The Chicago Bears still an undisciplined football team.
Let’s start by taking a moment to celebrate the fact that the Chicago Bears are 5-1. They currently sit in first place in the NFC North, after the Green Bay Packers got throttled 38-10 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Of course, that is the same Bucs team the Bears came back to beat just a week ago.
However, there are still legitimate reasons for concern — most notably, the lack of attention to the “details” that head coach Matt Nagy emphasized so much heading into the Carolina Panthers game.
Nagy gave an impassioned press conference in which he underscored the offensive unit’s need to be more detail-oriented, suggesting that some of their troubles scoring were attributable to their lack of focus on those details.
Seeing as how it was a point of emphasis all week, and considering that the Bears had 10 days to prepare for and work on adherence to those details, it was reasonable to expect the team to come out and execute with precision.
However, that did not happen. And it became apparent very early in the game that this team still lacks the attention to detail Nagy demands. Nagy is certainly not without blame, as some of the mental errors fell on his shoulders.
Let’s start with the Bears’ first offensive possession following their interception of Teddy Bridgewater. On 2nd and Goal from the Carolina 6-yard line, the Bears were forced to call a timeout. Coming out of that timeout, you would expect everyone to be on the same page in terms of the play and possible audibles. However, the Bears took a delay of game for a 5-yard penalty which is inexcusable coming out of a timeout.
After giving up a field goal, the Bears had a chance to regain the momentum on their next offensive possession. Chicago had moved the ball to the Panthers’ 48-yard line where it was now 3rd and 3. Nick Foles completed a pass to Anthony Miller who had enough for the first down, yet inexplicably ran backward to try to gain more yards, and was tackled short of the first-down marker, resulting in a punt.
Finally, and perhaps the most egregious mental errors of the game came late in the third quarter with the Bears up 14 points. A defensive stop could have salted the game away, but the Panthers scored a touchdown aided in large part due to two crucial penalties. On 4th and 1 from the Carolina 34-yard line, the Bears were penalized for having too many men on the field. Again, unforgivable, especially on fourth down.
To make matters worse, merely three plays later, the Bears were penalized again for having too many men on the field. This is an unforced mental mistake that simply shouldn’t happen, to say nothing of the fact that this immediately followed a defensive offsides.
The Bears have some areas where they need to improve, but perhaps at the top of that list is the need to avoid so many mental mistakes. If they don’t, it is going to cost them dearly.
