My Football Team is Floundering and it Makes Me Very Sad
My Football Team is Floundering and it Makes Me Very Sad
5-4, What a Snore
November 8, 2020
Titans 24, Bears 17
Five and Forever
One quarterback completed 36 passes for 335 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions, yet had a passer rating of just 39.4.
The other QB also had two scoring strikes but managed just ten completions for 158 yards, and also no interceptions for a rating of an equally unimpressive 44.2.
Guess whose team won?
I’m sorry, what was the question?
The first set of statistics belongs to Chicago Bears signal caller Nick Foles, the second reflects the work of Tennessee Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill and it was Tannehill whose squad finished on top because this is the Bears they were playing, and the Bears offense, no matter how you look at it, or dress it up, is awful and the result was a third straight loss, this one by a final tally of 24-17 in sunny Tennessee.
To say this defeat was soul crushing would be to imply the Bears had a soul, or a beating heart but, at least on offense, they do not.
The Bears defense is good, the offense is embarrassing. Save that sentence and insert in just about every write-up of every Bears game for the past century and you would be accurate.
To paint it fairly, the Bears went to war with a patchwork offensive line because of injuries and COVID-19 and also in fairness…OK, we’ve stopped being fair.
The Bears had twice as many third downs as Tennessee, 22-11, but were also just 2-of-15 on third down conversions – 13%. The Bears had three fumbles and lost two, one of which was returned for a touchdown, putting Tennessee up 17-0 in the third quarter.
Oh, that third quarter. In nine games this season the Bears have one touchdown in the third quarter. That’s the same number the Titans had on Sunday. The Bears also, of course, had failed to score in the first quarter and second quarters. They did score 17 in the fourth quarter but that was just slapping some fancy paint on this train wreck, brother.
The Bears outgained the Titans by 145 yards, ran 25 more plays, held the ball longer and good God, why did I give up red meat and cigarettes?
They need help. Never has 5-4 felt so much like a kick in the nuts. Isn’t there a book titled When Bad Things Happen to Good People? The Bears’ story is When a Good Record Happens to a Bad Team. And that record won’t be anywhere near good much longer. Right now, it’s barely hanging on to respectable.
The season is slipping away which feels odd because it’s not as if we ever had a good grip on it. It just looked nice to the neighbors.
Bears coach Matt Nagy said afterwards there is “obviously a high level of frustration.” Certainly. Nagy needs to give up play calling and Mitch Trubisky needs to be put back in at quarterback. Just do it. Maybe you’ll finish 9-7. Probably not, but it’s worth trying because you’re not bad enough to get Trevor Lawrence so you may as well keep trying to be good enough to be frustrating.
Whatever the result, Foles won’t be back next year, neither will Trubisky and our guess is that Nagy is about 50/50 to return and General Manager Ryan Pace had better be working on that curriculum vitae which reads; “I built a good defense, that’s it.”
Our prediction is that next year in yet another effort to put a decent offense on the field to help an honorable defense the Bears will get their Irish up by drafting Notre Dame’s Ian Book and signing the ageless Ryan Fitzpatrick. The key will be to avoid telling them they play for the Bears. Tell them it’s 2021 and not 1946 which is what the calendar reads at Halas Hall.
Tell them something. Try anything. --TK
Sunday, November 8, 2020