Let’s start here: I used the word ‘discouraging’ in the headline because ‘gross’ seemed unprofessional, and because all of the expletives I would use in my every day vernacular would certainly be frowned upon here at Heavy. But regardless of what word I ultimately decided to use, the messaging is the same… the Chicago Bears laid an egg in their 30-16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday afternoon, and understandably, head coach Ben Johnson wasn’t too happy with it.
Here’s everything Ben Johnson had to say after Chicago fell to 4-3 on the season, snapping a four-game winning streak that had everyone in the Chi thinking about a return to the Playoffs.
Ben Johnson’s opening statement… “Give Baltimore a lot of credit. They came out and played a physical brand of football just like you’d expect. They were hungry, they were determined, and truth be told, I expected a little more out of our squad to counter that. So we fell short, it’s our first game all season that we didn’t have a takeaway, so when that happens, you really gotta play a clean game, and we didn’t. Double digits in penalties once again, we’re not scoring in the red zone, couldn’t get off the field as often as we’d like on defense.”
There’s plenty to unpack here, but Coach Johnson did a great job of summarizing all of the issues that were evident to Bears fans watching at home. Chicago didn’t come out with an appropriate sense of urgency on either side of the ball. It’s been nearly two months now and the penalties and self-inflicted wounds are still an issue, and my God, why can’t this team score in the red zone? Seriously, this was supposed to be a Shane Waldron issue, wasn’t it?
Johnson on the biggest area of concern for the Bears offense… “I think you see flashes of some explosive plays and some really good things happening, but the penalties to me is what stands out first and foremost. We still have some of the pre-snap issues. There’s occasional not getting lined up quite right, there’s occasional not getting the motion quite right. That stuff adds up and it hurts us, and we get away with it occasionally, but it’s just not the way you win in this league.”
Again, Coach Johnson hits the nail on the head here. Against teams like the undermanned Washington Commanders, the 1-win Las Vegas Raiders, and the 1-win New Orleans Saints, you can get away with being as undisciplined as the Bears have. But against a desperate Ravens team that is well-coached and playing for their season, it wasn’t going to fly.
And one more time, it’s absolutely infuriating that this team can’t punch it in for six in the red zone. You can’t continuously leave 4 points on the board every time you’re in a goal-to-go situation and expect to be taken seriously.
Johnson on Chicago’s goal-to-go failures late in the game… “I don’t like my call on the quarterback sneak. I could’ve gotten to something better there. We have plays set up to go tempo down there, and I probably didn’t do a good enough job in that department.”
Yeah, I felt like I was in a fever dream during this final sequence where Matt Nagy, Shane Waldron and Luke Getsy were fighting over the play sheet to see who got to send in the play.
Johnson on the success of Tyler Huntley and the Ravens offense… “Coach Monken always does a great job schematically mixing things up and they play a physical brand of football. That offensive line was getting after it, and I thought for our defensive line, it was quite a battle. We were intent on not letting 22 (Derrick Henry) get started, and for the most part we did a pretty good job with that, but then Huntley hurt us with both his arm and his legs. We let him get some big ones on the ground, and he threw some accurate balls there in the air.”
Before the game, I scoffed at the idea that Snoop Huntley could play mistake free ball and truly hurt the Bears defense. I thought if Baltimore was going to come out on top, it was going to be a vintage Derrick Henry game where the final stat line looked something like 26 carries for 216 yards and 3 touchdowns.
To my surprise, the Bears limited Henry to just 71 yards on 21 carries — a perfectly acceptable 3.4 yards per carry for King Henry — but it was Huntley who made one play after another to beat the Bears defense. On the afternoon, Huntley completed 17-of-22 passes for 186 yards and 1 touchdown, and added 53 yards on the ground.
Johnson on Kyler Gordon heading to IR… “We’re hoping it’s going to be of the short-term variety so we can get him back, but it’s a soft tissue injury that we’re dealing with.”
An absolute killer of an injury, and remember, this was in addition to Jaylon Johnson and Tyrique Stevenson too.
I don’t know how good this Bears team actually is, but I do know that any team down to their 4th, 5th and 6th cornerbacks is going to be in a world of hurt, and against the Cincinnati Bengals next weekend, this could be a massive problem.
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