The Chicago Bears were not ready to play with the expectations of winning
The Chicago Bears are a young team. With that comes issues with discipline, confidence and overall talent, as these players learn their roles and how and when to use them. Today we learned just how far away this team is in some of these areas as the Chicago Bears fell as favorites of almost six points against their big brother in the division the Green Bay Packers.
A lot of this starts with coaching. Young teams can be disciplined and confident if the environment prepares them to be so. John Fox did not have his young group prepared. The biggest play of the game was a coaching gaffe by Fox near the two-yard line. Mitchell Trubisky completed a pass to Benny Cunningham. Cunningham was near the end zone, reached out, and by the officials call, was down at the one-yard line. Fox challenged the call, saying that he was in the end zone, as he touched the pylon. It turned out that the ball bobbled in Cunningham’s hand as he extended the ball and the play ended up being a touchback for the Packers. Jordan Howard is one of the best short yardage runners in the game. It was not even worth the challenge to fret over the yard. Still, Fox had to do it, and it cost his team points he ultimately needed.
From there, a Packers offense went 7-16 on third down. They did not commit a single turnover. The Bears, however, turned it over once and had their quarterback sacked five times.
A drive that has to stand out came early in the fourth quarter, with the Bears trailing 16-13. Mitchell Trubisky hit Josh Bellamy wide open for a 46-yard touchdown that cut the lead to three. Momentum was officially on the Bears side.
The Bears defense, the spine of the team had a chance to get a three and out and give the offense the ball back with plenty of time to take the lead and seal off a win. The Packers proceeded to go on an eight play 75-yard scoring drive that saw Brett Hundley go 3-3 for 45 yards and a touchdown to go with a huge 17-yard run on a third and two.
On third down and ten, down seven with just over two minutes to play in the game, Hundley hit Davante Adams on a 42-yard pass to move the chains, and give the Bears just over a minute to tie the game.
These were the clutch moments, the impact plays and the plays that the team
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more prepared to win in the moment came away with. The Bears were not the more disciplined team, and that started with the head coach. They lost confidence early in the game, and the more talented team wound up playing to the underdog role, failing to keep the team in the game when the strongest unit on the team was on the field. Overall, this is a game that this team has to learn from, and grow from as they will surely be in this spot of being expected to win again soon.