Chicago Bears: 3 Duds from Week 8 vs. 49ers

The Chicago Bears fell to the San Francisco 49ers at home in their Week 8 matchup by a score of 33-22 in what was a complete second-half meltdown, mainly on the defensive side of the ball. Things were looking promising after a strong first half, but everything went downhill after the last ten seconds of the second quarter.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the Chicago Bears third straight loss

Chicago Bears Week 8 Dud No. 1: Chicago Bears defense

While most of this year’s blame has gone on the offense, today’s game showed that the defense is not what it used to be as they completely fell apart in the second half. It started with the fifty-yard bomb to Deebo Samuel with ten seconds left to go in the second quarter. Kindle Vildor was in single coverage and Samuel ran straight over the top of him for a huge gain. After that play, once the second half got going, the Bears could not stop the 49ers’ offense as Jimmy Garoppolo ad Elijah Mitchell were able to carve through the defense.

This is concerning and is the same thing we saw last year when the offense actually looked good. The offense was rolling throughout most of the first half and some of the second half, and Justin Fields had arguably his best game as a starter. Last year, once Mitchell Trubisky was put back in as a starter, the offense started to roll and the Bears were scoring near 30 points per game over a four-game stretch. In that time, though, the defense started looking suspect and teams like the Lions and Jaguars were scoring too many points for this defense to be allowing.

While the offense was not perfect today, it looked a lot better than we have seen over the last couple of weeks. The Bears were able to get it going on the ground and through the air, and they were outperforming the 49ers in the first half. Once the defense was worn down and they could not stop the 49ers at all, the offense started to stall as they had to play catchup.

It is unfortunate when the defense looks dysfunctional as we have gotten used to gritty and strong performances, even when they are battling injuries like Khalil Mack and Eddie Jackson. Hopefully, this is not normal going forward and the defense gets back to their grove next week.