Which Chicago Bears players were the biggest losers from Week 2 vs. Bucs?

Chicago Bears Week 2 Loser No. 2: Tyrique Stevenson

It has been said multiple times that there would be a lot of good and a lot of bad with rookie cornerback Tyrique Stevenson. His game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was a lot of bad. There were some good effort plays that displayed his non-stop motor, but he was being targeted by Baker Mayfield and the Bucs offense and was powerless to do anything about it.

Early in the game especially the Bucs looked to stay away from Jaylon Johnson and make Stevenson beat them. Mike Evans quickly was able to exploit that matchup and was able to come up with a plethora of key plays on Stevenson. The worst of them was a route where Evans ran at Stevenson and as he got past the rookie, Stevenson just was not able to flip his hips and react to the route in time. This was a touchdown to Evans to put the Bucs up 20-10, and it came on a third and fourteen.

We know that he is a physical corner who likes to play up on the line of scrimmage in man defense. That kind of play does lead to him getting beat sometimes, which was one of the cons for him in the draft. That con was on display today as the Bucs offense was able to use some of his aggressiveness against him. He tried to make a play on a scrambling Mayfield on a third down and let Evans run upfield for an easy completion.

Matt Eberflus preaches aggressiveness in his H.I.T.S philosophy, but he also stresses awareness. Now Stevenson is a rookie cornerback with a lot of time to learn and develop, but he is also a starter on a defense that desperatly needs good coverage on the back end. They do not really have the luxury of coping with the bad that comes with how he plays. Hopefully, he gets some good film work in this week and can fix some of those awareness mistakes. There is a lot of potential in Stevenson, but this was a bad performance when he was really needed with such a banged-up secondary.