INDIANAPOLIS — Where should we start?
How do we even begin to unpack the Chicago Bears’ dispiriting 21-16 loss Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium, a defeat that proved utterly astounding in its comprehensive sloppiness?
How do we select the misstep(s) that registered as costliest after the Bears spent so much of their day pulling the levers for trap doors beneath their feet?
Untimely turnovers. Brutal penalties. High-profile coaching blunders.
Where should we start?
Sunday’s game offered a whole menu of misfortune for a football team that sees itself as a legitimate playoff contender but has played the first three games like a work-in-progress squad growing dizzy from all the heavy-lifting projects it’s immersed in at once.
Still, it’s impossible to ignore the biggest turning point of the loss, that sequence late in the first half when the Bears offense was on the doorstep of a game-changing touchdown. Caleb Williams and Co. were right there knocking. And knocking. And knocking.
Until a boxing glove sprung out of the door in front of the Indianapolis Colts end zone, popped them right in the nose and knocked them 12 yards backward.
Fourth-and-goal from the 1. The 16th play of an encouraging drive — and incredibly, the 10th from inside the red zone. One yard separated the Bears from a game-tying touchdown.
Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron called for an option play to the left, a concept designed to get tailback D’Andre Swift on the edge against the Colts’ goal-line personnel.
Yet from the time the play was called until the moment it finished with Swift buried by defensive end Tyquan Lewis all the way back at the 13-yard line, the Bears were off kilter. Disjointed. Out of sorts.
Where should we start?
With Waldron, who has been unable to get the Bears running game unlocked in the first month of the season yet chose finesse over force during that moment-of-truth opportunity?
“They were in ‘big people’ (personnel) and we liked the play,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus explained. “We just have to get to the second level and get to the linebacker and zone up on him there.”
Center Coleman Shelton was asked what the Bears needed to have happen for that play to click.
“For there not to be a defense,” Shelton said. “I don’t know. I don’t really know how to answer that question. They had a good defense ready for it. Sometimes it’s just not the right play.”
Should we then challenge Williams on whether he could have — and maybe should have — checked to another call when he noticed, in his words, “an extra overhang player” in the direction the Bears were running?
“We have the option to change the play right there,” Williams said. “But the (play) clock was running down. And in those moments, you don’t necessarily want to get the flag.
“We got out of the huddle with about 10 seconds (remaining), so I didn’t want to get up there and alert the play or change the play. … At that point, you have to call it and run it and get going.”
So what about Swift, who managed only 20 yards on 13 carries against a vulnerable Colts defense that had surrendered 474 rushing yards in its first two games? Could he have somehow found a path to the goal line?
“I’ve got to look at the play on the film to see what I could have maybe done differently to make something happen,” he said.
When that video review occurs, Swift will notice that by the time Williams’ option pitch was in the air, four of his offensive linemen were already spilling to the ground with four defenders charging at him.
Left tackle Braxton Jones couldn’t derail Lewis and also failed to reach the second level to put a body on linebacker Zaire Franklin.
“When I got the ball,” Swift said, “the defense was flowing. I tried to make something happen. It just wasn’t there.”
Gracious.
That was really the best the Bears could summon on fourth-and-goal from the 1? That play call? That operational sloppiness? That level of execution? It’s no wonder Eberflus’ team left Indianapolis at 1-2 after an undeniably losing effort.
That fourth-down malfunction came after Khalil Herbert could squeeze only 3 yards out of the previous three runs from inside the 5. The first of those runs was a direct snap to Herbert.
With raw emotion immediately after the game, tight end Cole Kmet suggested an attitude adjustment for the Bears offense in its attempts to barge across the goal line from close range.
“It’s that mindset shift,” Kmet said. “Yeah, it was a long drive and you’re tired at the end. But we’ve got to have that attitude of, ‘We’re going to finish these guys off.’ We should think that whatever type of run Shane calls, it shouldn’t matter. We should be able to dent their front.”
As it stood, a Colts defense that allowed each of its first two opponents to top 200 rushing yards left the stadium with barely a ding, limiting the Bears to 63 yards on 28 attempts.
Don’t get it twisted. There were positives folded within the loss. Several, actually. Williams, for example, collected his first 300-yard passing game and the first two touchdown passes of his career, leading a pair of 70-yard, fourth-quarter touchdown drives.
Fellow rookie Rome Odunze caught the first of those touchdowns and topped 100 yards on six catches during a breakout day.
The Bears offense amassed 395 total yards, the seventh-highest output of the Eberflus era. And the defense again offered reasons for hope with an end-zone interception from Tremaine Edmunds in the second quarter and another pick from Jaylon Johnson on the first play of the second half.
Still, such silver-lining contributions will be muted all week by the amplified concern outsiders will express regarding the Bears’ readiness to compete this season on the NFL’s next level.
To be frank, the Bears lost Sunday to an ordinary opponent that didn’t really play all that well. And for many in Chicago, it was difficult to determine whether the whole viewing experience felt awfully familiar or familiarly awful.
Because it wasn’t just that fourth-down snafu that defined this stumble. Williams committed three turnovers: two interceptions plus a fumble he lost when Kmet was badly beaten around the edge by Colts rookie Laiatu Latu for a strip-sack with 6:46 remaining and the Bears striving to start a go-ahead touchdown drive.
A little earlier, special teamer Daniel Hardy was flagged for a costly neutral-zone infraction during a Colts punt, a miscue that turned a three-and-out into an Indianapolis touchdown.
Eberflus, meanwhile, had no excuse for spending a valuable timeout in the fourth quarter — after a Bears touchdown. With the Bears trailing 14-9, the kicking unit came running onto the field. But the Bears needed a 2-point conversion to pull within a field goal.
The confusion was astounding.
“We have to do better,” Eberflus said. “Stay ahead of it better and be better. That’s on the coaches.”
Those types of inexcusable mistakes not only loom large within a game, but also reduce the margin for error for the whole season. This team will have to scratch and claw and do so many things right to earn a playoff berth in January.
Thus it’s more than fair to question whether the Bears are optimally set up to clear the bar they’ve set for themselves in 2024. Just as it’s easy to lament that first-half possession that voyaged all the way to the Colts 1-yard line — and somehow ended without points.
In fact, the entire first half ended without points for the Bears. Even after six possessions, 47 plays and 247 yards.
On the opening drive, Cairo Santos missed a 56-yard field-goal attempt.
Williams’ first interception — an out-of-rhythm throw that lacked acceptable power — came with the Bears inside their kick line again.
And the half ended with DJ Moore catching Williams’ Hail Mary — at the 1-yard line, of course, where he was tackled by safety Julian Blackmon and linebacker E.J. Speed.
“Shoot,” Moore said. “I was so close. Got to find a way to score on that. To not come away with points in the first half is a dagger in the heart.”
Indeed, Moore was left on the very same doorstep where the previous Bears possession ended in such maddening fashion.
It was that kind of afternoon. And the cleanup process feels daunting.
Where will the Bears even start?
