This has never been a hot take blog. It has never been an overly praising or overly doomsday one either. I’ve always believed much of sports lives in a gray area, a world of nuance, a world of maybe. I’ve never denied being a passionate fan of the Chicago Bears and it’s that subjective approach I hope makes this a fun place to be. But I’ve tried to address the club objectively.

Through six games, objectively speaking, John Fox has been a disgrace.

Excluding the Dallas game, wherein the Bears were thoroughly outplayed by a far better team, the Bears have outscored their other five opponents in the first half 51-35. After halftime, where presumably adjustments are made to the game plan, the Bears have been outscored 74-33.

+16.

-41.

That is a 57 point difference. And that, folks, is a disgrace.

These are not random numbers. These are not flukey statistics. The Bears are lining up with their opponents and displaying they are every bit as good and capable of winning through two quarters. Then the teams go into a room. Talk a bit. Return the field. And the Bears get embarrassed.

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This will be the last time this site addresses Sunday’s game. Because it doesn’t deserve much more than that.

• Cameron Meredith is going to be a real player. It’s obvious. And the Bears, when they re-sign Alshon Jeffery, are going to have an exciting receiving corps in 2017.
• Hoyer. Jesus. Two major problems with his performance. (1) How do you not at least throw the ball somewhere Alshon can catch it when he’s wide open in the end zone? Anywhere but ten yards over his head and out of bounds? (2) When you have a pocket big enough to fit a dining room set, why not look down the field? Hoyer is backup. And, honestly, a pretty good one. But he’s nothing more.
• And Hoyer has now loss to two of the worst teams in the league’s in subsequent weeks. 300 yard games are by-and-large useless.
• Jacoby Glenn can’t play.
• Willie Young has started playing how the Bears need him to play. But they are getting so little pass rush from their defensive line or opposite Young that their attack has become feast or famine. Basically Willie Young or bust.

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On the sixth episode of the Weekend Show this season:

• Jeff breaks down why Brian Hoyer has made this season watchable in Jay Cutler’s absence
• Adam Jahns makes arguably his best appearance, breaking down Cutler/Hoyer, Cam Meredith’s emergence, Pernell McPhee, Kyle Fuller…etc. (One note on this: his words on Kevin White are not encouraging.)
• Jeff describes this season as “fascinatingly terrible”.
• Reverend discusses Missouri’s premier tourism destination.
• Jeff, while physically breaking down, still manages to pick the Bears.
• Elvis Costello tracks!

“On offense we have had a lot of third and long situations. Third and 11-plus. It is not just third and 11. These are third and 20s, third and 23s. Far too many in that area. It comes back to controlling things we can control. The foolish penalties. Penalties overall. False starts, pre-snap, more pre-snap issues for us.”

Jaguars coach Gus Bradley, News4Jax

Bears Players & Jags Players

vs.

Penalties

Some, including the head writer, editor and founder of this site, argued Jay Cutler would have beaten the Colts a week ago were he playing quarterback. But more important to state is this: Brian Hoyer would have easily won the game if not for bad penalties in key moments by the Bears offense. Penalties on Long, Howard, Paulsen…etc. cost the Bears points and this club is not good enough to give away points.

Jacksonville is the fourth most penalized club in the sport and are only fourth because they’ve played one fewer game than the three teams ranked ahead of them. (For a complicated penalties chart, check this out.)

This game will come down to mistakes; which team makes more and which team makes them at the costliest moments. That’s what happens when subpar teams play. And these are two subpar teams.

Well, now what?

The loss to the Colts may have been the most disappointing of the season to me because it ended any chance the Bears had of becoming relevant this season.

I didn’t think they’d make the playoffs but I expected the Bears to be relevant. I expected them to a be a team nobody wanted to play and I expected to see serious signs of growth. A win over Indianapolis would’ve put them at 2-3 with a  chance to go 3-3 next week before they played the Packers in a Thursday night game. At that point, anything would’ve been possible.

But they lost to the Colts, a bad team. Making the loss worse, they Colts are a bad team that was coming off of a trip to another country, while the Bears were coming off of their first win. It was a game the Bears had to win and didn’t.

There are still bright spots this season and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I think the Bears have a very good GM and a lot of excellent young talent. They actually have a better record through Pace’s first 21 games than the Packers did with Ted Thompson. But that doesn’t make me feel better today.

There’s always next year, for most of us anyway. Depending on how the rest of this season goes, that could bring some very difficult questions.

The biggest question is the coach and there is no easy answer.

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Kevin White was supposed to be the story of the 2016 Bears. But a second leg injury and second season lost have marred the development of the freakish athlete thought to be Chicago’s “next big thing”. The most likely scenario for White is the Gravitron spins again at the Feast of Football, 2017.

Enter Cam Meredith.

A local kid from Berwyn (an area I only know because of the great music venue FitzGerald’s), Meredith went undrafted out of Illinois State in 2015. Due to severe injuries at the position, his rookie year saw him on the field far more than anyone expected. Production? Not so much. But throughout 2016’s off-season program word started to circulate that Cam’s game was coming into form. He looked terrific in Bourbonnais, with Marquess Wilson’s injury opening the door for a fourth receiver. Even some commenters to this site (IrishSweetness) were lauding him as possibly the best receiver on the roster.

It took the perfect storm. An injury to Kevin White. An injury to Jay Cutler. Brian Hoyer’s bizarre desire to throw the ball to people not named Alshon Jeffery.

2 catches against Dallas.

4 cagainst Detroit.

Then the breakout. Indianapolis. 9 catches, 130 yards, 1 touchdown. Did he also fumble at a crucial moment in the game? Of course. But this is no longer a season where wins and losses are the crucial part of the story. The emergence of another talented wide receiver could have huge, lasting implications for the Chicago Bears moving forward.

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Hard game to get emotional about. But there’s things to talk about so let’s talk about them.

• Brian Hoyer played a terrific game for a backup quarterback. But when your team racks up 500+ yards and scores only 23 points, it’s time to start asking why. Hoyer doesn’t extend plays with his legs. He doesn’t throw the ball to the Bears best player (for some bizarre reason). And…he’s just limited. Jay Cutler wins Sunday’a game. And I happen to believe he wins it by a couple of touchdowns.
• Hoyer dinks and dunks. His drives take 10-12 plays to get into the end zone. Those drives can be derailed entirely by one mistake or penalty. Penalties told the story of the game.
• John Fox, through five games, is having a rough season. Challenges, timeouts, personnel decisions…etc. One has to wonder if he has any feel for this roster right now. Sadly, Fox can’t be properly evaluated until the actual team is on the field.
• Why would you bench Bryce Callahan? Let the kid learn on the field. He was playing a solid game yesterday.
• Terrific performance from Cameron Meredith. The fumble was bad, and cost the Bears the game, but his emergence was far more significant.

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