Chicago Bears: Failing to meet fans’ high expectations
By Nathan Burns
The Chicago Bears have got off to a rough start to the season
The Chicago Bears took on the Los Angeles Rams, kicking off the 1st weekend of Sunday night football. The Rams ended up dominating Chicago with a final score of 34-14. The following week, the Bears had defeated Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals.
What started as a great game, nearly took a turn for the worse. The Bears were up 20-3 with a little under seven minutes left, before almost blowing the whole lead. The ending score of the game was 20-17 with the Bears just barely holding on. Last week’s game vs the Browns was one of the most disgusting performances I’ve ever seen from the Bears.
First-round QB Justin Fields made his highly anticipated debut as the starter last week and it didn’t go quite as planned. Fields was sacked nine times during the 26-6 loss against the Cleveland Browns. Defensive star Myles Garrett ended up having 4.5 (career-high) sacks alone. The Bears had no answer for Garrett and the rest of the Brown defensive front.
Fields completed just 6 out of his 20 attempted passes for a completion percentage of 30%. He averaged 3.4 yards per completion and had a QB rating of 41.3.
This is a wake-up call many Bears fans needed. Justin Fields has so much potential but you can’t expect him to turn around the team overnight. He will take time to develop but this goes to show that no one in the NFL is ever a guarantee.
Redemption for Robert Quinn
One of the very few highlights from the Bears so far has been pass rusher, Robert Quinn. Ryan Pace signed Quinn to a five-year $70 million dollar contract with $30 million guaranteed after his 2019 season with the Dallas Cowboys. With a big contract like that, comes massive expectations.
The problem for Quinn was that he failed to meet any of them last season. RQ failed to show any real production or consistency. Fast forward to this season, and Quinn is one of the very few highlights from the team.
In three games this season, Quinn has racked up a total of four sacks. That number already doubles his total amount from the whole previous season. With all the bad things there are to say about the Bears, you have to give credit when credit is due. Robert Quinn is having a bounce-back year and has been one of the key bright spots on the team.