MINNEAPOLIS — Three games remain for the Chicago Bears in one of the most wayward seasons in team history. Three games are left against hungry and competitive NFC opponents all eyeing a run in the postseason.
The next two contests will come in short weeks, both at Soldier Field in front of what promises to be an edgy home crowd.
Public service announcement: Things can get worse. And if the last two months offer any indication, they probably will. Buckle in.
The Bears are 4-10 now and bleeding out in full public view. The team’s eighth consecutive loss came during “Monday Night Football” at U.S. Bank Stadium, a 30-12 mauling by a Minnesota Vikings team that didn’t even play all that sharply.
Whether they’re open to admit it or not, the Bears seem to have reached a point in this bewildering season where the physical and mental exhaustion of everything that has happened has become too heavy. That’s how mistake-filled embarrassments like Monday night happen.
Exhaustion creeps in. Execution falters.
Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, for example, seemed totally battered and spent during the latter stages of his 10th NFL loss. He acknowledged “bruises and contusions” across his body after the game, the physical toll that adds up when you’ve been sacked a league-high 58 times across 14 starts, including twice more Monday.
“Say you get in three car accidents a month,” Williams said. “You’re going to feel it. That’s what a hit is (like) in football.”
But there’s also the emotional drain of all this failure, of so many mind-bending final-play defeats plus an equal number of blowouts during a losing skid that has gotten difficult to keep a tally on.
“How many games is it now?” Williams asked. “Eight?”
Indeed. Eight.
And counting.
With three games remaining and no obvious bounce-back opportunity in sight.
It’s all just ugly right now. And the season needs to end sooner than it will. Much sooner.
Still, three games remain and the NFL schedule has never offered an emergency exit, even for last-place teams in total disarray like this one.
The Bears’ last victory came 64 days ago.
Stop for a second and process that. Sixty-four days have passed since the Bears enjoyed a win. As difficult as that may be to believe, also understand that it’s now been 29 days since the team last held a lead.
Oh, and it’s been 22 days since the offense last scored a single point in the first half.
So, yeah. Please forgive the outside observation that the Bears seem like a team with nothing left in the tank — even with three very challenging and potentially humiliating games remaining.
“I felt like we competed,” cornerback Jaylon Johnson countered Monday. “But we clearly didn’t execute. I mean, there’s some fight left. But at the end of the day, it didn’t go our way.”
Interim coach Thomas Brown also took exception to the notion that his team is out of gas.
“I would disagree,” he said. “If you watch the tape, our guys battled to the very end. So saying that we don’t have a lot left in the tank alludes to the guys quitting. I didn’t see that at all. Our guys will continue to battle.”
So be it. Perhaps it’s just best to agree to disagree. But what’s indisputable is that the Bears are now playing like one of the worst teams in football. Over their past three losses, they’ve been outscored 53-0 before halftime.
And since the last time they led — way back on Nov. 17 in the fourth quarter of a one-point loss to the Green Bay Packers — the Bears have trailed by at least 10 points for 161 minutes and 36 seconds of game time.
This is Apollo Creed in the ring with Ivan Drago right now. The uppercuts just keep landing.
The biggest one Monday came from Vikings outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard, a third-down strip sack on Williams in the first quarter that came after Greenard torched rookie left tackle Kiran Amegadjie around the edge.
“I was one-on-one,” Amegadjie said. “I just have to execute better.”
Greenard walloped Williams from behind. The ball squirted free. The Vikings recovered and turned that into a 39-yard touchdown drive and a 10-0 lead. The game was never close again.
And so it goes for the Bears who put together a tutorial on how to play losing football.
Within their sloppiness:
Twice the Bears were stopped on fourth-and-1, including on the game’s opening possession.
Eleven times out of 12 attempts, they were stopped on third downs, too. Meanwhile, the Vikings converted situations of third-and-17, third-and-10, third-and-15 and third-and-7.
Keenan Allen was dropping passes he should have snared. Rookie Rome Odunze joined him.
Amegadjie committed four penalties in his first career start.
The Bears also had a third-quarter touchdown overturned because offensive lineman Doug Kramer came into the game as a fullback but never properly reported to the officials. It ended up being an illegal substitution penalty that cost the Bears four points.
Montez Sweat negated his 7-yard sack on a key second-quarter third down with an offsides penalty.
And Tyrique Stevenson had what would have been his second interception of the night turned into a 30-yard pass interference penalty instead when officials ruled his left forearm sent Jordan Addison tumbling through the end zone, an iffy call that typified this Bears losing skid. The Vikings scored a touchdown two snaps later.
“It’s an offensive league so you kind of don’t get the calls,” Stevenson said. “I thought once the ball is in the air and I look back, it becomes a 50-50 (ball) and a little shove is allowed. It’s not my fault he’s 135 pounds and he fell.”
Just about everything is malfunctioning right now.
Somehow, three games remain. And the 12-2 Detroit Lions will be visiting Chicago this weekend. Things can definitely get worse.
