No Way Forward, No Way Back
No Way Forward, No Way Back
Holy Hell
November 1, 2020
All Saints Day
Saints 26, Bears 23 (OT)
It stands to reason that the Chicago Bears’ march toward hell took another giant step forward on All Saints’ Day against—who else?— the New Orleans Saints.
The Bears fell to the Saints, 26-23 in overtime at Chicago’s Soldier Field on Sunday for their second straight loss, dropping their record to 5-3. If you had told us two months ago that the Bears would be 5-3 at the season’s halfway point we would have said “hurray,” quite enthusiastically. But this 5-3 feels a lot like 3-5 and this squad will be lucky to go 3-5 in the season’s second eight games.
November 1 isn’t just All Saints’ Day, of course. It’s also The Day of The Dead, which normally is a celebration of the Bears offense. The Bears actually played well, sort of, on offense in this one and even showed a glimpse of a running game with David Montgomery scampering for 81 yards and backup quarterback Mitch Trubisky coming off the bench for a three-yard run (but then he went back to holding the clipboard) but it was not enough.
It’s never enough.
The Bears held a 13-3 advantage in the second quarter and led 13-10 at halftime but, for the seventh time in eight games this year, Chicago failed to score in the third quarter (what the hell do they drink at halftime?) and that quarter also saw Bears receiver Javon Wims get tossed from the game for sucker-punching Saints defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson in a truly embarrassing moment. It has been reported that Wims was sticking up for one of his teammates but there have to be better ways of protecting teammates. Winning comes to mind.
The Bears threw an interception on the next play and things sort of fell apart from there and before you could say a prayer or gobble a Halloween treat, the Bears trailed 23-13.
Like they almost always, do though, the Bears hung in there and somehow found themselves within striking distance in the game’s closing moments. That is until rookie tight end Cole Kmet fumbled late in the fourth quarter after catching a two-yard pass from Nick Foles. And Kmet did fumble, amigos. It should have been Saints ball right then and there, game over.
But because the NFL is dumb and still, after a hundred years, can’t figure out what a catch is or what a fumble is, the officials said Kmet didn’t really drop it because his forward progress had been stopped and blah, blah, blah. The Bears kept the ball and their new best player and my new best friend, kicker Cairo Santos, nailed a 51-yard field goal and it was off to overtime we go.
What happened in the extra session? The Saints got the ball, the Bears defense stopped them. The Bears got the ball and went backwards. Literally. The Saints got the ball back and, with the gallant Bears defense sucking wind on this blustery November day, New Orleans marched deep into Bears territory and kicked the game winner.
Did we mention that we sometimes hate football?
Eight games down. Eight games to go. And it will take more than a saint’s prayer to figure out what to do next. --TK
Sunday, November 1, 2020