Well that didn't take long. It only took about twenty nine minutes of game time for me to be reminded that the Bears are still a freaking mess.
First the good (but there is not much). The Bears looked great on their opening drive of the season. In fact, the Bears QB Caleb Williams looked great on his first 10 completions. He started the game 10 for 10 and also had a couple of nice runs including a nine yard touchdown run on that opening drive. During the rest of the half, the Bears moved the ball a bit but missed a field goal to end one drive and failed on 4th and 3 on another drive. But that was all no big deal. The defense was playing great and the Bears scored a late field goal in the second quarter to go up 10 to 3.
And then the wheels started to fall off. After kicking off, the Bears gave up a 28 yard pass play with 19 seconds left to set up a 59 yard field goal attempt by Will Reichard. this would tie the record for the longest field goal ever in Soldier Field. So of course he hit it. So the Bears lost all the momentum from their field goal drive at the end of the half.
The Bears offense came out and crapped down their leg (a sight we would see for much of the rest of the 30 minutes of game time remaining). Then on defense, the Bears did the unthinkable. They let Minnesota drive deep in their territory... and then CB Nashon Wright intercepted Viking QB J.J. McCarthy and took it 74 yards for a score. That should have been it. Game over. The Bears had a rookie QB in his first start on the ropes (not to mention it was near his childhood home so all of the pressure was on him).
Both offenses took the 3rd quarter off and it looked like the Bears would eek out an 11 point win. And then the Bears defense and coaches decided to take the game off as well. Then the Vikings scored 21 straight points in the 4th quarter to take a 27 to 17 lead. And the Bears never had a real chance after that.
Now for the rant. Holy shit! There was not a single position or coach on the Bears that did their job (maybe the receivers did but we will never know). One of the reasons Williams was 10 for his first 10 was that he refused to try to throw the ball to wide open receivers down the field. He settled for short pass after short pass. Eventually the Vikings caught on and dared him to throw the ball deep. So he did... very inaccurately. Williams missed as many open wide receivers as I do flies when I'm trying to catch them with chopsticks! So the #1 overall pick QB sucked.
Then there was the defense. Well they actually looked like one for about 33 minutes. Then the Vikings decided to run the ball. And the Bears decided they would politely let them. They couldn't stop the equipment manager from running let alone an NFL running back. So the defense and their big free agent signings sucked.
To show how consistent they are, the Bears also sucked on special teams. They allowed a blocked punt right up the middle, They also missed a very make-able field goal in the first half. The special teams sucked.
No human Bears deserved to be in this post.
And then there is the coach. Everyone in Chicago, including me, couldn't wait to see what the great Ben Johnson would do. You know what he did? He crapped the bed, that's what. Let's look at a few mistakes. He went for it on 4th down instead of kicking an easy field goal in the first half (the Bears lost by 3). He wasted a challenge on a play that by rule he had 0% chance of overturning. A Viking player was literally kneeling on both knees and Johnson decided to piss away a timeout by challenging that he was down (the Bears ran out of timeouts and lost by 3). Then after the Bears miraculously scored with 2:02 on the clock, he decided to let his kicker (who has a weak leg) try to kick the ball out of the end zone. With only 1 timeout left, if the clock went under 2:00 on the kickoff, the game was essentially over. But Johnson did it anyway. Literally everyone I know was either yelling "Try an onside kick!" or "Kick the ball out of bounds!" (did I mention the Bears ran out of timeouts, got the ball back with less than 15 seconds on the clock, and lost by 3?). Either of those would have been a better choice than allowing the Vikings to run the ball out and drop below the 2 minute warning. It is one of the stupidest things I have seen in a while... and I'm a bears fan so that is saying a lot. The coach sucks.
This is going to be a really long season!