Bears head coach Matt Eberflus yells during Sunday’s loss to the Washington Commanders in Landover, Md.
AP
The Bears are heading in a good direction, there’s not much doubt about that.
Random stupidity is starting to pile up, though, and reassigning the coach in charge of Hail Mary defense won’t necessarily cure the problem.
The entire NFL world is laughing at the Bears’ insanely bad defense on the final two plays of Sunday’s gut-punch loss in Washington. Late game mismanagement is nothing new, though. Remember when coach Matt Eberflus decided not to kick a go-ahead field goal with less than three minutes left against Denver last season?
Tyrique Stevenson became a viral star thanks to video of him engaging with fans after the ball had already been snapped on the final play. For what it’s worth, Stevenson said Monday he was cheering with Bears fans, not taunting Commanders fans. Doesn’t really matter. Make the play and no one says anything about it.
Bears fans will recall a similar situation last season when Justin Fields’ celebration dance in Detroit went viral. The Bears went on to blow a 26-14 lead in the final two minutes that day. They also squandered a 17-7 lead in the final four minutes at Cleveland last year.
Eberflus doesn’t even have much of a history in Chicago yet, as a third-year head coach. But a lot of dumb stuff keeps repeating itself.
The biggest blunder of this season hasn’t gotten as much attention, but safety Jaquan Brisker missed his second straight game Sunday with a concussion.
It’s beyond belief how the Bears sideline could watch Brisker deliver a brutal helmet-to-helmet hit against Carolina and let him play the rest of the game. Especially since the other player involved, Panthers tight end Tommy Tremble, had to be helped off the field. Tremble actually played Sunday against Denver.
Hopefully Brisker avoided a significant injury. But taking a second blow to the head after already suffering from a concussion is one of the most dangerous things that can happen on a football field.
No one should have missed such an obvious, alarming situation. Dinosaurs inside the Field Museum surely heard or felt the Brisker-Tremble collision.
It probably would have helped to have Brisker and Kyler Gordon one the field at the end of the Washington game. But the way the Bears played it was a recipe for disaster.
Everything went OK near the line of scrimmage. Three Bears rushers tried to make QB Jayden Daniels uncomfortable, while linebacker T.J. Edwards waited to bring some late pressure. The Commanders’ offensive line did a decent job of getting away with blatant holding, then hustling over to keep Edwards out of Daniels face.
As the ball sailed through the air, Jaylon Johnson and Tremaine Edmunds were both trying to box out Washington’s best receiver, Tyler McLaurin. That seemed to be a decent plan, but Johnson ended up just standing at the 9-yard line and watching the jump ball unfold.
The fatal flaw was five Bears players jumping for the ball, compared to two for Washington. The two Commanders in the mix were 6-5 tight end Zach Ertz and 6-2 receiver Luke McCaffrey. McLaurin and Noah Brown just waited for the deflection.
None of the Bears who jumped for the ball (Stevenson, Jaylon Jones, Elijah Hicks, Josh Blackwell and Kevin Byard) are taller than 6 feet. Would it have helped to send 6-6 Cole Kmet out there? Maybe, but Stevenson was the one player who got his hand on the ball. Obviously, the goal is to put it on the ground, not tip it in the air.
Stevenson said his job was to box out Brown, and he didn’t do it. Byard was closest to Brown. He should have been able to read the situation and cover Brown instead of futilely jumping into the scrum.
Stevenson also had a costly personal foul penalty earlier in the game, which began with a cheap shot against McLaurin. Stevenson is lucky he didn’t get two 15-yard penalties on the play.
Players can learn from mistakes, but Eberflus needs this trend to stop. There’s too much bad seeping into the Bears’ good right now.