CHICAGO — Prosperity is not a cherished tradition for the Chicago Bears, so when things go awry, there isn’t much of an adjustment.
Not for me and the rest of the press box, anyway. Judging by your tweets, I’m guessing that goes for the majority of fans, too, along with the people who work for the team and the players who have been here more than five minutes.
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The Bears disappoint. They get hurt. They lose.
Occasionally, the defensive coordinator resigns in confusing circumstances or the quarterback says something cryptic to add some additional intrigue to the process.
But the cycle continued Sunday in a 19-13 defeat to the Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota’s defensive pressure stymied an improving Bears offense, quarterback Justin Fields got knocked out of the game in the third quarter with a dislocated thumb on his right hand and the Bears lost at home in front of a dyspeptic crowd hoping, in vain, for a nice afternoon on the lakefront.
Fresh off breaking a 14-game losing streak going back to last season, it turns out the 1-5 Bears’ “losing streak trivia challenge” isn’t over yet.
Their home losing streak is now at 10 games, and their Sunday losing streak is at a whopping 16 games (they also lost a Saturday game last year). Their last home victory, against the Houston Texans, was also on a Sunday, back on Sept. 25, 2022.
Justin Fields is heading towards the locker room after suffering an apparent injury on the last play pic.twitter.com/lGsUfr34LT
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 15, 2023
There hasn’t been a cheerful “Bears Monday” in more than a year, unless you count Jan. 9, a day after they lost to Minnesota and locked up the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
The vibes in Chicago were almost amusingly good after last week’s Thursday night win over the Washington Commanders. Fields and the offense were clicking, and the team seemed imbued with a new confidence.
On Sunday, the offense looked harried and untrustworthy once again, but the defense, armed with the return of some injured starters, locked up Kirk Cousins and the Vikings for much of the first half. Minnesota’s only offensive touchdown came late in the second quarter when a Fields interception paved the way for a Cousins touchdown pass to rookie Jordan Addison.
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If Fields is out with the thumb injury for an extended period, the city’s focus will go back to the very real possibility of the Bears getting the top two picks in the 2024 draft. The Carolina Panthers, who owe the Bears their first-round pick, lost again Sunday to fall to 0-6. They’re the only winless team in the NFL; the Bears are one of a handful of one-win teams.
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Fields was unavailable after the game. Bears coach Matt Eberflus, after walking into the postgame news conference looking more ashen than usual after a loss, said Fields’ X-rays were negative and that he would get an MRI on Monday. He noted that Fields wanted to return, which sounded hopeful, but then he finished his thought with, “He just couldn’t grip the ball to throw it correctly,” which sounded less promising. We found out about the specificity of the thumb injury later.
Tyson Bagent, a rookie out of Division II Shepherd University, looked out of sorts at first. His third snap was a strip-sack that went for a Vikings defensive touchdown. But he settled down and marched the Bears on a nine-play, 77-yard drive that ended with his scoring a touchdown on a quarterback sneak, a play that you might call a “tush push” but I’m referring to as a “Bagent budge.”
“Always a dream for every young kid, every young football player to play the NFL,” Bagent said.
Hey, not a lot of D-II kids from Martinsburg, W.Va., get to run for a touchdown on the same field where Walter Payton played. But it’s not like Bagent could celebrate his good fortune.
“The most important thing in the NFL is to win, and we didn’t win,” he said.
A true “welcome to the Bears” moment for the young man.
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The Bears nearly mounted a comeback in the fourth quarter behind Bagent and the hard-running D’Onta Foreman, who got his first start of the season with Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson both hurt. They got the Bears down to the Vikings’ 35-yard line just before the two-minute warning when Bagent tried to throw a deep ball to DJ Moore down the left sideline. It was underthrown and intercepted, much to the chagrin of Chicago’s sports talk radio producers, who were ready for those inevitable “Dump Fields for this Tyson Bagel guy!” kind of calls.
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Who knows? They’ll probably still come. There were suggestions from the most meatball-ish fans to play Bagent after Fields’ rough start to the season, but Fields, to his credit, settled down and was coming off two (mostly) good games in a row. In the first half Sunday, Fields was only 6-of-10 for 68 yards and that bad interception, but he also added 32 rushing yards on six carries.
Fields’ development was the No. 1 storyline of the season, and if he misses significant time, there won’t be much of a reason to pay attention to this team outside of tradition, a sense of duty and draft speculation.
So yeah, nothing new.
(Photo of Justin Fields being sacked by Danielle Hunter: Jamie Sabau / USA Today)
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