CHGO Digest: The good, bad & ugly of Bears' Week 3 loss

Good morning, friends!

How many times can we sell ourselves on glimpses and flashes before it actually works out?

In fairness, I think the extended length of the preseason is working against Bears fans at this point. There’s this misplaced sense of urgency for a young team after three weeks.

Sure, there’s a lot of bad going on with the Bears, but I think there’s a decent path forward to finding success — and maybe even this year.

But it’s all about ensuring 1-2 doesn’t snowball into 1-5 after London and into the bye.

Onto Week 4.

— Patrick Norton

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The Good

• You’re lying to yourself if you’re unwilling to admit that Caleb Williams took a nice step forward on Sunday. The young quarterback was far from perfect, but things started to click for Williams as the game progressed.
  
  Caleb finished the afternoon: 33/52, 363 pass yards, 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. The No. 1 overall pick also had a costly strip-sack fumble, essentially sealing the win for Indianapolis with 6:46 left in the fourth quarter.
  
  We wanted to see Caleb get aggressive with the ball even at the expense of silly rookie mistakes. The quarterback’s first interception on a screen read by Colts defensive back Jaylon Jones is a good example.
  
  But we saw (the dreaded) glimpses and flashes that’ll give us hope for the next step in Williams’ first season. The overthrows were an issue again for No. 18… until he finally connected with Rome Odunze in the end zone for six. It settled the nerves. Sidenote — Rome is awesome. As advertised.
  
• The defense swarmed again, only relenting after a long day of trying to keep the Colts’ offense at bay. Montez Sweat finally got home, sacking Anthony Richardson for an 11-yard loss. Jaylon Johnson and Tremaine Edmunds intercepted Richardson, and Andrew Billings nearly tacked on one of his own, but the refs ruled the Colts’ quarterback’s forward progress had stopped.
  

⚡ INSTANT REACTIONS | See what the CHGO Bears crew had to say immediately after the Bears’ Week 3 heartbreaker in Indianapolis.

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Wabash & Cermak

Whether you’re going to the game or just want to hang with DIEHARDS, join CHGO at the corner of Wabash & Cermak ahead of Week 4’s matchup against the Rams at Soldier Field!

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The Bad

• Scrap the run. Caleb Williams can’t reasonably throw the ball 52 times every game. But I’d rather watch that than D’Andre Swift absorb contact two yards behind the line of scrimmage on a run from shotgun.
  
  Swift’s 14 carries for 20 yards was somehow an improvement from last week’s disaster in Houston for the Bears’ running back. That’s … not good. In his first three outings with Chicago, the former Lion and Eagle has carried the ball 37 times, picking up just 68 yards on the ground. Yikes.
  
  Roschon Johnson finally got some run out of the backfield, tallying 30 yards on eight attempts. To the untrained eye, Johnson’s pass-blocking appears significantly stronger than Swift’s or Khalil Herbert’s, too.
  
  We’ll see what Shane Waldron and run-game coordinator/offensive line coach Chris Morgan draw up for Week 4, but against a team that allowed an average of 237.0 yards on the ground in the first two weeks, 63 yards for the Bears’ rushing attack is concerning to say the absolute least.
  

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Briggs & Brown

🎧 SPOTIFY | APPLE PODCASTS | Lance Briggs & Alex Brown break down Chicago Bears’ ugly loss vs Colts

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The UnBEARably Ugly

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• From Adam Hoge: “That might have been the worst play call in my 14 years of covering this football team.” Of course, Hoge is referencing the Bears’ 4th-and-1 play call from the Colts’ 1-yard line.
  
  After getting stuffed on three previous attempts, the Bears opted to try and punch it in for six on fourth down, potentially tying the game late in the first half. Waldron dialed up a pistol option resulting in a desperate flip from Caleb Williams to D’Andre Swift. Swift lost 12 yards — not enough for the first down.
  
  Notably, in the four-play set from within the five, Caleb Williams was not under center at any point. Maybe this is a personal preference, but I don’t know why Waldron also insisted on taking the ball out of Williams’ hands with points on the line considering it was No. 18’s efforts that drove the Bears into scoring range. Ho hum.
  
• For a third-year head coach, burning a timeout in the fourth quarter between a touchdown and extra point to sort through the confusion and better prepare your team to attempt a two-point conversion is unacceptable. It would be silly for a first-year head coach, too.
  
  Those are the types of mistakes that cannot happen, and only serve to add fuel to the fire when losses begin piling up.
  
• Daniel Hardy’s neutral-zone infraction, which was incorrectly attributed to Cole Kmet, as the Colts were set to punt was another hair-puller.
  
  When the Bears already have plenty to focus on at Halas Hall in preparation for the Los Angeles Rams’ visit, the team cannot afford to spend time working on discipline and clock management, especially in Matt Eberflus’ third season at the helm.
  

🔎 GO DEEPER | Nicholas Moreano went into the Bears’ locker room searching for an answer to the question: what happened on the offense’s ill-fated 4th-and-1?

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🤦‍♂️

i like my football team to be just like my baseball team.

unable to score, injured, and embarrassing to watch.

— Sean Anderson (@Sean_W_Anderson) September 22, 2024

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🍻 9/29 | CHGO Bears Tailgate at Wabash & Cermak! — Week 4 vs. Rams
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