’t really want to run up against the clock just because you want to get set, have your play, be able to see what’s going on,” Williams said. “I think the confusion had the play come in a little bit later. We got to the huddle trying to scramble. I ended up mishearing what (offensive coordinator Thomas Brown) said. From there it went downhill.”
Williams tried to hit Allen on a quick out, but the throw was a little high and wide and went off his fingertips.
“This is an incomplete pass on a play that I didn’t necessarily want to run,” Williams said. “From there, you obviously aren’t going to try to use another timeout because you know the game is going to be close at the end. We already used one. You have to get up there really fast, make a few checks, get the ball snapped.
“It still is a matchup league. Go to your best matchup guys. Right then and there I went to Keenan and we just missed.”
Williams’ biggest mistake of the game came in overtime on second-and-9 from the Bears 31-yard line. The play called for him to target someone on the right side of the field, and he kept retreating and fading. Although he had a chance to throw the ball away, he ate it for a sack by Jonathan Greenard and a 12-yard loss. The Bears couldn’t overcome the third-and-21 hole, especially with a delay-of-game penalty before the next play.
“They dropped a bunch of guys out, knowing that we had to get a good chunk play,” Williams said. “I held the ball too long and they made a great play. I should have just thrown the ball out of bounds, lived to fight another down, another play.”
The Bears feel confident about Williams, and if you’re seeking another positive, it doesn’t appear the losing is getting him down. He’s not sullen postgame. He’s not pointing fingers. He has been upbeat during the week. He has the belief of the locker room, even if there were questions about that just a few weeks ago.
“He’s a ballplayer,” Allen said. “When we need him to make a play, he’s going to make a play. He’s a great guy to have when the game is on the line.”
He also earned the belief of the Vikings.
“I’ve known Caleb for a long time and I think the world of him,” coach Kevin O’Connell said. “He just continues to get better and better. And you can see it when he starts creating off schedule and that change of direction and athleticism, and we had him dead to rights a couple times and he gets out and makes huge plays.
“It’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to have to play as consistently as possible and as disciplined as possible against him as he continues to grow. And I look forward to the challenge of competing against him because he’s going to be a really good player.”
3. Special teams played a major role in another loss and the Bears couldn’t run the ball, but the defense was a real letdown.
Familiar foe Aaron Jones carried 22 times for 106 yards, topping 100 for the third time in his last five games against the Bears, and quarterback Sam Darnold continued to make his case for a major contract in free agency as he completed 22 of 34 passes for 330 yards and two touchdowns. Darnold averaged 8.49 yards per attempt when subtracting yardage lost on three sacks.
That means there were far too many big plays against a Bears defense that, by and large, hadn’t given up too many explosive pass plays. Jones had a 41-yard run and Darnold completed six passes that went for 20 or more yards, including gains of 69, 45, 41 and 34.
The Vikings came out of halftime with a 14-10 lead, and Darnold connected on the first play with Jordan Addison on a deep over route. Addison tiptoed down the sideline for the 69-yard gain after a failed tackle effort by fill-in safety Jonathan Owens.
“I could have wrapped up there,” said Owens, who forced a fumble at the goal line in the first quarter. “I was trying to go in and just kill him. It’s one of those plays you wish you could have back. I thought he was out of bounds, but you should never just try to go for the kill shot. It was one of those learning moments, something I am going to get better from.”
The Vikings wound up getting only a 40-yard field goal after having first-and-goal from the 8, but there were too many chunk plays for Darnold, like the 34-yard shot to tight end T.J. Hockenson on third-and-12 from midfield with less than four minutes left in regulation. Again the defense bowed and held Minnesota to a field goal, but the Vikings were flipping the field.
In overtime, facing third-and-10 from the Vikings 21-yard line, Darnold hooked up with Addison for a 13-yard gain in front of safety Kevin Byard. It was too easy with too much space when the defense needed to get off the field.
“Little bit of everything,” Byard said when asked what plagued the defense. “Just not really playing clean enough. Giving up penalties, not playing tight enough in coverage. That was really our Achilles’ heel today. Gave them too many big plays and penalties in crucial situations. We didn’t play well enough to win on defense today.”
Cornerback Jaylon Johnson was hit with two uncharacteristic pass-interference penalties. One was clear as day. The other looked marginal. Although the pass rush was improved — and the Vikings spent most of the day with their third left tackle in after Cam Robinson went out with a foot injury — nothing was in sync for a unit that has been more buttoned up. The Vikings converted third downs needing 8, 13, 12 and 10 yards, and that’s a recipe for losing.
A week after the Packers’ Christian Watson had four receptions for 150 yards, Addison had 162 yards on eight catches (nine targets). The Bears limited Justin Jefferson to 27 yards on two catches (five targets) but had no answer for Addison. It’s the first time since Weeks 11 and 12 of 1989 the Bears have allowed 150 or more receiving yards to a single player in consecutive games (152 to Washington’s Art Monk and 164 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Mark Carrier).
The Bears played man coverage and got beat. They played zone and got beat. They didn’t have enough answers, and that’s bothersome because usually when you have that kind of success against Jefferson, it’s a positive outcome.
4. The late start in divisional play delayed getting a handle on how the Bears stack up against their rivals. The results aren’t positive.
Yes, they lost to the Packers by one point and to the Vikings in overtime, but the standings don’t look good. It would take a miracle for the Bears not to finish last in the NFC North for the third consecutive year. Yes, they were one play away from beating those teams, but they’re a four-game winning streak — and a four-game losing streak by the Packers — from being in third place.
Discussion of Coach of the Year candidates should start with Kevin O’Connell. This was supposed to be the year the Vikings took a step back. Most figured they would transition from Sam Darnold to first-round draft pick J.J. McCarthy at some point in the middle of the season. McCarthy suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason, and Darnold has been a heck of a reclamation project.
They lost left tackle Christian Darrisaw, the second-best player on the roster, to a season-ending knee injury in October. They started the season without tight end T.J. Hockenson, who was returning from a knee injury.
On defense, the Vikings brought in six new starters: lineman Jerry Tillery, outside linebackers Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel and Jihad Ward, linebacker Blake Cashman and cornerback Stephon Gilmore.
And they’re rolling with a 9-2 record. That’s what has to irritate the Bears. In a year they hoped to rise, they’ve struggled while watching the Vikings overachieve again.
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“They’re winning with Sam Darnold,” a pro scout said. “Your discussion starts with that right there. How many places has he bounced around to since he flamed out with the Jets? They don’t have a No. 3 receiver. Aaron Jones wasn’t very popular in free agency. Did anyone want him? Their backup is Cam Akers. No one wanted him because he’s had two Achilles injuries. O’Connell is making a high-quality meal without the best ingredients. That’s the best way to say it.
“The Bears have enough ingredients. They have a defense that should be a top-10 unit. They’re struggling against the run this year. Andrew Billings is out and that hurts. They have a premier pass rusher and a premier cornerback. Losing Jaquan Brisker hurts. I get that. They paid money for Kevin Byard and he’s been fine. They’ve got a talented slot corner in Kyler Gordon. They’ve got a ton of money invested in linebackers.
“On offense, you can always bitch about the offensive line. Darnell Wright was a high draft pick and Teven Jenkins wasn’t drafted by this regime, but he was a high pick. Nate Davis was a bust. But they added a couple guys that can play center and they have the No. 1 overall pick at quarterback. They paid money for a running back in D’Andre Swift. They traded for Keenan Allen, who they are paying a ton of money. They got DJ Moore in the trade and paid him a boatload of money, and they drafted Rome Odunze in the top 10.
“Don’t tell me they don’t have ingredients. They do. And they’re not winning. You lose five games in a row, I can’t even imagine what it’s like in that building.”
5. Desperate times call for desperate measures. If Matt Eberflus is feeling that way, perhaps the Bears will unveil a fake on special teams in the near future.
Eberflus is the one in charge of ordering up a trick play, and he doesn’t seem to have much of a penchant for chicanery. But the Bears had better get ready for that and more on a short week as they prepare for Thursday’s game in Detroit.
No one pushes the envelope when it comes to gadget plays on special teams more than Dan Campbell and the Lions. While the Bears haven’t run a fake on special teams since Week 9 of 2020, the Lions have run 12 fake punts — converting nine — since Campbell took over before the 2021 season.
If there’s a handy research tool to explore special teams fakes, I don’t know where to find it. I went down the rabbit hole last week attempting to find the last time every team attempted a fake — punt, field goal or extra point — on special teams. As best I can tell after a couple of hours of rooting around the internet, the Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, Indianapolis Colts, Patriots and Commanders are the only teams that have gone longer than the Bears since running their last special teams fake.
Some teams, like the Lions, have run multiple fakes since the Bears’ last one, which was dialed up by former special teams coordinator Chris Tabor and approved by coach Matt Nagy against the Tennessee Titans in the middle of the 2020 season.
The Bears faced fourth-and-6 from their 36-yard line. Punt protector DeAndre Houston-Carson received a direct snap and handed off to linebacker Barkevious Mingo on an end-around, and Mingo gained 11 yards — the longest rush of the game in a 24-17 loss. After three more plays, the Bears punted on fourth-and-2 from the Titans 45.
Since then the Bears have punted 272 times without a fake, so the element of surprise should be there for Eberflus and special teams coordinator Richard Hightower if they green-light one. Who would expect the Bears, who always play it close to the vest, to get wily?
The Dallas Cowboys, forced to play backup quarterback Cooper Rush, would fall under the category of a team getting creative (and dangerous) during desperate times. Last Monday they called on punter Bryan Anger to loft a pass on fourth-and-9 from their 33-yard line. Anger connected with Juanyeh Thomas, but the Houston Texans’ John Metchie III sniffed out the play and tackled Thomas well short of the line to gain. It was an embarrassing early failure in a 34-10 loss.
The last fake the Colts attempted was perhaps the most embarrassing special teams failure in NFL history. There are worse outcomes, for sure, such as a turnover that leads to an immediate score. But the Colts’ fake on Oct. 18, 2015 — when they attempted to get the Patriots to commit a presnap penalty — was laughably bad.
Center Griff Whalen, actually a wide receiver, snapped the ball to quarterback Colt Anderson, actually a safety. They were the only Colts players in the middle of the field, and Anderson was swarmed immediately by a posse of Patriots.
It stands to reason the Colts are maybe a little gun-shy in calling a fake, even though they’ve turned over coaching staffs multiple times.
The Bears have to be prepared for anything against the Lions because Campbell will get creative from any spot on the field. Detroit ran a fake inside its 20-yard line in the 2023 season opener and converted.
Campbell also gets creative on fourth-and-long. In Week 2 this year, he had punter Jack Fox throw the ball when he was lined up to kick on fourth-and-12 from the Detroit 20. He completed a 17-yard pass. Fox has completed 4 of 5 passes in his career for 61 yards and four first downs.
“It was all Campbell,” said Bears long snapper Scott Daly, who played for the Lions the last three seasons. “Dan would show up in (special teams coordinator Dave) Fipp’s office every week and say, ‘Hey, I saw this. Maybe we could do X, Y, Z with it.’ It’s kind of wild.
“Guys love it. It’s something different. It’s creative. You go through the same stuff, ‘This is what they’re going to show us,’ so to have something creative in your back pocket is kind of cool. Guys get fired up at just the possibility to do it.”
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The angle that doesn’t get discussed enough is that the Lions have been so aggressive in calling and executing fakes that Fox rarely faces pressure when he’s actually punting. He’s skilled, for sure, but everyone fears a fake so it’s extremely risky to go for a block or bail out to set up a return.
Entering Week 12, Fox ranked second in the league with a 46-yard net average and third with a 51.3-yard gross average. The Lions rank fourth in the league with 6.9 yards allowed per punt return.
“Teams aren’t aggressive against them because of that reason and they have to respect that they’ve run so many fakes and they don’t want to get burned,” Daly said. “I don’t think the Lions have had a serious punt rush at all this year because they have to account for the wide sweep plays, they have to account for the pass. Jack can throw the ball really well, so you have to account for every single fake.
“Jack has that in the back of his mind. He can take his time and just be able to rip it. With his leg and that combination, that poses a problem on the other side.”
I asked Daly if the Lions ever installed something really off the wall that they never got to. The answer was yes. When preparing for the Cowboys in 2022, the Lions worked on something they dubbed the “Dallas Two Pack.”
“We were going to run a fake punt, get the first down and then get back on the ball and run a play again real fast,” Daly said. “Crazy. The goal was to try to catch them off guard. Maybe they burn a timeout or something like that. It would keep them on their heels and if they weren’t ready, we’d just run a regular run play.
“We didn’t get to it. We were losing by so much that game, it was ridiculous. That was one we were hoping to run that we never got to.”
So maybe be on the lookout for the “Chicago Two Pack” on Thursday or something else cutting-edge when it comes to fake plays by Campbell. Or, who knows, perhaps Eberflus gets desperate and puts on a fake.
6. The Bears have a special teams problem.
A week after Cairo Santos’ 46-yard field goal was blocked on the final play, the Vikings’ Jerry Tillery blocked a 48-yard attempt in the first quarter. Protection was an issue again. The trajectory was low. Santos atoned later when he executed an onside kick and drilled a 48-yarder as time expired to force overtime, but you can’t have kicks blocked in consecutive weeks.
“I feel like part of it is just unlucky that we’re getting the trajectory of the ball going over the line and they’re getting that penetration exactly where — because sometimes they make a good rush but the ball starts kind of in a different part of the line to make the goal post and (the) kick goes through,” Santos said. “But it could’ve got blocked had the ball started on that line. So it’s just kind of matching the good rushes from them and good penetration and the ball starting that way.
“I kick a certain way here that’s resulted in a lot of success, but things are happening and I’m working to get that changed so I can control that on my end as well.”
Long snapper Scott Daly said it was difficult to diagnose specifically what happened without reviewing the video.
“They did a great job of making it look like they were going to put a focus on the A gap, and they went to the C gap, left block,” Daly said. “They attacked that area.”
Santos had hiccups on extra points and made adjustments, and it sounds like he’s working to tweak his trajectory on longer kicks. That fix doesn’t happen in a week, but the Bears have to be better across the board — protection and kick — to avoid more miscues.
The onside kick was a thing of beauty. Santos executed what’s called a “spinner,” kicking the ball on its side.
“Dallas did a good job of being the first to do that with Greg Zuerlein in 2020,” Daly said. “They got the first one with it and teams didn’t know how to respond to it. A lot of teams are starting to use it now. Cairo did a great job. He did a great job during the week working on it and getting some good spin.
“Get the spin, put a little pace on it too and then you have to make a decision: Are you going to attack it or let the ball come to you? On the grass, it can have a little rut or little bounce.”
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Vikings safety Camryn Bynum came up to field the ball before it went 10 yards, and when it touched off of him, the Bears’ Tarvarius Moore was there to recover it. It’s tricky for the kicking team because the ball has to travel 10 yards before they can legally touch it first, so they have to read the other team and see if they try to field the ball before it goes the distance.
“The ball is supposed to come to me,” Bears safety Josh Blackwell said. “I’m supposed to get it. (Bynum) came up and got it. We anticipate them coming to get it. We’re playing for the rebound or ricochet there. It was cool. We just have to finish.”
Santos felt better about hitting the long field goal late, but he’s taking inventory of what he does.
“I take the blame in kind of the stink that we have on our field-goal unit right now,” he said. “We’d gone so many kicks in a row without getting kicks blocked, 16 50-yarders the last two years not getting a kick blocked. And sometimes they happen like that, back to back.
“First of all, I had faith in myself that I could hit the ball well to make a clutch kick if it came down to that because I know I’m not missing the ball wide. I’m just kind of making kicks or getting it blocked. So my confidence is high in myself, but I need to hit the ball better so we don’t have any more of this situation happening to us.
“It’s hard for me to go on and change because I just don’t see a mishit type of low kick, but I do have more of a piercing, driven ball flight just to help make my kicks in the windy situations. The wind wasn’t too bad (Sunday) but it’s always windy here. You always try to hit the ball the same, but this week I’m always looking for how can I maximize my height with my ball flight so I don’t have to rely on playing the wind as much. So it’s a learning curve for me, too, and I take responsibility for that.”
7. A muffed punt by DeAndre Carter late in the third quarter was also a serious blow on special teams.
It led to a 1-yard touchdown run by Aaron Jones that staked the Vikings to a 24-10 lead. It was an uncharacteristic error by the veteran Carter, who was trying to get away from the bouncing ball that was recovered by linebacker Bo Richter after it hit him.
“That’s on me,” Carter said. “I’ve got to be better. I tried to call a ‘Peter’ call. Got to get out of the way of the ball. I let the team down today. Game shouldn’t have been in the situation it was in.
“I felt bad for the guys. I felt bad for (special teams coordinator Richard Hightower). He’s a hell of a coordinator. Does a great job. And for us — for me — to put the team in a bad situation like that, very disappointed in myself.”
Carter’s 55-yard kickoff return to the Minnesota 40-yard line should not be overlooked in the comeback as the Bears scored 11 points in the final minute to get to overtime. If Carter doesn’t flip the field, there might not have been an onside kick attempt.
“I wouldn’t say I was redeeming myself,” Carter said. “We lost the game. But the guys up front did a great job. Collin Johnson had a great block on it. It made my job easier.
“We’ve just got to be — me, I’m going to say myself — I’ve got to be more consistent. Just doing your job on a daily basis. On a play-after-play basis. That’s what we’re all searching for.”
Carter has been good overall. He’s averaging 33.1 yards on kickoff returns with a 67-yarder and 9.3 yards on punt returns. He just had a glaring mistake in a game in which the Bears had one too many major miscues.
8. Plenty of folks hit me up on social media asking why in the world the Bears went for a 2-point conversion after scoring with 7:22 remaining to pull within 24-16.
The pass attempt to Keenan Allen was incomplete. The analytics behind it make sense. When teams are trailing by 14 late in a game, it makes sense to go for 2 because they essentially are giving themselves a chance to win in regulation.
“The math has been clear for so long, and been presented by so many writers, that this topic is essentially beating a dead horse,” Football Perspective wrote in 2015. “Late in games, it has always made sense for a team, after scoring a touchdown to cut a lead from 14 to eight points, should go for 2. The trailing team gets two bites at the apple.”
The theory is if you score a touchdown and get the 2-point conversion to pull within six, you can win the game with a touchdown and an extra point. If you fail on the conversion — as the Bears did — you still can tie the game with a 2-point conversion after a second touchdown.
What’s the thinking behind this? Winning in overtime is heavily weighted to what? Winning the coin flip. The Bears won the flip and still lost the game, but the idea was to win in regulation and Matt Eberflus was on board.
“We really like our 2-point play,” Eberflus said. “We were going to make it a touchdown wins the game. We felt good in terms of where we were in terms of the game, how the game flow was going at that point. We thought that was our best chance to win.”
Dig into the Football Perspective article if you want to wrap your mind around it some more.
9. Justin Fields got some action Thursday in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 24-19 loss in the snow in Cleveland.
With six games remaining, it’s worth monitoring how Russell Wilson fares, as the Bears get either a fourth- or sixth-round draft pick to complete the trade of Fields to the Steelers. Thus far, Wilson has been very good for coach Mike Tomlin.
Terms of the deal call for the Bears to receive a sixth-round pick in 2025. It improves to a fourth-rounder if Fields takes more than 50% of the Steelers’ offensive snaps. He started the first six games, which gave him a good head start. As I wrote when he was benched for Wilson in October, Fields needs to play roughly 11 more quarters — or nearly three full games — to ensure he gets more than 50% of the snaps.
That now seems unlikely unless the Steelers (9-2) bench Wilson or he is injured. Fields got seven snaps against the Browns, carrying the ball three times, including a 30-yard run. He was on the field for three plays the week before against the Baltimore Ravens. Every little bit helps, but he will need to reclaim the starting job for the pick to improve.
10. If you’re wondering about the draft, the Bears would select at No. 12 in the first round based on the current standings, according to Tankathon.com.
They are at the bottom of a group of 4-7 teams based on strength of schedule (.558). Barring a shift there, the Bears would lose a tiebreaker with every team picking ahead of them. They could move up with more losses, but any tie or logjam likely would result in them being behind any teams they are tied with.
The pro-tanking crowd should think long and hard about the benefit of Caleb Williams and other young players performing well down the stretch to have a platform to build upon in 2025. That’s real. This team needs to figure out how to win, especially in these close games.
10a. Safety Tarvarius Moore didn’t only have the recovery on the onside kick. He was credited with three solo tackles on special teams. That’s a bright spot for that group.
10b. The No. 1 CBS crew of Jim Nantz, Tony Romo and Tracy Wolfson will call the Bears-Lions game on Thanksgiving at Ford Field.
10c. The Lions opened as 10½-point favorites at Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas for Thursday’s game. Detroit has lost seven consecutive Thanksgiving games, including to the Bears in 2021, 2019 and 2018.
10d. The Bears have been double-digit underdogs only four previous times under Matt Eberflus, most recently when they were 10½-point underdogs in a 30-13 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 8 last season.
This is the 10th time since the start of the 2015 season the Bears have been double-digit underdogs with the highest spread, and they’ve lost 14 in a row when catching 10 or more points. The one upset they sprung in this scenario came in the 2008 season opener in Indianapolis, where they were 10-point underdogs and won 29-13.
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