Justin Fields helped the Bears capitalize on sloppy play from the San Francisco 49ers by throwing two touchdown passes in the Bears’ opening season win.

Justin Fields took a step towards growth and confidence by keeping his eyes down the field and making key touchdowns.

The Bears were able to play a level of smart and disciplined football rarely seen in the Matt Nagy era committing only 3 penalties for 24 yards.  The 49ers meanwhile had two turnovers, a key interception late in the game that allowed the Bears to put away the game.

Justin Fields thoroughly outplayed Trey Lance.  Fields didn’t make many mistakes or errant throws, whereas Lance never found his rhythm.  The Bears’ defensive line consistently got pressure on Lance whether it was Robert Quinn, rookie Dominique Robinson or Justin Jones from the 3-technique spot.  The Bears had two sacks, four QB hits, and four tackles for a loss.

It was a clear buy-in from the franchise to Matt Eberflus’ ideology.  The Bears hustled to the football consistently and as a result, good things happened.  The Bears played with intelligence with only three penalties.

Because the Bears hustled consistently a broken play led to a touchdown pass to Dante Pettis.

Justin Fields then led the Bears on a 10-play 84-yard touchdown drive.  The Bears gained 64 yards on their own and received an extra 20 yards from the 49ers in penalties.  On the drive, Fields completed four passes for 58 yards and a touchdown to Equanimeous St. Brown.

Because Luke Getsy stubbornly stuck to the running game, Khalil Herbert barreled into the endzone for the game-clinching touchdown.  Sticking with the running game was a key factor in slowing down the 49ers disruptive pass rush.  The 49ers couldn’t get their pass rush going in the second half the same way they did early on.

Everything went right after everything seemed to go wrong in the first half.  The difference seemed to be the fact that the Bears were able to settle down, control their emotions, and focus.  The 49ers completely on the other hand unraveled.

As a result, the Bears stole a victory no one had planned on them getting.  The biggest upset of the opening week of the NFL season could be enough momentum to catapult a season that exceeds most national prognosticators’ expectations.  No the Bears don’t become an immediate playoff favorite, but they can prove that anything is possible on “any given Sunday.”

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After beating the San Francisco 49ers 19-10 in a rain-soaked game at Soldier Field Sunday, the Bears celebrated by turning the endzone into a slip-and-slide.

Led by quarterback Justin Fields, Bears players slid head-first past the goalposts and into an absolutely soaked endzone in celebration.

Videos of the slide soon flooded social media, with fans delighting in the palpable joy of the Bears’ rainy day moves.

The victory capped the end of a hard-fought game played amid torrential downpour that saturated the field with water — and even prompted FOX to break out virtual hashes and numbers in its broadcast.

The game also marked a positive debut for new head coach Matt Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles and had fans feeling optimistic about the future of second-year quarterback Fields.

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The Bears pulled an upset in their season opener, winning Matt Eberflus’ debut as head coach 19-10 over the 49ers as rain-saturated Soldier Field.

While the defense was tenacious and the Bears beat a team that nearly went to the Super Bowl last season, there were still plenty of red flags on offense.

Quarterback Justin Fields finished 8 of 17 for 121 yards with two touchdown passes and an interception for an 85.7 passer rating. The Bears managed just 205 yards of total offense and benefited from a fumble recovery and an interception.

The most cutting insult to general manager Ryan Poles and Eberflus is to point out how familiar the offense looked. The last thing these guys want is to be even remotely reminiscent of the era that preceded them.

But the truth hurts. This grimy, mud bath of a game featured all the same problems that plagued the Bears’ offense before, including shaky quarterback play. Opening the season with a victory is nice, but it’s going to be difficult to keep winning unless Fields and the offense make major improvements.

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OAKLAND, Calif. — Tony La Russa walked through the visitors clubhouse in Oakland, shaking hands with players. It was the first time around them since he was abruptly told by doctors not to manage the White Sox in a game Aug. 30 against the Royals at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“I had [a heart] issue in spring training, so when they had some information they needed to address, and make it serious enough to where [they said] ‘get out of uniform, you can’t watch the game,’ ” La Russa said Sunday. “So I watched the game at home.”

Since then, the Sox have enjoyed their best stretch of the season, losing that night after bench coach Miguel Cairo took over managerial duties but winning nine of the next 11. La Russa, who reportedly had a pacemaker inserted for his heart, was cleared by doctors to attend Dave Stewart’s uniform retirement ceremony in Oakland and fly to Chicago with the team Sunday night, but not to resume managing.

“Health is nothing to mess with,” said La Russa, who turns 78 in October.

“They fixed it, now it’s a question of regaining strength. So don’t mess with health.

“I’ve had my issue fixed, I’m mending.”

If and when La Russa returns to managing “will depend on the experts,” he said.

“Reading the situation, they ask me how I feel because I do a little more and how do you respond to a little more affects it, so, I think it’s uncertain,” he said. “In the meantime the club will be fun to watch and stay in contention.”

La Russa said “don’t mess with health” but he often says “don’t mess with the baseball gods,” and if the Sox lose Sunday after winning four in a row, he said he wouldn’t go on the plane with the team after seeing them play in person and being in the clubhouse briefly.

La Russa seemed to be kidding but he is serious about trends and jinxes.

“Didn’t I just tell you if we lose I won’t be on the plane?” he said. “You think I’m kidding? I have a car rented, I’m going to drive back slowly.”

While fans have overwhelmingly pushed for the Sox to carry on with Cairo at the helm, La Russa wants to get back in uniform. But “it all depends,” he said.

“I’m here today, fly back with them and off [day] tomorrow. I don’t plan to be in uniform until they say it’s time to be in uniform,” he said. “I don’t know if they [doctors] want me at the park or not. The most important thing for me is you don’t want to be a distraction. I don’t want to be a distraction. That’s why it’s best to let it run its course, and in the meantime they’re concentrating on the game they’re playing.

“If I think I’m being a distraction upstairs like today watching them then I won’t watch them. It’s so simple, it’s ridiculous. It’s not complicated.”

La Russa has watched every game and says he calls Cairo at least twice a day and stays in contact with pitching coach Ethan Katz.

“They’re united, they pick each other up. But exciting games, those two comeback games [Wednesday in Seattle and Saturday in Oakland]. They key is they’re having the fun of contending, so it’s from here to the end now. It’s been fun to watch.”

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After beating the San Francisco 49ers 19-10 in a rain-soaked game at Soldier Field Sunday, the Bears celebrated by turning the endzone into a slip-and-slide.

Led by quarterback Justin Fields, Bears players slid head-first past the goalposts and into an absolutely soaked endzone in celebration.

Videos of the slide soon flooded social media, with fans delighting in the palpable joy of the Bears’ rainy day moves.

The victory capped the end of a hard-fought game played amid torrential downpour that saturated the field with water — and even prompted FOX to break out virtual hashes and numbers in its broadcast.

The game also marked a positive debut for new head coach Matt Eberflus and general manager Ryan Poles and had fans feeling optimistic about the future of second-year quarterback Fields.

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The Chicago Bears offense did nothing but struggle against the Niners’ defense

The Chicago Bears’ first half to start the 2022 season was just an abysmal showing on the offensive side of the ball.

While many experts spent the offseason criticizing the Bears’ offense going into this season, those criticisms seem justified to this point.

The Bears’ offense had just 68 total yards in their first half against the 49ers, and issues were apparent with every part of the offense. Quarterback Justin Fields has been under pressure every snap and the receivers have given him nowhere to throw. Fields also had an ugly interception that three different Niners’ defenders could have picked off. The young QB is currently 3-9 passing with just 19 yards through the air. No receiver or tight end currently has a reception as well.

The Bears did get into position to score points once, but a bizarre penalty by punter Trenton Gill for wiping the field took them out of field goal range.

Despite the Bears’ offensive struggles, they only trail the Niners 7-0 at halftime. The offense will need to make some major adjustments if the team wants to have a chance at winning this game.

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LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska fired Scott Frost on Sunday, the situation so dire in the once-proud football program that athletic director Trev Alberts made the move only three weeks before the coach’s contract buyout would have been cut in half.

The Cornhuskers lost 45-42 to Georgia Southern as a three-touchdown favorite at home Saturday night, and the student section chanted “Fire Frost” at the end of the game.

Frost was 16-31 three games into his fifth season, and his .340 winning percentage was second-worst among Nebraska coaches who lasted more than four years.

Associate head coach Mickey Joseph was named interim coach for the rest of the season. The Huskers play No. 6 Oklahoma at home this week.

Joseph, 54, is the first Black head coach at Nebraska in any sport and among four new members of the staff this season. Like Frost, he is a former Nebraska quarterback, having played from 1988-91.

“Earlier today I met with Coach Frost and informed him we were making a change in the leadership of our football program, effective immediately,” Alberts said in a statement. “Scott has poured his heart and soul into the Nebraska football program both as a quarterback and a head coach, and I appreciate his work and dedication.

“After the disappointing start to our season, I decided the best path forward for our program was to make a change in our head coaching position.”

Joseph returned to Nebraska as wide receivers coach and passing game coordinator after coaching receivers at LSU from 2017-21. He also was LSU’s assistant head coach his last two seasons there.

Alberts made a surprising move last November when he announced he would bring back Frost after what turned out to be a 3-9 season. Frost fired four offensive assistants, had his pay cut from $5 million to $4 million and agreed to having his buyout drop from $15 million to $7.5 million on Oct. 1.

There was no immediate word of a negotiated settlement. Absent that, Nebraska is sacrificing millions of dollars to cut the cord now.

Alberts apparently had seen enough. The Huskers opened the season with a 31-28 loss to Northwestern in Ireland, struggled into the fourth quarter before putting away FCS North Dakota 38-17 and then allowed 642 yards while losing to a Sun Belt Conference team in Georgia Southern.

The 47-year-old coach’s spectacular failure was never envisioned when he left Central Florida as the hottest coach in America.

The storyline for his hiring was delicious, with Frost returning to his home state and the school he quarterbacked to a share of the 1997 national championship.

He had taken over a Central Florida program that went 0-12 in 2015, and two years later he led the Golden Knights to a 13-0 record and a Peach Bowl win over Auburn.

Frost, who grew up 90 minutes west of Lincoln in Wood River, was hailed as a savior of the program when former athletic director Bill Moos signed him to a seven-year, $35 million contract.

Moos boasted he had gotten “the pick of the litter” from the 2017-18 coaching cycle and that Big Ten powers would be “running scared” once Frost got the Huskers on track. Frost, when asked about having to possibly adjust his style to the Big Ten, shot back that he hoped the Big Ten would have to adjust to him instead.

What followed were four-plus seasons of underachieving and undisciplined play — and unhappiness among a loyal fan base desperately hoping for a return to a semblance of the program’s glory days.

There was never an indication that would happen under Frost. His Huskers were famous for losing close games — 22 of his 31 losses were decided by eight points or fewer — and for getting beat as double-digit favorites.

The Frost era was the worst at Nebraska since Bill Jennings was 15-34-1 (.310) in the five years before Hall of Fame coaches Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne reigned over four decades of sustained success that brought five national championships and 22 conference titles.

The Huskers have gone through five coaches since Osborne retired in 1997, and they are a shell of their former selves. They haven’t won a conference championship since 1999, and they haven’t won more than five games in a season since going 9-4 in 2016 under Mike Riley.

Frost was 10-26 in Big Ten games and, worse, 6-18 against West Division opponents. His teams never won more than three conference games in a season or finished higher than fifth place in the seven-team West.

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Justin Fields is off to a brutal start in his season debut against the 49ers, and the Bears are down 7-0 at halftime.

The wet field is no friend to the passing game and the Bears’ offensive line has struggled across the board, but Fields has contributed to the problems as well. He has completed 3 of 9 passes for 19 yards and rushed five times for 25 yards. His passer rating is 2.8.

The Bears have just 68 yards of total offense, averaging 2.3 per play. They have not gotten farther down the field than their own 35-yard line and have gone three-and-out three times.

They did not push past their own 35-yard line until late in the first half.

Fields threw an interception midway through the first quarter that set up the 49ers in Bears’ territory. He threw over the middle of the field for Darnell Mooney and did not appear to see 49ers safety Talanoa Hufanga drifting toward him to pick off the pass. Fields was under pressure and got hit after he released the ball, but this was clearly a case of misreading the defense.

He caught a break, however, when cornerback Jaylon Johnson ended the 49ers’ ensuing drive by punching a fumble out of the hands of 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel.

The running game isn’t doing much to help. Khalil Herbert has rushed five times for 27 yards, and David Montgomery has 13 yards on nine carries.

The Bears also threw away a chance at points just before halftime when they lined up for 46-yard field goal, but were hit with an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty because holder Trenton Gill used a towel to dry up a spot on the grass before the kick. After the penalty, the Bears punted instead.

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