Chicago Bears blow game in 4th quarter to Lions, but positives still exist

Bad calls. Two words can describe what happened in the disastrous fourth quarter of the Chicago Bears’ loss to the Detroit Lions. Bad calls by officiating, bad calls defensively, and even bad calls offensively. That’s how you lose 31-30 after taking a 24-10 lead into the final 15 minutes of the game. That’s how you waste another excellent game from Justin Fields.

Yes, the pick-six by Jeff Okduah off his former teammate as a back-breaker and several bad calls that had Twitter believing the fix was in didn’t help. The Cairo Santos missed PAT after the electric TD run by Fields hurt for sure, but still, the organization let the Lions back into the game, and it ultimately paid off in defeat.

12/20 for 167 yards through the air with two touchdowns, both to Cole Kmet, who has had a nice stretch as of late, and 147 yards on the ground, including the touchdown run where Fields made Okudah look rather foolish. Only Okudah got the last laugh with the win.

Defensively, if Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus haven’t noticed, Alan Williams’s group looks out of place and deprived of talent all across. Thank goodness for the amount of draft picks and cap space this team has; it’s going to take a complete overhaul in the offseason to find whatever young talent has hit the market and bring them in to give this team a chance to break the losing grip.

The Chicago Bears have no choice but to attack free agency and the NFL Draft

Money has to be spent in free agency, and if the Bears have to trade down to get more picks in the draft, so be it. There are no more excuses. Justin Fields is doing what he can, but this man is not going to win many games unless the talent around him improves. That includes who currently exists on the roster right now.

Also, with nine penalties for 86 yards, the Bears are not good enough to overcome that many errors. Granted, some of them brought visions of Bill Leavy and Super Bowl XL (Don’t remind Seahawks fans), but the Bears shouldn’t even have had to be in that situation. They had a chance to win and make a statement, but this franchise is not good enough yet. They need more pieces to build something.

Thankfully, they have the quarterback to build around and a few nice pieces on the offense, such as Teven Jenkins (inactive against DET), Kmet, Darnell Mooney, and Khalil Herbert. Even Chase Claypool can be an asset. Besides that, so many people can be replaced, which also goes for defense. A complete reboot is required.

A disaster is the best way to describe the game against Detroit. But the one positive is that Justin Fields will not back down from the challenge. The right man is in the most critical position; now, the front office needs to open up their pocketbook instead of continuing to count the money and actually spend the money to bring better players to the roster.