Hot Take Tuesday: Perspective People!

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

The Chicago Bears haven’t won a game all month.

After a 3-1 September, the Bears fell to the New England Patriots 38-31 and dropped their record to 3-3. And yes, that means the Bears are winless in October.

In short, that’s not ideal, but at the same time, the Bears lost to the Patriots. You know, that team that loses 3 or 4 games a year (sometimes none). Sure, the game was at home, but it’s the Patriots. Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, last I heard, they were both pretty good.

I’m not saying the loss isn’t a big deal. The Bears lost the game (and deserved to lose the game) and if this team is truly trying to reach the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade, they can’t let the losses pile up.

The key thing to keep in mind here is that the Bears are 3-3. If you listen to fans on twitter or several that call into sports talk shows, you’d be convinced the Bears are 1-5 or 0-6. They are 3-3 and they have two winnable games coming up. So, in short, settle down, people.

Keep Perspective

I cannot stress perspective enough. Let’s rewind 365 days. The Bears had a losing record and had an offense that looked like it came out of 1954. Now, the Bears are sitting at .500 with an offense where their quarterback played terrible and still amassed 400 yards of offense and three touchdowns. And again, Mitch Trubisky did not play well.

Let’s take a minute and look at this offense. Trubisky’s accuracy was erratic. The offensive line didn’t exactly open up gaping holes for the running backs. The wide receivers dropped passes, in fact, Josh Bellamy took a perfectly thrown ball from Trubisky and turned it into an interception. The entire offensive unit struggled, and yet, they dropped 31 points and came up a yard short from forcing overtime against the defending AFC Champions.

The fact that fans are ticked about the outcome against the Patriots shows just how far this team has come. This team has genuine expectations. Fans expect them to win games against very good football teams.

While I’m optimistic about this team, I’m also the first to admit that they didn’t play well and deserved to lose, that being said, they came oh so close to actually pulling it off.

Defensively, this team has not been the same team the last two games that they were the first four. It doesn’t take a genius to see that. Khalil Mack was a non factor. The front seven got little to no pass rush on Tom Brady and the secondary left some players wide open. Overall, it was a rotten performance by the defense.

What’s the silver lining there? 24 points. The Bears defense, as bad as they looked, only allowed 24 points to Tom Brady and the Patriots. Going into the game, if someone said that Brady’s squad would only score 24 points on offense, every Bears’ fan would have signed up for that. Unfortunately, the Bears melted down on special teams.

The special teams were a special kind of fiasco, but I’m not pointing the finger there, nor am I going to scream and yell. Special teams were dreadful, but they’ve been solid this season and if anyone thinks the special teams cost the team the game, they’re wrong. The whole team played like they deserve to lose, and that’s what they did.

But again, it does not change the fact that they had a chance against the Patriots at the very end, and played arguably their worst game of the season. Perspective.

Quick Hits

• Adrian Amos continues to be bad. If the Bears had a viable back up, he would be benched.
• Speaking of bad, Leonard Floyd is also not making an impact. If he doesn’t improve, Ryan Pace will have a really hard decision to make about his fifth-year option. I would still lean towards the team picking it up, but by no means is that a slam dunk.
• Bilal Nichols needs to see a lot more snaps. He’s tremendous. What another late round gem from Pace.
• Eric Kush’s poor blocking may be the reason Trubisky’s hail mary pass ended at the 1 instead of in the end zone because Mitch couldn’t put everything behind the ball. Enough with the rotation with James Daniels. It’s time to have the rookie play every series.
• Jordan Howard is still struggling. At this point, I don’t expect him to get much better than this. Something is missing, Howard isn’t breaking tackles and running with the same patience as past years.
• The Bears defense is pretty good when Khalil Mack isn’t impactful but it’s elite when he is. He needs to get his ankle healthy and get back to being Khalil Mack.
• Mitch Trubisky is one of the most dynamic runners in the NFL. Not running QBs, runners. He’s not the fastest, he’s not the shiftiest, he’s not powerful, but he has a combination of all of that which makes him a major threat to defenses.
• New York Jets. Buffalo Bills. Win the next two and the Bears are in great shape heading into the second half of the season.