The Chicago Bears kept their faint playoff hopes alive by beating the Dallas Cowboys and here are five takeaways from the game.
For the Chicago Bears, their struggling offense suddenly sparkled in Week 14. They were clicking on defense as well (until garbage time). They dominated the Dallas Cowboys 31-24 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated.
This is the offense we all expected when the 2019 season began. All aspects of the unit were playing together and playing well. The running game helped open things up for the passing game.
The Bears still have a long way to go before they have a realistic shot at the playoffs. However, it’s nice to see how hard they’re still playing. They could have just given up when they had a stretch of four consecutive games. They didn’t, and now they’ve won three games in a row and four of their last five. They now stand at 7-6 for the season, and they keep hope alive.
At the start of the game, it appeared that this might be a difficult game for the Bears. The Cowboys had a 17-play drive. On that drive, Dak Prescott threw the ball six times and Ezekiel Elliott ran the ball eight times. The drive ended with an Elliott two-yard run for a touchdown. On the play, linebacker Roquan Smith suffered a potentially serious pectoral injury and missed the rest of the game.
After that drive, though, the Bears shut Dallas down. They had five three-and-outs, a missed field goal, a turnover on downs, and the end of a half. They did score 17 points late in the game but the Bears were up big by then.
If the Bears offense played just a bit as well as it looked in this game they would be thick in the race. The situation is they are on the outside looking in, and they have to beat the Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, and the Minnesota Vikings, all currently in the playoff picture, to have a chance.
Here are my takeaways from the Chicago Bears’ victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Week 14.