Week 15: Bears at Browns Open Thread
2024. What a year.
DBB tried having someone else run the show. It didn’t take. But I’m proud that I was able to re-man the ship, add short plays to the structure, and deliver dozens of brilliant haikus.
Are the Bears good? They are not. But the work of DBB doesn’t stop! And we get a new coach…again!
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I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
For some time, the evaluative process, especially at coach and quarterback, has been more important than the final score. Not Sunday.
How Sunday looks doesn’t matter. Cleveland likes to play ugly football. Chicago likes to play ugly football. This is going to be an ugly football game. But if the Bears exit Cleveland Browns Stadium having scored more points than the building’s namesake, the entire tone of this season changes. If the Bears can get to 6-8 Sunday, they will achieve three things: (a) their first three-game win streak in years, (b) entrenchment in the wildcard discussion, and (c) one of the most impressive in-season turnarounds from any head coach in recent memory.
One could argue the Bears don’t belong in that playoff discussion but that is obviously false at this stage. The Bears don’t belong in the conversation with San Francisco or Dallas, and even this damaged Philly has earned respect. But after those three, there is a mess of mediocrity in the conference and the Bears are part of that mediocrity. They’ve dominated the Lions for 7.5 of 8 quarters. They’ve beaten Minnesota. They had 11 chances to beat the Saints with their backup quarterback. Green Bay lost to Tommy DeVito on Monday night. There is no gap between these teams. If the Bears didn’t blow those two absurd leads, they’d be betting favorites to make the tournament.
This has been a wild season, but the Browns are the last team on the 2023 schedule with a winning record. If the Bears want to make their fans believe a serious season is still possible, a win on Sunday is all it will take. No style points needed.
It is quite possibly the strangest film ever made. Here are some reasons why.
Four weeks ago, I wrote the following about the Bears’ trip to Detroit: “This game in Motown may be one of Matthew Eberflus’ last chances to show Chicago’s powers-that-be that the Bears are in good hands.” Since then, he’s shown exactly that.
This defense is playing with their eyes on fire, both by blitzing the QB fearlessly and dutifully executing assignments in coverage. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.
This Chicago offense sputters at times, but between each sputter Justin Fields, DJ Moore, and Cole Kmet are producing explosive plays that move the ball down the field in the chunks they need to set up points for their defense.
Add the two units together, and you’ve got yourself a winning recipe. Because of that, against all odds, these Chicago Bears are in the playoff hunt.
But with a 5-8 record at this point in the year, the Bears need to win every game from here on out if they want to have any hopes at a playoff run — luckily, this weekend they face a Cleveland Browns team that’s been ravaged by injuries. As you’ll see below, they’re a team in rough shape.
#Browns #Bears injury report for Wednesday: pic.twitter.com/x5uqJe1JUj
— Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) December 13, 2023
Matt Eberflus has a chance to send Chicago into a frenzy by beating a weakened team on the road and kickstarting a playoff push — everything is on the line for Eberflus from here on out, and I expect him to coach like it. That should make for some exciting Bears football, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Nick and I dive into this topic and plenty more within the latest episode of Bear With Us, including…
It’s one of our best episodes yet — check it out and let me know what you think!
Your Turn: How do you feel about this weekend?
Last night I dove deep into the Bears’ tape from Monday’s big win over Detroit — throughout the stream I talked through:
Check it out and let me know what you think!
Your Turn: Have you jumped on the Bears’ playoff bandwagon?
Matt Eberflus’ transformation into Cover 3 Mike Zimmer has been an awesome thing to watch, and Sunday’s Detroit game had plenty of examples of Eberflus’ handiwork.
On this early 3rd & 10, Chicago sends a 6-man blitz paired with man coverage on the back end. Kyler Gordon recognizes Detroit’s pre-snap short motion, passes his assignment to Jaylon Johnson, and from there the back-7 executes flawlessly. When this defense is executing together, it’s a beautiful thing to watch.
https://twitter.com/robertkschmitz/status/1734334221009797410
Gone are the days of Matt Eberflus calling static drop-7 coverages on 3rd or 4th & longs — if Flus isn’t afraid of your Quarterback, he’ll send pressure (and plenty of it) on any down.
It’d have sounded unbelievable a month ago, but Matt Eberflus may have turned the 2023 Chicago Bears around.
What was once a hapless team with a bottom-3 defense that couldn’t intentionally stop a 3rd & long has become a team that dominates the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, pressures passers into mistakes downfield, and plays a clean, balanced brand of offense that turns opening game scripts & quality field position into the points their defense needs to win games.
It hasn’t always been a pretty formula, but since September’s 0-4 start it’s been a winning one. Eberflus left Detroit weeks ago in desperate need of a statement — now, after a pair of divisional wins & a two-score pounding of the division-leading Detroit Lions, he’s made his statement is loud and clear.
This team is young & hungry. They make life hell on quarterbacks & Jared Goff is no exception — Goff’s 5 interceptions against the Bears equal the 5 interceptions he’s thrown against the rest of his opponents combined. Their super-athlete quarterback, Justin Fields, has the burst to turn a sure sack into an explosive run at any moment.
https://twitter.com/SInow/status/1733947655779156111
This team has plenty of warts, and there’ll be plenty of time to discuss them later. With the Carolina Panthers in a death spiral, every game begs questions about what to do with the #1 overall pick.
But even if for only one day, enjoy this win. After all, pending the Packers’ results , your Chicago Bears remain only two games away from an NFC Wild Card spot.
https://twitter.com/robertkschmitz/status/1733978114596987200
We’ll save more detailed discussions about player performance, this game’s meaning, and everything else for another day. For now, raise a toast to a divisional Victory Monday — Go Bears!
Nick and I recorded a podcast where we talked through the ups, the downs, the ins, and the outs of Chicago’s latest win here:
Your Turn: How do you feel about yesterday’s game?
Nov 19, 2023; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff (16) throws a pass against the Chicago Bears in the first quarter at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Lon Horwedel-USA TODAY Sports
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Like.
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The Carolina Panthers are going to earn one of the top two picks in the 2024 NFL Draft. And that means – if you believe what has been written about this coming draft class – the Chicago Bears will be able to select one of the two “elite quarterback prospects” at the top of the draft: Caleb Williams or Drake Maye. And right now, it would be near impossible to see Ryan Poles passing on the position.
Justin Fields has five weeks to change that narrative.
Do you want to know what the league, at least those I know around the league, think about the situation? I sent two texts to individuals with other teams this week. Both texts were identical: “Do you think the Bears will pass on a QB and keep Fields?”
Response 1. “No.”
Response 2. “I think they might.”
I find it hard to believe the Bears have not already made their decision on Justin Fields, but if that’s the case, there’s very little left to watch over the remaining five games. So, let’s operate under the hypothetical that a verdict has yet to be reached. That creates a lovely bit of drama around the quarterback as we head into the new year.
One thing that becomes incredibly apparent as you engage any academic discipline, whether that be film studies or molecular biology, is that it’s incredibly difficult to know EVERYTHING. Every time I rewatch the films in my areas of expertise – All That Jazz, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 12 Angry Men, etc. – there’s another film slipping through the cracks.
I didn’t see enough of the films of 2023 to compile a coherent list. But I did see about 100 films this year I had not previously seen. These were the ten most memorable for me.
Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismaki, 1989). The Blues Brothers directed by Werner Herzog. On Criterion Channel.
A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996). Stands with Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up as the most remarkable cinematic achievements of post-revolutionary Iran. Rentable on Vimeo.
The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella, 2009). The Academy Award-winning Argentine masterpiece. On Prime.
The Cancer Journals Revisited (Lana Lin, 2018). A harrowing, beautiful salute to Audre Lorde and survival. On Kanopy.
Woyzeck (Werner Herzog, 1979). The unsung collaboration of Herzog and Kinski. It is on this list because I spent months working with it and have grown to love every frame. On Kanopy.
Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese, 2023). There will be time, years, to write about this film. For now, I just encourage everyone to see it.
The Murderers are Among Us (Wolfgang Staudte, 1946). The most essential of the German “rubble films.” On Kanopy.
Rush to Judgment (Emile de Antonio, 1967). Emile de Antonio’s and Mark Lane’s stirring indictment of the Warren Commission’s conclusions. It is currently unavailable for home consumption.
The China Syndrome (James Bridges, 1979). One of the great 1970s American paranoia pictures, putting it in a corpus that includes The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, etc. Rentable everywhere.
Deadline at Dawn (Harold Clurman, 1946). The only cinematic work of Group Theater founder Harold Clurman, Dawn is a brilliant example of post-war feminist noir. Sadly, it’s also impossible to find if you’re not studying cinema at the university level or above.
As we inch ever closer towards Sunday’s game, the Chicago Bears stand a pivot point — the results of these next 5 games may very well decide the direction of the biggest Bears offseason in recent memory, and if Head Coach Matt Eberflus wants to be on the safe side of that decision he’ll need to start winning games soon.
Could the Bears spark a win streak off of a divisional home defense? Cole Kmet seems to think so, but with a hungry Detroit team visiting town on a day that’s slated for snowy, cold weather, all we should expect is a knock-down, drag-out fight.
Anything could happen — after all, if Chicago manages to finish the season 9-8 they may very well land an NFC Wild Card spot. But before us fans dare to dream of the playoffs, first Chicago must force these Lions to settle a debt Detroit incurred only a few weeks ago. The Bears had the Lions within their grasp but let them slip away… if they’re to surge this season, they’ll have to start by winning on Sunday.
There’s enough within this game to unpack that Nick & I managed to record our longest Bear With Us episode yet — in this episode, Nick and I dive into…
I know I say this often, but this really is one of our best episodes yet — check it out and let me know what you think!
Your Turn: How do you feel about this weekend’s contest?
