Some fans are leaving the Chicago Bears' first game against the Green Bay Packers with more than ten questions. However, we will try to limit to just ten for the purposes of this article. What are the biggest takeaways and questions from the Bears struggling to get anything going once again?
10. What will happen if the Chicago Bears lose Kyler Gordon for multiple weeks?
Kyler Gordon appears to have a serious hand injury. He had been playing well so far this season now that his role had been reduced to the slot. However, the odds of him returning this week are low. So, now what? The Chicago Bears are going to turn to Josh Blackwell.
They kept him because he is the backup in the slot, and he is their best option in the slot. Jaylon Johnson is a disaster in the slot, and while Tyique Stevenson had played the slot before, he had transferred out of Georgia because he wanted to play the outside. Terrel Smith has no experience in the slot as well, so the process of elimination tells us who it is going to be.
Blackwell played 10 snaps in the absence of Gordon. He played 134 snaps last season, with 125 snaps in the slot. As a rookie UDFA, he surprised many by not only getting on the field but showing well.
Would it be funny if a UDFA ended up stealing the job from the first pick in the Ryan Poles era? Fans can only hope that Blackwell is that good now.
9. Will the Chicago Bears lose confidence in Justin Fields?
You can blame the playcalling. You can blame the offensive line. Chase Claypool was bad, and Velus Jones was inactive. You can definitely blame the skill players and Ryan Poles. However, you also have to blame Justin Fields for what is happening with this team.
At some point, the quarterback comes in and changes the identity of the team. Joe Burrow turned Zac Taylor from a laughing stock coach to a respected one, and he took the Bengals from a losing franchise to a winning one. They had the pieces to build around him, but the mentality has always followed his lead. The same with Jalen Hurts and Josh Allen. Who Justin Fields is always compared to.
The reality is that Fields is not playing well enough. He does not have his eyes downfield enough, and he bails out of the pocket too fast. As much as you want to say it is a lack of trust in his skill players and offensive line, he also bypasses the basic stuff too often to say that he can be trusted consistently.
Can he play better? Will things slow down, or sometimes for Fields will they speed up? Is this the last year he starts for this franchise?
8. Are the Chicago Bears safeties underrated?
This is the smallest glimmer of hope for a team that does not have much to get excited about. The Chicago Bears have some pretty talented safeties when you break it down. Eddie Jackson did allow a touchdown to Romeo Doubs, but that was more of the Chicago Bears getting out schemed.
Beyond that, Jackson was one of the best players on the field. When you think of the Green Bay Packers passing attack, they had 243 yards, and 153 were yards after the catch. Jackson kept the lid on things.
Jaquan Brisker was close to being inactive but played. He also was one of the better players on the field in this game. If it were not for Brisker and Jackson, this team would have been an even worse hole. They are small wins, but there has to be something positive to take away from this game. One of them is the play of the safeties.
7. When will Roschon Johnson become the Chicago Bears running back one?
The thought going into the regular season was that Khalil Herbert would lead the Chicago Bears rushing attack. However, because he struggles in pass protection and is not an inside runner, there are limitations to his game, and the thought was that he would always end up back in a committee or playing the change of pace role.
The question is whether the Chicago Bears discovered this before the second week of the season. They have been slow to move Roschon Johnson along, but the time seems to be coming for him to get serious work, and this is only week two.
Johnson is not as explosive as Herbert. However, with this poor offensive line, the Bears need someone who can get downhill, push the pile, and fall forward; that is Roschon Johnson. If they are trailing, the best pass catcher and pass protector would be Roschon Johnson.
The Chicago Bears need to get Johnson more involved in the next game. He got third down work early in the game and did not get early down work until the second half. Is it already time to get him on the field early and potentially often? The answer is probably yes.
6. Were the Chicago Bears linebackers bad investments?
Tremaine Edmunds and T.J. Edwards were the big signings this offseason. Edwards looked like a savvy move, but coupled with Edmunds, it looked like overkill and a lot of resources dedicated to the position. So, the Chicago Bears needed to get some game-changing type of play out of this duo. That simply did not happen in week one.
Edmunds was fine and made a play or two. However, he also hesitated on a play or two and plays that could have been losses ended up as small gains. These are the plays that he has to make to justify that salary. Edwards was left out to dry by Aaron Jones in coverage.
Edwards was solid behind the Eagles' elite defensive line, but with the Chicago Bears not getting to the quarterback fast enough, he was exposed. To pay that much, the Chicago Bears duo at linebacker needed so much more than what we saw on Sunday. Were either of them worth it, or were the Chicago Bears just wrong from the start?
5. Why did the Chicago Bears not target D.J. Moore more?
After the preseason, this is the most shocking. No, we did not expect D.J. Moore to turn every screen into a touchdown. However, the Chicago Bears targeting Moore on a screen for the first drive of the preseason was supposed to be a sign that this offense would run through Moore.
However, the first quarter ended, and you forgot that Moore was on the team. It took until a few minutes into the second quarter for him to catch a pass, and he hardly did anything after a quick sequence of catches.
This simply cannot be what the Chicago Bears do this season. They have to target Moore, no matter who is covering him. He has to be given the chance to make plays. Beyond that, where were the screens, or even an end around just to get him going? When he touched the ball, he helped move the chains and get the team in scoring range. That should happen more. Hopefully, the team learned their lesson and this change will happen soon.
4. Will the Chicago Bears run defense actually improve this year?
As we noted, the Chicago Bears' pass defense was actually ok. Aaron Jones did so much damage after the catch, and the real issue was that the defensive line was still a major issue for the Chicago Bears.
One thing that has to be alarming is that the run defense did not look much better despite serious investment in it. The Chicago Bears opted against pass rush for it. Rasheem Green and DeMarcus Walker were both better run defenders than pass rushers. They also fit the scheme of Matt Eberflus.
They were two of the worst players in Sunday's game. They passed on Jalen Carter and drafted Zacch Pickens and Gervon Dexter, who struggled to get on the field in their rookie debuts. Andrew Billings made some noise, but as we already mentioned, the linebacker play could have been much better.
They invested so much in getting better in this area, but Jones 4.6 yards per carry and only needed nine carries. The push upfront was skewing heavily to the Green Bay Packers. Will this be the trend all season?
3. Should Equanimeous St. Brown play over Chase Claypool?
One small surprise from the Chicago Bears season opener was seeing Equanimeous St. Brown as an inactive. Matt Eberflus preaches HITS, and nobody follows that more than St. Brown. In the preseason, he was finishing a long run with a block to seal a Khalil Herbert touchdown.
Instead, the Chicago Bears started Chase Claypool, who struggles to block and seems to flash all of the opposite things that Eberflus preaches. He missed all of the preseason with minor issues, and the team let him play over St. Brown, who put the work in. The Chicago Bears are not practicing what they preach.
What is even more surprising was that the game plan called for a blocking wid receiver. The Chicago Bears had one; he just happened to be inactive. Will they activate? Will Chase Claypool start to lose work after his week one performance? Do the Chicago Bears continue to run these plays? They have plenty of questions in this room.
2. Will we see the Chicago Bears rookie lineman more in week two?
As we noted, the Chicago Bears' defensive line was not getting much push. The team made two picks in the second round on defensive players, who are supposed to be the future of this team. The Bears slow playing them into the mix is not a big surprise.
However, after the line struggles, it may be time to see if one of these young guys has a spark. The Chicago Bears played Dexter for 23 snaps and Pickens for 12. Meanwhile Justin Jones played 39, and Billings played 33. The team would like to see that get closer to a four-man rotation.
Billings played fine, and his role as the nose tackle will be tough to replace. However, Dexter has more athletic potential than Justin Jones, and while he is more raw, he needs experience on the field. The Chicago Bears should get him out there a bit more in the coming weeks. They need to get something out of these two higher draft picks.
1. Will the Chicago Bears interior offensive line issues continue to be a problem?
Arguably the biggest problem for the Chicago Bears right now is their interior offensive line. Nate Davis was a bigger money free agent, but he missed all of training camp and looked awful in his debut. Devonte Wyatt, a rookie who struggled last year took him to school throughout the game.
Lucas Patrick has not done anything well in a Chicago Bears uniform yet, and that is alarming when you consider he is their starting center. He hardly practiced this summer and thankfully made it through a game without injury. Cody Whitehair probably should have been released this summer, but now he is playing guard after spending the entire summer at center.
So, is it really a surprise that three players with no practice time together struggled against a defensive line that actually had talent? It should not have. The question is whether this will happen again, or how consistently it will happen. Will practice help them gel? Is Nate Davis really this bad? The Bucs have a few big names along the interior, so this matchup will test the guards and center once again.