Three things learned from the Bears on Monday: With some fixes, ‘we can really, really make a run at it’
After Sunday night’s 27-24 nail-biter of a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, some of the Bears suggested that a narrow victory like that could be used as sort of a wake-up call.
“Good little nip in the butt,” nickel corner Kyler Gordon said after the game.
Guard Jonah Jackson said Monday, “I wouldn’t say we needed an ugly win, but a win’s a win at the end of the day. It’s a credit to the guys that we’ve got in this locker room.”
The Bears secured the win when Caleb Williams lobbed a deep pass to Colston Loveland and Cairo Santos kicked a walk-off 38-yard field goal.
Coach Ben Johnson said he was grateful for the win, “but there’s a certain standard that we want to hit week in and week out, and I think the good teams, even when they get victories, if they don’t hit those benchmarks, then that leaves some more to be desired.
“And I felt that from our crew, which is a good thing. That’s the next evolution of this team, not just that we win, but the manner in which we play.”
Bears defensive back Cam Lewis was formerly a member of the Buffalo Bills, a franchise on a run of seven straight playoff appearances.
He said the Bears’ performance Sunday showed him something.
“It wasn’t the prettiest,” Lewis said. “We didn’t play our best ball as a collective unit, like a whole team. Special teams, we had a lot of penalties. Offense, we turn the ball over a little bit, and we still pull out a win. So that’s what you expect from a good football team.
“And once we put it all together, it’s like, man, we can really, really make a run at it.”
Here are three things we learned from the Bears on Monday.
1. Is Caleb Williams’ protection vulnerable?
The Bucs used the seventh-highest blitz rate (63.4%) of any team this season and the second-highest the Bears have faced since the Minnesota Vikings in Week 2 (79%).
In the second quarter Sunday night, that aggressiveness paid dividends, playing a role in four Williams interceptions, but protection breakdowns by the Bears shared in the blame.
On first-and-10 with 7 minutes, 7 seconds remaining, D’Andre Swift picked up linebacker Josiah Trotter blitzing up the middle, and left guard Joe Thuney turned to him, too.
When Thuney moved, nickel corner Keionte Scott had a clear shot on his blitz and forced Williams to throw the ball away in a hurry.
Williams didn’t put enough on the ball to have it sail cleanly out of bounds, and cornerback Zyon McCollum toe-tapped on the sideline while securing an interception.
With 43 seconds left before halftime, linebacker Alex Anzalone and defensive tackle Vita Vea executed a twist. Anzalone pushed left guard Jonah Jackson to the ground as Jackson appeared to get his leg caught up with Darnell Wright.
Williams threw his third interception — and second to McCollum — with Anzalone bearing down on him.
“It all comes back to us protecting him up front, keeping him comfortable,” Jackson said. “Not letting guys get through and have to make him go on the run and not be able to be as decisive as we’d like him to be. We’ll clean that up.”
There were instances last week where the Seattle Seahawks disguised blitzes or simply beat the protection. But Williams handled it better with throwaways and checkdowns.
Ben Johnson said, “No,” there’s no problem he has to address with protection.
“We’ve got to block it better,” Johnson said. “Those were pressures we were prepared for going into the game. And so we have to block it better.”
2. Williams can learn from near disaster.
Better blocking or not, it doesn’t absolve Williams of his career-high four interceptions.
Williams, who had one interception over his previous five games and had just seven in 17 starts last year, was uncharacteristically pick-prone.
“When you look at the four interceptions, there are a couple where we didn’t see the coverage quite as well as we would’ve liked, and there’s a couple where we’re making attempts to avoid disaster and we didn’t quite do what we needed to do with the ball in terms of burning it and living on for the next play,” Ben Johnson said. “I know he was trying to dirt or throw away a couple of those, and we just got to do a better job of getting that job done.
“The other one’s just the coverage recognition part of it. That’s what a Todd Bowles defense is known for, and they can make it challenging.”
3. The running game will go under the microscope.
For a coach who prides himself on the run, it just hasn’t popped like it used to.
Each of the last five games has produced an average of fewer than 4 yards per rushing attempt, and Sunday night’s average was 3.3.
“Over the course of nine games, there’s only been three of those nine where we’re averaging over 4 yards a carry,” Johnson said. “Which, simply in our terms, it’s just not good enough right now.
“And those guys know that, particularly as the weather continues to turn into Bear weather, we’re going to need to lean on that run game more and it’s going to need to come through for us.”
Since Week 6 against the Atlanta Falcons, the Bears haven’t hit a carry of 10-plus yards more than twice in a game, including one (Seahawks) and none (Buccaneers) over the last two weeks.
Johnson, who has given the players the rest of the week off, has pledged to figure it out over the bye.
“I’ve got to look at, is it the fact that we’re not getting as many explosives in the run game right now? Is that why the average is low?” he said. “Or is it, we’re just not moving the line of scrimmage? What are those factors?”
Of course, the running backs should be looked at as well.
D’Andre Swift matched a season-low average of 2.6 yards (same as Week 8 in Seattle) on just 12 attempts.
He’s had to shoulder the bulk of the running game without Kyle Monangai, who has missed his fifth consecutive game with toe and thumb injuries.
“Kyle’s a big part of that running game and I think he’s proven his worth over the last year and a half,” Johnson said. “So like I said last week, whenever we’re able to get him back on the field, it’s going to make us a better team and certainly a better running game.”