Chicago Bears fall to Arizona, same struggles continue

The Chicago Bears lost another game, this time to the Arizona Cardinals 33-22. The same struggles we’ve seen from them throughout the season were on full display in the game.

What if I told you that the Chicago Bears outgained one of the best offenses in the NFL and owned an almost 10-minute advantage in time of possession? Also, what if I told you the Bears had almost double the first downs and averaged more yards per run?

You might think the Bears pulled off a big upset of the 9-2 Arizona Cardinals, right? Well, you’d be wrong.

The Bears continued to make mistakes that made them shoot themselves in the foot. Despite those advantages, Chicago lost again, 33-22.

One of the reasons the Cardinals had fewer yards and first downs was because the Bears were being gracious hosts and gave them the ball continually, and Arizona started a big chunk of their drives in Chicago territory.

Andy Dalton went 26/41 for 229 yards and 2 touchdowns. However, he threw four interceptions that really set the Cardinals up for success. Arizona scored after every turnover. In fact, 23 of their 33 points came from turnovers.

After two of the interceptions, the Cardinals started at the Bears’ 28. After two others they started in the red zone. When that happens, it makes scoring pretty easy.

In addition to the turnovers, we saw the Bears again commit costly penalties. It is the same old theme we’ve seen from this team led by head coach Matt Nagy.

Nagy is certainly on a red-hot seat and this game did nothing to cool it down. The team looked listless and pretty resigned to the fact that Nagy is a lame-duck coach. They looked like they were just going through the motions. In fact, the one player who did have a lot of energy and played big was running back David Montgomery.

Montgomery had 21 carries for 90 yards and a touchdown. He added 8 catches for 51 yards. His 141 yards from scrimmage was 43 percent of the total offensive yards. For most of the game, he hovered around 63 percent of the offensive total.

Through most of the game, cameras caught Nagy talking into a walkie-talkie. That fueled speculation that he was calling plays. It turned out that the communication headset in the quarterback’s helmet didn’t work. Additionally, Nagy’s headset also wasn’t working. Nagy denied after the game that he called the plays.

The fact that people speculated during the game whether Nagy was calling plays or not shows the dysfunction that surrounds the Chicago Bears.

The Bears’ record now stands at 4-8 and all talk of playoffs should end. The team’s concern now should be to develop young players like Justin Fields, Larry Borom, Teven Jenkins, etc. With the Detroit Lions winning their game, they are now just 2.5 games behind the Bears. There is a chance this madness could result in the Bears owning the top pick of next year’s draft and having to hand it over to the New York Giants.

The lack of action by ownership on the fates of general manager Ryan Pace and Fields will make the final five weeks more difficult. Everyone knows something needs to be done so things will deteriorate until something is finally done.  Perhaps when the Bears are officially eliminated something will happen. Until then, expect to see more of what we saw in their latest loss.