Bear Down, Chicago Bears
Credit: The Checkdown
An extra newsletter this week because of the Monday game! (If you didn’t want this, I apologize, but I’d appreciate your engagement anyway.)
Bonus thread: What you liked and didn’t like about last night’s game—give a letter grade, a positive, and a negative:
Comment here! Everybody, comment.
The road win reaffirmed the title of this blog—Still Gotta Come Through Chicago—as Bears fans drowned out Redskins fans with “Let’s Go Bears” chants early and often. Mitch Trubisky looked like last year’s Trubisky. Three weeks ago, before the start of the 2019 season, that would’ve seemed like a bad thing. Tonight it feels like a good thing. The defense looked like this year’s defense, because comparing them to last year’s is no longer necessary and Ha-Ha Clinton Dix, who wasn’t around in 2018, played a big part in last night’s win.
The Bears dominated in every which way in the first half. Khalil Mack is at a stage where numbers don’t do him justice. Every single play, he’s either held (whether it’s called or not), double or triple teamed, or wreaking havoc on the opposing quarterback. Last night made the $23.5 million dollars the Bears will pay him this year feel like a bargain.
Ha-Ha Clinton Dix, who turned down more money elsewhere (including Washington) had two interceptions, accounting for 40 percent of the total takeaways the defense would force. Takeaways are often chalked up to luck, but when a four-man rush is creating that much pressure, and the defensive backs are jumping routes as they were Monday, luck’s got nothing to do with it.
Trubisky was great in the first half. He started off slow, making some of those frustratingly just-out-of-reach inaccurate passes. Then he settled in, as the entire city hoped he would this week, and delivered some seriously impressive passes. The pass to Gabriel was overshadowed by the catch and the ensuing replay review.
That’s on-the-run and under pressure, by far the best throw he’s made this season.
He was 20 of 23 for 173 yards with 3 TDs heading into the half, then faltered in the second with that awful interception at the goal line. That’s the sort of stuff that just has to stop if the Bears are going to beat good teams. Yes, Josh Norman was holding Allen Robinson, but that throw didn’t even make the end zone. The conventional wisdom is that you throw fades in the end zone that only your receiver can catch. Well, that throw was made so that only Norman, who was out of position, could catch it.
In a vacuum, Trubisky had just an OK night. But with context, that’s by far the best he’s looked all year, and definitely something to build on. We know at this point that Trubisky isn’t Pat Mahomes or Deshaun Watson. It’s completely reasonable to be upset with how the Bears handled that draft. But for the purpose of this season, the only Quarterback Bears fans should be comparing Mitch to is Mitch. If he’s getting better, that’s all we can ask for.
His performance has also become so scrutinized that we can never assign blame to anyone else for his struggles. The O-Line play improved throughout the game, but in the first half, there were times that Trubisky didn’t have more than a couple seconds to get rid of the ball. If you can’t protect him for a reasonable amount of time, it’s not reasonable to criticize him for not completing passes down the field.
The play calling was better. Montgomery had 67 yards on 13 carries and was the workhorse he needed to be at the end of the game. He’s a better Jordan Howard in that he’ll take the yardage given to him, but can also make a bigger play than what the blocking dictates. Tarik Cohen, who had not had a good year up until this point, finally found some space on a screen and another hand off.
The Bears wide receivers finally got a chance to prove their worth. Gabriel had 3 touchdowns, and reminded us that he’s one of the faster players in the entire league. Allen Robinson was reliable as usual, catching 6 balls for 60 yards, despite Trubisky irritatingly staring him down for the majority of those.
Gabriel left with a concussion, which was a part of the near-disastrous second half. Hopefully he’ll be okay, and same with Akiem Hicks, who left with a knee injury. Hicks already had a brace on that knee coming into the game. With Bilal Nichols out, losing Hicks would be a real tough break for the Bears heading into next week’s division match-up with the Vikings.
“Hopefully he’ll be okay,” Nagy to reporters regarding Hicks.
I think we all would’ve liked for the Bears to have kept the foot on the accelerator more in the second half, but overall it was an encouraging and good win.
All in all, albeit against the dreadful Redskins, this felt like the team we were all so ready to watch heading into the year.
Take this momentum back to Soldier Field for the Vikings next week. Another pseudo must-win game there. Let’s get to the bye week feeling good and healthy at 4-1.
P.S. I love Khalil Mack but if he keeps this up we may need to have a SCGTC sit down with him to let him know this is not acceptable, by any means.
Still Gotta Come Through Chicago! Thanks for reading, and sorry for the extra email this week. See you all on Monday.