Rozner: Sloppy Chicago Bears drop heartbreaker in Jersey

It was almost a Miracle in the Meadowlands.

Not quite Bob Thomas-type stuff, but an extraordinary rally got the Chicago Bears to overtime Sunday against the Giants and gave them a chance to put one in the history books.

Instead, you can go ahead and flush this one.

Amid the swirling rain and wind in New Jersey, the Bears played a game they would like to quickly forget.

Yes, the comeback was miraculous and the Bears will claim moral victories from this one. They displayed great character in refusing to quit when it looked so utterly hopeless, and that's a credit to the players and the organization.

"I'm proud of them for fighting to the end. Not every team will do that," said head coach Matt Nagy. "We have to figure out how to learn from this.

"We need to play better and we need to coach better. There's way too much parity in this league."

Yeah, the bottom line is with 10 days to prepare they lost to a 3-8 Giants team that had captured a single game at home this year.

There was so much bad that you can pick whatever displeases you the most after the Bears gave away a five-game win streak.

You can start just about anywhere, but Nagy looked like a rookie head coach with some odd timeout decisions and some unfortunate play-calling with a backup quarterback.

The worst was a timeout on a New York third-and-23 with time ticking down at the end of the first half. The Giants were willing to let the second quarter go quietly when Nagy waited 30 seconds and then called a timeout with 16 seconds left, trying to force a New York punt.

On the previous Bears series, with a 14-7 lead late in the first half and the ball on their own 19, on second-and-12 Chase Daniel dropped back to pass and was sacked, an unnecessary play call at the time.

After a punt and a pair of Bears sacks, the Giants let the clock run and appeared ready to kneel down or hand it off to run out the half.

With time stopped, however, a Saquon Barkley run for 22 on a give-up play when the Bears missed several tackles - think Thomas Jones just before the half in the Meadowlands in 2006 - and a pass for a first down set up a 57-yard field goal that cut the lead to 14-10.

"That kick at halftime meant a lot," said Akiem Hicks, who had a phenomenal game with a William Perry TD run, 6 tackles, a sack and a deflected pass. "That 3 points kept them alive and kept them in the game."

It made zero sense considering the way the Bears had played to that point, and the Giants went on to score 17 straight. The 3-8 Eli Manning Giants.

"It's third-and-long and you get an opportunity to maybe go after them with the punt-block team," Nagy said. "I take responsibility for that."

There were plenty of overly aggressive offensive calls, especially when the Bears had found their running game. That's a positive. Nagy finally committed to the run in the first half and the Bears had some success with Jordan Howard.

But Nagy can't seem to help himself when it comes to the creative side, and after Howard had run 13 times for 68 yards in the first two quarters, he had only 3 carries the rest of the game for 8 yards, 7 on a single rush in overtime.

But there's plenty of blame to go around.

The Bears' defense allowed the Giants to go 5-for-10 on third down in the second half and OT.

The Giants ran for 141 yards, when the Bears came in tops in the league at only 81 yards per game.

Bears linebackers had trouble covering Giants receivers.

Eight penalties were costly.

There were too many drops by Bears receivers.

And Daniel was downright terrible with a pick-6 and another interception that should have been a Bears touchdown to Tarik Cohen, who had a superb day, throwing a touchdown pass and catching 12 for 156 yards.

"That's one I want back," Daniel said of missing Cohen for the TD. "That was screaming 'open' for sure."

Daniel was also sacked five times and fumbled four times, including three on the overtime drive that consistently put the Bears in trouble.

On a wet day, the Bears had 5 fumbles while the Giants had 1, and Daniel had trouble all afternoon catching shotgun snaps - some of them off target - from center Cody Whitehair.

"It was all me," Daniel said. "Listen, Cody's worried about blocking 350-pound linemen on every snap. I gotta catch the football, bottom line.

"The No. 1 job of the quarterback is taking care of the football, and I didn't do that today. I let my team down. It's sad because I pride myself on taking care of the football."

Nagy and GM Ryan Pace will get blamed for playing Daniel instead of Mitch Trubisky, as if they were trying to steal one with a backup QB against a bad team, but it's nonsense.

A separated throwing shoulder is not a small matter for a QB, and if Trubisky could have played the Bears would have played him.

The truth is the Bears just played an awful game against an awful team and they deserved to lose, despite the great comeback.

"It's hard to win in this league, especially on the road. I knew this was gonna be a tough game," Daniel said. "It's gonna take me awhile to get over this."

If you're looking for the bright side, the Bears are 8-4 and the 6-5-1 Vikings fell at New England, while the 4-7-1 Packers lost at home to Arizona as a 14-point favorite and fired their head coach after the game.

So, ya know, there's that.