Bears avoid embarrassment, get past lowly Saints 26-14, but plenty still to fix

The Bears avoided embarrassment Sunday by beating the aimless Saints 26-14 at Soldier Field. That’s about it.

It was sloppy throughout and got dicey in the third quarter, but at least they didn’t blow it at home against one of the worst teams in the NFL.

It was the Bears’ fourth consecutive victory, something they haven’t done since 2018, and it snapped an eight-game losing streak against the Saints dating to 2011.

For years, they’ve been liable to lose to just about anybody, and changing that is a big part of the job for new coach Ben Johnson, who’s building from the ground up to get the Bears back to respectability.

It’s better now than it was under predecessor Matt Eberflus. Last November, the Bears played a Patriots team just as bad as these Saints and lost 19-3 at home. Johnson already has won as many games as Eberflus did last season.

But almost anything is better than the Eberflus era. That’s not much of a bar to clear.

While all wins are worth celebrating, this didn’t change the overall assessment that there’s still plenty to fix.

Quarterback Caleb Williams called it “insane” for the Bears to be 4-2 given how much growth has yet to happen. Johnson continued his approach of cherishing the victory but still being “a truth-teller.”

When asked about the overall trajectory of the offense through six games, he made a hand motion imitating peaks and valleys.

“That’s what we’ve looked like,” he said. “We’re capable of a lot more.”

The Bears won because their defense overwhelmed a sputtering team that was happy to help by self-destructing. With a new coach in Kellen Moore, a murky future at quarterback between starter Spencer Rattler and rookie Tyler Shough and a salary-cap nightmare, the Saints are at least two seasons away from being competitive.

It’s a wonder they’ve beaten anyone. The Bears should’ve handled them more easily.

“When you win, you can usually coach a little bit harder,” Johnson said, previewing the week ahead as the Bears move on to a tougher opponent in the Ravens. “We’re always truth-tellers on Monday.

‘‘When it’s good, we’ll tell them when it’s good. When it’s bad, we’ll tell them what we’ve got to clean up. There’s a number of things [from Sunday] that we can get better at.”

Much of those corrections will center on Williams, who acknowledged how poorly he played. He completed 15 of 26 passes for a season-low 172 yards with an interception for a season-worst 61.7 passer rating. Throwing accuracy continues to be a big concern.

The rushing attack carried the offense, with D’Andre Swift going for 124 yards and a touchdown and backup Kyle Monangai adding 81 and a touchdown. Combined, they averaged 6.4 yards per carry.

The offense isn’t capitalizing on opportunities provided by the ball-hawking defense.

The Bears scored touchdowns on only two of their six trips to the red zone. They went 3-for-12 on third down and botched a fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line on center Drew Dalman’s false start. They committed 10 penalties for 92 yards.

“I was hopeful that by Game 6 we would play cleaner football than that,” Johnson said.

Five of the Bears’ penalties were false starts, and they should’ve had six. On third-and-four at the Saints’ 6-yard line, Dalman had a botched snap that never got to Williams.

He said he started to snap the ball too early and instinctively pulled it back to correct his error, then had no choice but to go down with the ball to prevent further damage. It was ruled a fumbled snap, although the ball never hit the ground or changed hands. The Bears settled for a field goal.

“That’s 100% on me,” Dalman said. “I was on a different page than the rest of the people.”

Some of that can be stomached at 4-2, but that’s not a viable formula going forward. A lot of questions remain unanswered beneath that record:

Can Williams level out and consistently give the Bears something they can count on?

Can the defense weather injuries to star players?

Can the Bears hold their own against the NFL’s best teams?

There’s no solid answer to any of those. All three are “hopefully,” for now.

Even if the defense can sustain the takeaways, there has to be real momentum offensively for this team to succeed, otherwise it’s just another version of Matt Nagy’s 2018 team. That was a good season by Bears standards, but they weren’t built for the playoffs and plunged back to mediocrity the next season.

Every game must be viewed through short- and long-term lenses. The Bears were resourceful and resilient to win on defense and by riding Swift when Williams didn’t play well. They didn’t cash in on every Saints mistake but did enough to put them away.

That blueprint won’t work every week, though.

From a wider perspective, this game wasn’t encouraging heading into a tougher one in Baltimore next week. It is promising, however, that the Bears appear to realize that.