Chicago Bears: It may be time to panic after another loss

After an embarrassing implosion, the Chicago Bears’ season may be on the brink of collapse.

Well, that was an experience. After the Chicago Bears looked so bad on offense in Week 7 on Monday Night Football, they had a short week to prepare for the New Orleans Saints in Week 8. It looked like they did a good job of forgetting the debacle and concentrated on beating the Saints.

The Bears started out well. After the Saints used their opening drive to go down the field in 6:47 and hit a field goal to take an early lead, the Bears offense had a seven-minute drive to also get a field goal.

After the Saints marched 79 yards but missed a field goal on their second drive, the Bears offense showed the fans how an effective offense makes this team look great. The Bears went 80 yards on just four plays. Two of them were a 50-yard connection to Darnell Mooney and a 24-yard touchdown pass to Allen Robinson.

The Chicago Bears offense showing a quick-strike offense? That was nice. Later in the second quarter, Cairo Santos hit another field goal and the Bears held a 13-3 lead and looking good. That’s where things started to go wrong. The Bears did a squib kick so time could come off. The Saints had 1:39 to try to score. For them, it was no problem.

For some reason, the defense played well off the receivers, giving quarterback Drew Brees passes underneath. He took what they gave him and marched down the field. On a third-and-13, with the secondary still giving Saints receivers a big cushion and Brees connected with Alvin Kamara for 12 yards. That was enough for the Saints to go for it on fourth down and Kamara converted with a seven-yard run.

The Bears didn’t adjust and Brees and the Saints marched down the field quickly. Then Brees connected with Jared Cook on a 16-yard touchdown pass. Suddenly it was 13-10 at halftime. The Bears had the lead but the Saints had the momentum.

The Chicago Bears implosion continued in the second half.

To start the second half, the Bears reverted back to form. The offense struggled and the team suffered a huge implosion. They looked like a youth football team that didn’t know what they were doing.

They ran two plays to get another first down, but things went down from there. There was another frustrating delay of game penalty when fullback Ryan Nall lined up in the wrong place. Nick Foles tried to get him in the right place when David Montgomery thought Foles was talking to him. He then moved but Foles got him to go back and get Nall into the right place. While he was doing that, he completely lost track of the play clock. Charles Leno was yelling at Foles to run the play but Foles didn’t do it in time. The Bears lost five yards.

The next play resulted in a sack for a nine-yard loss. The Bears had to punt, but not before another error. Cordarrelle Patterson committed a false start, pinning the Bears back to their own 13.

The special teams failed on this play. Deonte Harris returned the punt 42 yards to the Bears’ 16-yard line. The defense was stout again, however, giving up just a field goal. The game was tied 13-13, but things were just getting worse for the Bears.

On the Bears’ next drive, all hell broke loose and we saw the team completely shattered. Foles completed a five-yard pass to Robinson, but things got bizarre. Apparently, Javon Wims lost his mind.

As the play progressed, Wims went up to Chauncey Gardner-Johnson. He ripped Gardner-Johnson’s mouthpiece the punched him twice on the helmet. That started a brawl and when the dust cleared Wims found himself ejected from the game. It was a very stupid move by Wims and if he gets cut we shouldn’t feel sorry for him. The Bears have enough problems without having a fourth-string wide receiver causing trouble.

Nagy spoke about the incident after the game, per the team’s official website:

"We’ve talked to him and told him that that’s not how things go here. One of Javon’s strengths is his character, who he is as a person. He’s since apologized, but that’s not … you don’t have that. There’s no part of that in this game. Again, I still haven’t seen it, but from what I’ve heard, it’s not good. That’s not how we roll here."

Of course, when the Bears started up again, Foles dropped back and threw an interception. The Saints hit a field goal to take a 16-13 lead. Even though it was just a three-point lead, it felt like a lot bigger lead.

The implosion continued.

On the next drive, the Bears got seven yards on two plays and looked poised to start moving the ball. Again, though, a delay of penalty stalled the drive. The number of delay of game penalties this offense takes is astounding. The two teams then traded turnover-on-downs drives.

To start the fourth quarter, the Saints marched 64 yards on seven plays and culminated with a Brees to Taysom Hill seven-yard touchdown pass. The Bears were down 23-13 and all seemed lost.

The offense finally came back

Of course, the Bears being the Bears, when things seem the dourest, they suddenly come back. They went on an 11-play, 62-yard drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Mooney. With 3:35 left in the game, they were down just three.

The defense then came up big (again). They held the Saints to a three-and-out and the Bears offense got the ball back. Foles and company responded (shakily), and Santos hit his third field goal, this one for 51 yards, to tie the game and send it into overtime.

It’s amazing how the offense usually responds when things seem hopeless. It makes one think how good this team could be if the offense was consistent. The two teams swapped punts before Brees led the Saints on a seven-play, 52-yard drive that ended in a game-winning field goal.

Things don’t get much easier next week as the Bears travel to Tennessee to take on the Titans. Nagy seemed deflated in his postgame press conference. He may be at his wit’s end. He has to figure something out quickly, however, or we’ll see a complete collapse and the Chicago Bears miss out on the playoffs again.