Hot Take Tuesday: Bears Win! Despite being the Bears.

Hot Take Tuesday: The Incoherent Rantings of a Belligerent Bears fan.

It really is amazing. The Chicago Bears go on the road and win against the Baltimore Ravens. A game just about everyone, including myself, assumed they would lose, but somehow, someway, despite all odds, the Bears came out victorious. It was such an odd game, that despite the victory, to me, it kind of feels like the Bears lost.

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Let’s be honest, the Bears tried every which way to give this game away. The special teams play was atrocious, the play-calling was suspect, and there were plenty of other problems along the way, but thanks to a couple huge plays in overtime courtesy of Jordan Howard and one Mitchell Trubisky (I decided to call him Mitchell here for effect) the Bears came out on top.

I have plenty of positives to say about the defense, but I’ll save those for quick hits. Let’s focus on special teams. First of all, I’m not going to kill the Bears on the Bobby Rainey kick return touchdown. That play was a steaming pile of you-know-what. Did the Bears touch him? No. By rule, sure, he should get up and run for the score, and yes, by rule, the defense should always play to the whistle. However, the NFL is driving home a safer game, especially on kickoffs. They are training players not to drill players who are DOWN. They don’t want ball carriers to take additional hits when they don’t have to. This is all defenders hear constantly, so when Bobby Rainey appears to be tripped up and goes down and looks to everyone watching on TV that he was tackled, you can’t fault the Bears. I won’t do it. If you want to continue to make the game safer, start saying when a player is down, he’s down. It’s time. Whether the player slips or is tackled, it doesn’t matter, but you can’t allow plays like that to happen.

What I will shred the special teams for is the horrendous coverage by the Bears punt return and of course the Pat O’Donnell shank. O’Donnell has played well this season, but you can’t have a punt like that in those circumstances, and the Michael Campanaro punt return was just inexcusable. First, O’Donnell gave Campanaro the ball 30 yards past his coverage. Andrew DePaola was the first one down and made a pathetic attempt with a terrible angle. There was zero contain on the right side, I mean zero. The Bears literally ran down the field like a bunch of pop warner kids funneling to the middle of the field and left the edge wide open. Camapnaro literally took the ball, swept left and had one defender he had to worry about- ONE (Cre’von LeBlanc, pictured above being hurdled)! Pathetic. The Bears have been focused so much on improving the special teams units that when you see a play like this, you really have to wonder about the coaching.

Chicago Bears

Speaking of coaching, how about Dowell Loggains everybody? Does he get credit for the great 2-point conversion (vs Minnesota) and the Tarik Cohen passing TD? Sure. But great play-calling is not just a couple of gimmick plays. It’s consistently putting your offense in a position to succeed and Loggains isn’t doing that. The coaching staff clearly thinks Trubisky stinks (at least right now). He has more constraints on him right now than Mike Glennon did. I’m not even sure Trubisky can grow as a QB with this offensive game plan. I think everyone understands that Trubisky is going to make mistakes, but the Bears trying to prevent him from making any is only causing him to not be able to make plays with his natural abilities and will only cause him to make more mistakes in the future.

Finally, time for an unpopular opinion. Tarik Cohen is overrated. Stop, relax. I’m not hating on the rookie. He’s a playmaker. He could become great. He’s got a great personality and he’s fun to watch, but the Bears are force feeding him way too much. Cohen made a splash week one against the Atlanta Falcons and has really been riding that game for the last five weeks. Yes, I understand he threw a touchdown pass, but so did Pat O’Donnell. I’m focused on his running game. Cohen has 50 carries for 226 yards for a 4.5 YPC clip plus, 26 catches. That’s almost 13 touches a game, but here’s the problem. Cohen’s actual impact on the running game has been negative. Cohen had the 46-yard run against the Falcons and a 36-yard run against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Let’s put those aside. That means besides those two runs, Cohen is averaging 3.0 YPC on his other 48 attempts. While that’s not completely fair to his average to take away two big gains, I’m not sure if 50 carries over six games are worth two lottery tickets. That’s a lot of plays that are going nowhere, and in many cases backward.

I’m not ripping Cohen or calling him a bust, just saying the Bears need to slow down his contributions, focus more on giving the ball to Jordan Howard and putting Cohen in more ideal situations for himself moving forward. When Cohen always runs on the outside, that means the defense is in a prime position to cheat and make it far more difficult for him. Loggains needs to be smarter with his usage.

Quick Hits

• Eddie Goldman had his best game of the year. He’s becoming a force in the middle.
• Akiem Hicks continues to be a monster, his Pro Bowl ticket is already punched, but he’s making an All-Pro type impact. Him and Goldman are a formidable duo that will cause major headaches for offenses the rest of the year.
• Danny Trevathan has been praised for his game. Yes, he played well, but he was totally swallowed up at the point of attack and allowed the Ravens some big runs. Play was mostly good, but it was inconsistent.
• I want the Bears to re-sign Kyle Fuller. There, I said it. He’s playing phenomenally well.
• How great are interceptions? I missed those.
• Cody Whitehair’s sophomore slump is becoming really alarming.
• Praise for Adrian Amos is warranted, but let’s not call him a future star after one well-played game. This is still the same player fans have been screaming to send to the bench for over a year. His play needs to be consistent for several games before anyone can say Amos has turned the corner.
• If the Bears go 7-9 does John Fox save his job? And if he does, would it warrant an extension or does he enter 2018 as a lame duck coach?
• I know Ryan Pace is a BPA drafter, but I’d like the Bears top picks next year to be an edge rusher, wide receiver, tackle and cornerback.
• Finally, Trubisky continues to improve, hopefully the Bears start building a gameplan around him that utilizes his skills and doesn’t stunt them.