Tag: Biggs

One of the lasting memories of the 2024 Chicago Bears season will be fans chanting “Sell the team!” in the final two minutes and as they exited Soldier Field on Thursday night after the team’s 10th consecutive loss.

The Bears still had the ball. They had crossed midfield. They still had the ability to stop the clock and they were trailing the Seattle Seahawks just 6-3 when the disgruntled crowd picked up on what White Sox fans did at Rate Field during a record-setting season of futility. There was no mistaking what the message was as the Bears offense tried to engineer a game-winning drive.

The opportunity fizzled out. The Bears lost 6-3 to fall to 4-12 with one game remaining before the team launches headfirst into its coaching search. Quarterback Caleb Williams took seven sacks in what was another lousy performance by the offense. The Bears are now 98-3 since the start of the 1950 season when they limit the opponent to six points or fewer.

Here are 10 thoughts after the latest loss that featured familiar clock-management issues.

1. It’s hard to explain the final 5 minutes, 12 seconds.

The Bears have a tough time getting chunk plays when they’re in a “gotta have it” situation, and they are not poised in clock- and game-management situations.

That’s nothing new. Interim coach Thomas Brown was thrust into a tough spot. It’s a lot to handle, and the Bears didn’t get it done when they had a chance to mount a drive, score a touchdown, end a brutal losing streak and kill whatever chances the Seahawks have of making the playoffs. Not exactly the kind of meaningful football the Bears imagined playing in this prime-time event back during the summer, but they’d do anything to get out of this vicious cycle.

Instead, they found another rough way to lose. Caleb Williams took some big hits, including one to the throat near the end that partially explained a bunch of time coming off the clock, and his streak of consecutive pass attempts without an interception came to an end on his final throw of the game when Riq Woolen came down with a ball Williams had to put up for grabs because the Seahawks brought the house on fourth-and-10. More on the streak a little later.

The Bears tied their season low with 11 first downs (Week 1 versus Tennessee, Week 10 versus New England) and managed only 179 yards, getting just 3.1 yards per play against what I think is an average Seahawks defense, a little above average against the pass. Outside of the 13-play, 76-yard field-goal drive in the second quarter when the offense had four first downs, the Bears didn’t get more than one first down on another drive until the end, when they took over on their 11-yard line with 5:12 to play.

A zone read by Williams and a 12-yard draw by D’Andre Swift quickly moved the ball to the 30, and what’s sort of remarkable here is that the Bears snapped the ball on third-and-2 from their 38-yard line with 2:54 remaining. We can get deeper into the clock-management issues, but they were not moving with tempo and urgency when you consider 2:18 went off the clock on four plays before that snap.

Williams scrambled for 1 yard to make it fourth-and-1, and when fill-in left guard Jake Curhan, who replaced the injured Teven Jenkins, was called for a false start, Brown sent the punt team on the field. Tory Taylor had enjoyed a heck of a night to that point. Of seven punts, five landed inside the 20 and four were fair catches, with no return yardage against him. The Bears had three timeouts and the two-minute warning, but there was only 2:14 left.

Fans erupted. Brown called timeout during the dead ball and sent the offense back on the field.

“It wasn’t confusion at all,” he said. “I just changed my mind. I think being able to use Tory as a weapon, and we still had I think it was 2:16 on the clock, still had our three timeouts, plus the two-minute warning. The way our defense had been playing all day, possibly have a chance to go flip the field and force the three-and-out, get a shorter field and have, like, a last end-of-the-game drive. That was my thought process.

“Over the course of that, I changed my mind and said, ‘Let’s go for it now’ and sent the offense back on the grass.”

Williams came up with a superior play, connecting with DJ Moore as he came across the field for a 14-yard gain on fourth-and-6. That moved the offense to the Bears 49-yard line but the next snap was fumbled, leading to a sack.

It was quickly third-and-14, and Williams hung in the pocket for an eternity before scrambling to the right and firing an off-balance dart to Rome Odunze for 15 yards to the Seahawks 40-yard line.

That play, the kind of highlight maneuver Williams can make, started with 1:15 remaining. The Bears didn’t snap the ball for the next play — an incomplete pass — until 37 seconds remained. Thirty-eight seconds had drained down.

“I got hit in the throat,” Williams said, referring to a shot from Seahawks linebacker Boye Mafe. “I don’t know if the coaches saw me down there after the big completion to Rome. Even though I got hit in the throat and the face, got to just get up and go and run down and snap the ball.”

Brown used another timeout when the clock was stopped after the incompletion at 37 seconds. The Bears wouldn’t gain any more yards, and they were down to fourth-and-10 from the Seattle 40 when protection couldn’t hold up. Woolen made the pick on a play in which the Seahawks had nine defenders up on the line of scrimmage.

“How do I answer it without giving away like trade secrets?” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “It’s something that we been practicing, and we haven’t really called it in situations like that. We have (different) versions of the blitz that we’ve called but not that particular version. So something we’ve had and we’ve been preparing for. Our guys were excited about getting to that particular call. Man, I mean, you just call something you haven’t executed and it’s basically the season is on the line. Just shows, hey, our guys can handle it. They’ve earned that confidence to call those types of high-leverage plays.”

Column: Chaotic final drive punctuates the Chicago Bears’ 10th consecutive loss. ‘We’ve got to change something.’

There’s no one person to blame here. The Bears were bad on offense all night. It just wasn’t at the end. This was a rough watch. Williams took a lot of the blame — more on him in the next item, including an interesting perspective I gathered from the Seahawks locker room. Brown didn’t handle the timeouts correctly, but before the Bears even got to that, they were taking way too long to get from play to play. That’s coaches, players, all of them.

There’s no grand takeaway from the team’s first loss when holding an opponent to six points or fewer since a 6-3 defeat at Tampa Bay on Oct. 24, 1999, the second start of Cade McNown’s career.

“I don’t put too much into it,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “It seemed like we were going for the win there, which I’m totally fine with. At this point, nothing to lose. Just trying to go for the win. Came up short. Again.”

That has become the defining story of the season. It has been a trying season for everyone at Halas Hall. No one is ever prepared for the sheer volume of disarray the team has faced. I ranked the worst losing streaks of six games or more I’ve covered. Maybe you disagree on the order.

The defense played very well — especially after the Seahawks popped some early runs — for the first time in a long time. Taylor was terrific. The offense had no rhythm, no pace, no continuity, and that was a killer.

2. Former Bears center Olin Kreutz made a good point on the WSCR-670 AM postgame show Thursday night.

Caleb Williams intuitively knows the right thing to say during trying times at the podium, or someone has done a really good job of coaching him up.

Williams took an extra-large dose of the blame after completing 16 of 28 passes for 122 yards. After losing 46 yards on seven sacks, the Bears had just 76 net passing yards. It was only the third time in the last 10 seasons the Seahawks had seven or more sacks in a game. Defensive tackle Leonard Williams had two and five other players had one apiece.

Williams made nice throws to DJ Moore and Rome Odunze to move the chains on the final drive that ended with the interception, and the rookie flashed his athletic ability late in the second quarter when he made a play that maybe three or four other quarterbacks in the league can pull off. He was rolling hard to his left on third-and-10 from the Seahawks 17-yard line. He was at the 27 when he ripped a fastball to Odunze, who was about 7 yards deep in the end zone. So, the ball traveled 34 yards in the air and was pretty much a rope. But left guard Jake Curhan was called for holding — he got caught out of position trying to stop blitzing linebacker Uchenna Nwosu, and the touchdown was taken off the board.

Williams had some decent runs — he gained 37 yards on five carries — but it felt as if the Seahawks were a step ahead of him a lot of the time. The ball didn’t come out with rhythm very often. There were a couple of drops early and some misplaced passes, and then Williams ran into some pressures or tried to escape by retreating and lost more yardage.

“I’ve only been here, this is only my first year,” Williams said. “The (fans’) frustrations go way longer back than I’ve been here. My job is to go out there and win games. And we don’t focus on the outside noise. The fans are going to cheer and maybe boo sometimes. And you can’t react to that. It’s not something that we react to. We have a job to do. And sometimes you don’t do so well on the job some days and some days you’re pretty consistent. Some days you play a great game.

“Today was one of those games that I think we played two sides of the ball today pretty well, special teams, and defense. And then offense, we didn’t play well. There were miscues. There were stupid sacks that I was taking, losing 10, 14 yards, which is frustrating. But I will say that I will definitely take the heat for this one just because some of the situations that I put us in, like I said, that sack that I took that I didn’t need to take, which put us — we were empty and I brought a guy from the boundary. Just throw it over the guy’s head. And you’re still playing, obviously you want to get a positive play there. But in that sense, it’s a positive play. So got to be better.”

Williams has struck me as being pretty candid most of the season. He seems to give thoughtful answers. He hasn’t come across as beaten down by the losing or the hits that have piled up. He seems eager to learn and improve, and he was ticked off after this game because he felt he should have been better. In the big picture, that’s probably a good sign for the Bears.

Clock management is on everyone, and Williams will need to be more efficient in the huddle next season. I’d imagine that will be a goal he sets for himself. He’s naturally going to be better at the line of scrimmage.

I was chatting with Seahawks middle linebacker Ernest Jones IV about the timeouts the Bears used at the end and how it seemed chaotic when he shifted the conversation to Williams. Jones began the season with the Tennessee Titans, so he was at Soldier Field for the Week 1 game and had played against him once already.

“They came back after the timeout (on fourth-and-5) and ends up they make the play, so it worked out for them,” Jones said. “I tell you, that kid over there is going to be special. He’s going to be truly special.

“I’ve played him twice this year. From the first game of the year to now, he’s way better. Way better. That kid is going to be special. I don’t mean to call him a kid because he’s a grown man, but he’s going to be special, 100%.”

Chicago Bears QB Caleb Williams takes the heat for ugly 6-3 loss to Seattle Seahawks: ‘I didn’t play well enough’

I asked Jones how what he saw in film during preparation and then on the field differed from the Week 1 game the Bears won despite their offense.

“Decision making,” said Jones, who made six tackles Thursday. “He’s starting to get more comfortable. There’s a lot going on right now down low with his O-line. He’s making a lot of plays with his feet. Once they’re able to get a good O-line and get him protected, man, he can make all the throws. When he gets out of the pocket, he’s dangerous.

“There are only a few quarterbacks in the league that can escape out of the pocket and get the ball out and downfield, and he’s one of them.”

Jones isn’t the first player to praise Williams this season. They were interesting comments, but there’s a long road ahead for Williams and the offense in the offseason. Williams does a good job of owning it, and it seems genuine. If it isn’t, like Kreutz said, he has been well-trained.

3. At least Tyrique Stevenson is putting his yapping to good use on the field now.

It’s going to take some big, game-changing plays for the cornerback to put the Hail Mary play at Washington behind him. And I say that while recognizing the other 10 Bears defenders still should have been able to get the ball on the ground in that situation. But Stevenson had a knucklehead moment and he’s going to pay the price for it.

For the second week in a row, he drew a penalty from an opponent. In this game, Stevenson said something to set off Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf after a Zach Charbonnet run late in the second quarter. Metcalf was called for two personal fouls on the play. Only one was enforced by rule. This came a week after Stevenson drew a 15-yard penalty against Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams. Those two had a run-in on Thanksgiving Day at Ford Field when Stevenson tripped Williams as he went out of bounds. That’s the NFL’s version, anyway. Stevenson was fined for the play.

Stevenson has a way about him for getting under the skin of opponents, which can be helpful as long as he keeps himself in check.

“He’s definitely up there (as a trash talker),” fellow cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “They look for him on tape. He happened to get one and hold his composure today. Last week, Jamo has got some smoke with him. He’s able to get some good penalties.”

What’s more telling is Stevenson went from rotating playing time with Terell Smith for seven straight games (after the Hail Mary) to playing 100% of the snaps on defense. The Bears had a rotation in which they would swap out every two defensive series, and now Stevenson is back full-time.

“It was definitely out of the ordinary,” Stevenson said. “Definitely didn’t expect it (last week). Everybody kind of found out right before the game. It felt good to be out there for a whole game. I had kind of gotten used to the rotation and it got comfortable. But it did feel good getting the whole game.”

I asked him if it was a little bit like the running back position. A lot of times those guys talk about getting in a rhythm and getting a feel for the game with more snaps.

“That makes perfect sense,” Stevenson said. “But this is the NFL, and you’ve got to adjust on the fly every play. You’re playing the coordinator and the player, and every play is like the first play. You’ve got to adjust.”

The Bears were obviously hoping Stevenson would take a big step forward in his second season, and that hasn’t happened. He had some strong moments early in the season in which there were signs of improved growth, communication, film prep. I talked with secondary coach Jon Hoke about it all before the game at Washington. I think Stevenson has been battling to stay locked in since then, and it has been just that for him — a battle.

“I had my ups and downs,” he said. “I feel like I did my job. I haven’t given up over five touchdowns. I don’t think I’ve had a bad season. If that one plays leads you to dictate I had a bad season, shame on you. It is what it is. I feel like I had an OK season despite the Hail Mary.”

He knows it hasn’t been good enough, and I think he realizes Year 3 is going to be critical. A new coaching staff will evaluate him, and he has to assert himself as a pro from Day 1.

“Just continue being me,” Stevenson said. “I have to take the next step in my career. I had a good rookie season. I had a good second season with mistakes. Now it’s time to come back and just show how much room I have to grow and where my mindset is with the game and my mindset for taking care of myself so I can perform on the field.”

Performing on the field is what it’s going to take. He can move past the Hail Mary, but like I said, it’s going to take some big plays in big moments.

Probably should point out the Seahawks actually overcame the 15-yard penalty on Metcalf. It pushed them back to second-and-16 from their 24 after the two-minute warning, but they were able to get in position for a 50-yard Jason Myers field goal, the final score of the game.

4. Usually when a season that began with promise is grinding to the end, all eyes shift to the draft.

With the Bears moving closer to jumping into the hiring cycle, everyone is interested in seeing where that leads — and for good reason. The Bears have to nail this.

Understanding that — and the weeks of coverage that will be dedicated to the process — let’s skip ahead to draft season with the Bears likely to pick ninth, 10th or 11th in Round 1, with a slight chance they could move up to eighth. The 2025 NFL draft is April 24-26 in Green Bay.

It’s wild to think the Bears could wind up 4-13 and pick as low as ninth in the first round. That ought to tell you how much bad football more than one-quarter of the NFL has played this season.

The bad news is that it’s not considered a loaded draft and it might not be the kind of quarterback draft that will push talent down the board for teams shopping at other positions — such as the Bears.

I talked with a longtime talent evaluator and a national scout on a variety of draft topics.

“It’s shaping up to be a better offensive-line class than we originally expected, but it’s still not what it was last year,” the front-office man said. “There’s not any real slam-dunk, top-half-of-the-first-round players. A lot of the top guys in this class on the line are Day 2-graded players.

“It’s a wide-open year overall in the first round. I bet there are a lot of teams that have 10 or less first-round grades right now. In an average year, you’re usually in the mid-teens, and in a good year you’re in the low to mid-20s. This is not a great draft at the top.”

The national scout, speaking on the draft as a whole and not specifically about certain positions, also was down on the top of the board.

“The top half of the first round is not going to be the same as it’s been,” he said. “There’s still some quality talent that is worthy of being picked in Round 1. But I don’t think there are any elite players that really stand out this year.

“There’s no one that’s super fired up to be picking in the top five. You weren’t good this year and there’s no one that is going to be your savior. You’re not looking at a generational player or someone that is going to come in immediately and make a noticeable difference. Obviously if you don’t have a quarterback and you get one that hits right away, that’s great. I’m not sure there’s that guy, either, in this class. It’s not a great year to be a bad team.”

That can change. The process is just getting cranked up, and after the college playoffs there will be the all-star games and NFL combine. Players can improve their draft stock over the next couple of months. Others can fall. At this point, few are unlikely to have a significantly different view of the first round come April.

The Bears will have two picks early in Round 2, with one coming from the Carolina Panthers, and the evaluator said that might be a sweet spot to target a lineman or even two.

“They would be in a good spot there,” the front-office man said. “Where it’s the thinnest is at center. Not a good draft class for that position.”

He said there is a decent crop of guards if the Bears want to focus on that position. Alabama’s Tyler Booker and Ohio State’s Donovan Jackson stand out, and Georgia’s Dylan Fairchild is considered a strong prospect, although he has played through some lower-body injuries this season. Arizona right tackle Jonah Savaiinaea is viewed by many as a guard in the NFL, and his size — 6-foot-5, 336 pounds — makes him intriguing.

As far as edge rushers, the front-office man said a decent number of prospects are worth digging in on, but “I wouldn’t feel super confident in any of these guys right now.” He noted Penn State’s Abdul Carter has had a strong second half of the season and said Georgia’s Jalon Walker, Tennessee’s James Pearce and Texas A&M’s Nic Scourton, a Purdue transfer, will get buzz in the coming months.

“Those are names that will be up there, but I think they all have something to prove,” the evaluator said. “There is some depth at this position. There just isn’t the player you know is going to be a star.”

5. Thomas Brown passed on a 58-yard field-goal attempt and chose to go for it on fourth-and-10. That was the right call.

The Bears probably needed a couple of yards to be just inside of Cairo Santos’ range. I’ve gotten a good handful of questions in the mailbag about Santos’ range, with folks comparing him to some of the newer kickers in the league with stronger legs. The one thing most people have overlooked is that a 60-yard field goal at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, isn’t the same as a 60-yard kick at Soldier Field in December.

The Bears chose not to have Santos attempt a 58-yard kick, and Brown said the kick line was somewhere between 52 and 55 yards. Before we go any further, here are the all-time attempts from 58 yards and longer at Soldier Field.

• Jake Bates, Lions: 65 yards, miss (last week)
• Eddy Pineiro, Panthers” 59 yards, miss (Nov. 9, 2023)
• Matt Prater, Lions: 59 yards, good (Jan. 3, 2016)

Prater holds the Soldier Field record for the longest field goal. Brown didn’t want to attempt a kick from 58 yards, and pretty much no one tries from that distance at the stadium.

“The winds were kind of swirling back and forth a little bit,” Santos said. “It’s really whatever the (coaches) want. The adrenaline kind of takes over at the end of the game sometimes, and you can kick it farther. It’s whatever they believe. They see me working pregame and at practice. You just never know.”

The shame of the deal is the Bears were running low on time. Even if they had converted the fourth-and-10, they might have had to kick, just from a better distance. At that point, there was nothing to lose. If Williams would have had a half-second more on the all-out blitz, maybe the Bears hit a home run. Who knows?

“In my head, I was kind of hoping we were just going for the win,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “I’m going to be honest with you. To tie it up, based on how we were going offensively, I totally understand it at that point (going for it). Just trying to go get a win there. Obviously we couldn’t get it done.”

Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said his line didn’t stretch to 58 yards, and his kicker, Jason Myers, is known for having a powerful leg.

“Our line was a little bit tighter than that,” Macdonald said. “You have to be ready for a fourth-down call, but … you never know if they’re going to try one. We had a call ready on a field-goal block as well.”

6. Kyler Gordon wants to see evidence that he was actually down. The Seahawks were holding their breath.

It turned out to be a missed opportunity for the Bears offense after a takeaway. The Seahawks were on the move late in the third quarter when Geno Smith connected with tight end Pharaoh Brown on a quick out. Right away, he was surrounded by defensive end Austin Booker, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, Gordon and cornerback Jaylon Johnson.

Gordon managed to get the ball out, but at one point both of his knees were on the ground.

“Apparently someone touched my leg,” Gordon said. “They’ve got to show me the replay before I believe it.”

Gordon popped up and jogged to the end zone, and at first the play was ruled a touchdown even though no officials followed him on the play, and the Seahawks pretty much just stood around, just like Gordon’s teammates.

“It’s sad,” Gordon said. “I haven’t had a touchdown since high school.”

Here’s the thing: Brown didn’t have to touch one of Gordon’s legs. If any part of Gordon touched any part of Brown while he was securing the ball and on the ground, Gordon is down.

“In the moment I was really, what was the term you used?” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said. “Was I worried? Yes, pretty consistently worried about stuff.”

Added Smith: “That was an interesting one. I didn’t get the full view of it but I did see Pharaoh. He’s a tough dude, man, and going to try and run five, six people over if he can. I thought he got down. Also heard a whistle blow and then I saw the ball in the other guy’s hand and he’s running down the field. It was just a different situation there.”

The Bears played much better defense than they have recently. They kept the top on an explosive passing offense. They rallied to the ball. They played like they have when they were competitive the last two seasons.

“Response,” Gordon said. “As we know, our defense has a certain standard and we’ve showed it. So, obviously syncing a little bit. Just getting back on the guys to get back right. It’s just important to know what we can do and just go in there and execute. We did way better today.”

The standard took a leave of absence a while back, and I don’t think it returned here. But I do credit defensive coordinator Eric Washington and the players for a better effort. They limited DK Metcalf and Jaxon Smith-Njigba and sacked Smith three times. It was a solid showing. Too bad it wasn’t a defensive touchdown.

7. There’s no telling how a new Bears coaching staff will view Jonathan Ford, but barring an injury, he has a shot to land a job somewhere next season.

You may have never heard of Ford before. I didn’t know who he was when the Bears signed him off the Green Bay Packers practice squad on Dec. 11. He was a seventh-round pick out of Miami in 2022 and was stuck in Green Bay for nearly three full seasons without getting on the field in a regular-season game.

Ford is 6-foot-5 and is listed at 338 pounds. He told me he’s more like 345. Five days after walking into Halas Hall for the first time, he had one solo tackle, four assists and a tackle for a loss in 25 snaps at Minnesota. He had one tackle the next week in 17 snaps against the Detroit Lions and one tackle against the Seahawks.

I’m not suggesting the Bears discovered a star, but men his size who can move don’t just pop up out of the blue, and now Ford is going to have some legitimate NFL game tape for the Bears and rest of the league to evaluate.

Ford had no inkling of the Bears interest until his agent, Tony Paige, called and explained the opportunity. He had a chance to sign with the Bears’ 53-man roster for the final four games of the season. He would be leaving a team bound for the playoffs but would have a chance — finally — to play.

“It was a no-brainer,” Ford said. “I was eager for the opportunity. I just took it.”

‘Why does he get to save his job?’ Ryan Poles is in line to hire another Chicago Bears coach. But should he be?

Ford thought he was going to break through during training camp and preseason, when he logged five tackles in 72 snaps. But he suffered a pulled calf muscle in the preseason finale, and the Packers placed him on injured reserve.

“I thought I had a chance to be in the mix,” he said. “Felt I was right there on the threshold. People around the building told me I was right there. Stuff happened and I had to adjust to the new norm at the time.”

After the Packers activated him from IR in October, they waived him, and when he went unclaimed, he was re-signed to the practice squad.

“I had to get on the field,” he said. “It was about getting an opportunity.”

The Bears told him he could play for them. All he had to do was get a crash course on the terminology and be ready to strap on his helmet. It all happened so quickly he didn’t have any family from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., or friends in attendance at the game in Minneapolis.

“But there were a lot of people rooting for me,” he said. “Family, friends, old coaches. My phone blew up. It was a good feeling.”

What the future holds for Ford is unknown. He’s going to have to stay healthy, and once there’s some tape on him for offensive linemen to study, he’ll have to adjust a bit. With his size, he should have scheme versatility, and finally the Packers’ well-hidden secret is out.

“I didn’t know him before this,” defensive line coach Travis Smith said. “A guy with his size and his movement skills for his size and his physicality, yeah. Just look at the situation and him being in his third year and having not played, and they had been able to keep him on the practice squad. All of a sudden come in and play four, five days later against Minnesota, that was huge.”

Smith agrees there’s enough out there for Ford to have a real shot somewhere after the season.

“No matter what system he is in when you have big men who are physical and can move, it’s not the old days of Gilbert Brown,” Smith said, referencing the longtime run-stuffer in Green Bay. “Those guys have been kind of phased out of the league because there’s a need for a pass rush and the ability to play the perimeter run game. But Jonathan is a big man, and you see him overlapping tackles for loss, knocking back O-linemen, getting out of the stack. Plays with great effort. He’s a good find.”

One other thought regarding Ford. It speaks to the incredible depth — and to a degree the health — the Packers have had on their defensive line to keep him under wraps for so long without needing to use him. I had a chat with a pro scout with another team who told me he tried to talk his bosses into claiming Ford off waivers in October.

“He’s got a little juice for a big guy,” he said. “Interested to see if he can do anything. I like the move, taking a shot on him.”

8. The league has protocol for the hiring cycle for head coaches and the timing is specific, especially when interviewing candidates employed by playoff teams.

There’s a lot to wade through here, but if you want to get an idea the timeline, I have reviewed a copy of the league’s hiring policy.

Before the conclusion of the regular season: Teams can conduct in-person or virtual interviews with internal candidates or candidates not currently employed in the NFL.

Jan. 6: Teams with an open head coach position may begin to request interviews with candidates employed by other clubs.

Notes

• Interviews with employees of other clubs must be conducted virtually through the conclusion of the divisional round of the playoffs on Jan. 19.
• Interviews with employees of non-playoff teams are prohibited until the third day following that coach’s season ending. That means Jan. 8 for teams that play on Jan. 4 in Week 18 and Jan. 9 for teams that conclude their season on Jan. 5.
• Clubs working to fill a head coaching vacancy must conduct an in-person interview with at least two external candidates who are persons of color and/or women.

Requirements for interviews of coaches working for clubs that are in the postseason

• Virtual or in-person interviews cannot exceed three hours. This is a new rule that was adopted in May.
• In-person interviews must be conducted in the city where the coach works or at a location that is agreed upon by that coach’s employer.
• For coaches on teams that have a bye in the wild-card round, virtual interviews may begin three days after the Week 18 finale (Jan. 7 or Jan. 8) and must be completed before the conclusion of the wild-card round.
• For coaches on teams that play during wild-card weekend, virtual interviews may begin three days after the wild-card game and must be completed before the conclusion of the divisional-round games on Jan. 19.

Jan. 20: Teams can conduct in-person or virtual interviews with candidates working for teams that have been eliminated from the postseason.

Jan. 27 through Feb. 2: Second interviews — in-person or virtual — are permitted for candidates working for teams that will participate in the Super Bowl. Teams cannot perform an initial interview during this period.

Feb. 10: Interviews with coaches on teams that participated in Super Bowl LIX can resume.

9. In the social media world we live in, there’s a tendency for recency bias to overshadow everything we evaluate.

It’s either the best or the worst, and rarely does the conversation include much perspective or any nuance. In evaluating the current 10-game losing streak, it’s not the worst I have seen. Like I said in the first item, maybe you disagree.

In 24 seasons, this is the fourth losing streak of six games or more that I’ve chronicled. I’m only counting in-season losing streaks, not stretches that span multiple seasons. This one is bad, and there have been so many twists on the roller coaster from the Hail Mary failure at Washington to other fourth-quarter meltdowns to a couple of games for which the Bears didn’t show up. They have been playing from behind weekly since Matt Eberflus was fired.

Here’s how I would rank the losing streaks, from worst to, well, not the worst.

1. 2002: Eight-game losing streak following a 2-0 start.

This tops the list because of the expectations entering the season. The Bears were coming off a 13-3 season when they were the surprise of the league, and Dick Jauron was named Coach of the Year. The team opened with narrow wins over Minnesota and at Atlanta and was off to a great start in Week 3 against New Orleans.

They jumped to a 20-0 lead and were ahead 20-7 when the Saints scored. The ensuing kickoff went off the face mask of returner Leon Johnson. New Orleans recovered, quickly scored and went on to stun the Bears 29-23 as Jim Miller was intercepted at the goal line with two seconds remaining.

There was no recovering from the loss. The Bears went on to lose their next seven, and six of the eight were by six points or fewer. An asterisk needs to be applied to the season because the team played 16 road games — Soldier Field was being reconstructed, and home games were played at Memorial Stadium in Champaign. Still, the Bears were coming off a fantastic season and had a load of young talent in Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown, Olin Kreutz, Anthony Thomas, Marty Booker and Roosevelt Colvin. Injuries began to pile up, and there was no coming back.

Again, I say this was a worse losing streak because of expectations created by achievement on the field, not “Hard Knocks” and whatever else people used to shape their dreams for 2024.

2. 2024: 10-game losing streak following a 4-2 start.

The schedule turned out to be tougher than anyone could have imagined. Minnesota and Washington turned out to be better than predicted, but the Bears could have picked up multiple wins during the agonizing stretch. The loss to the Commanders, the 20-19 loss to Green Bay and the 30-27 overtime loss to Minnesota were gutting. Add in the ending of the Thanksgiving Day loss at Detroit and a lousy effort against a bad New England team, and it’s enough to leave you incensed.

Because the Bears have been playing with a rookie quarterback in Caleb Williams and because an in-season firing of a head coach rarely solves issues on the spot, this does not eclipse the disappointment of the 2002 season. Similarly, neither of these teams was able to win close games — something most bad teams have in common.

3. 2020: Six-game losing streak following a 5-1 start.

Five of the first six wins were one-score games against suspect competition, and the Bears turned out to be paper tigers. When they started playing better teams, they couldn’t respond, and the good vibe in the building quickly disappeared as the losses piled up. The offense was a mess and never got in gear, and the Bears, who finished 8-8, wound up being blown out in New Orleans 21-9 in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

At the end, Chairman George McCaskey praised general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy for keeping the team together during the six-game losing streak when he announced they would be retained. Both were fired after the 2021 season.

4. 2022: 10-game losing streak following a 3-4 start.

The Bears pulled off what turned out to be one of the bigger wins of the Matt Eberflus era when they trounced the New England Patriots 33-14 on “Monday Night Football” in Foxborough, Mass., to bring them within a game of .500. They had their doors blown off 49-29 at Dallas six days later and then lost games to the Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons by a total of seven points. They suffered mostly lopsided losses down the stretch and lost their last 10 games. Most folks were more focused on draft position in the final four to six weeks of the season, and with a stripped-down roster and more than $85 million in dead cap space, it wasn’t shocking that the team stumbled its way to the finish line.

It’s difficult to win 10 games in a row, and it’s also hard to lose 10 consecutively. That might sound counterintuitive, but the difference in talent from one NFL roster to the next isn’t so vast that these things happen with some regularity. The Bears have had plenty of mediocre to downright bad teams that never lost six games in a row. They found a way — here and there — to get a victory or two in the midst of a string of bad games. This team hasn’t found a way to do so and now has to go to Lambeau Field to close out the season.

10. Pretty wild that Caleb Williams’ streak of 353 pass attempts without an interception is the fourth-longest in a single season in NFL history.

• 2018: Aaron Rodgers, Packers, 402
• 2022: Tom Brady, Buccaneers, 399
• 2024: Justin Herbert, Chargers, 357
• 2024: Williams, Bears, 353

With 122 yards, Williams moved into fifth place on the team’s single-season passing list. He’s at 3,393 yards. I don’t pay a lot of attention to Bears passing records. Most were made to be broken 50 or more years ago. But Williams has proved durable, which should not be overlooked. He has answered the bell and is going to have 17 starts as a rookie.

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10a. He’s not going to be a candidate for the Bears, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Matt Nagy gets consideration for a head-coaching position again. Nagy, 46, was 34-31 with the Bears and didn’t have a great quarterback situation, inheriting Mitch Trubisky in 2018. Then the Bears were forced into drafting a quarterback in 2021 and had the fourth choice of passers in Justin Fields. Maybe it won’t happen in this cycle, but it’s wouldn’t be a surprise if some team takes a close look at him for a second shot. Nagy also is considered a strong possibility to one day replace Andy Reid. He and Chiefs GM Brett Veach maintain a close relationship.

10b. The Packers have won 11 consecutive games against the Bears entering next week’s season finale at Lambeau Field. The game will be played on Saturday, Jan. 4 or Sunday, Jan. 5, with the league set to release the Week 18 schedule Sunday.

It’s the longest winning streak in the history of the Bears-Packers rivalry. If Green Bay wins, it will tie for the 14th-longest winning streak against any single team in league history. Don’t worry, there’s a long way to go to top that chart. The Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills 20 consecutive times from 1970-80. The Bears once defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12 consecutive times from 1983-89.

10c. Best wishes on a prosperous and healthy New Year.

Originally Published: December 27, 2024 at 6:08 AM CST

The Chicago Bears got their slow-starting offense rolling in the first half — they had 225 yards and 14 points — but Sunday’s 34-17 loss to the Detroit Lions was never really close, not after two early turnovers and a slew of penalties and not against the high-octane Lions offense.

The result was the ninth consecutive Bears loss — the second-longest single-season losing streak in team history — and it dropped them to 4-11. It’s a lot more of the same as the team struggles to the finish line with interim coach Thomas Brown.

Diving in on what went wrong, the little that went right, a few potential coaching candidates and more in 10 thoughts.

1. They call it Stumble Bum.

The Lions say it’s the name of the play they used early in the third quarter when quarterback Jared Goff looked like he was lunging off a barstool after being served one too many at the company holiday party and running back Jahmyr Gibbs dived for an imaginary fumble.

All the while, tight end Sam LaPorta sneaked along the formation and behind the coverage for as easy of a pitch-and-catch 21-yard touchdown pass as you will see.

As much as anything else, the sleight-of-hand play was an in-game interview by Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson for the Bears head coaching job. We’ve seen on television how creative Johnson can be directing the NFL’s highest-scoring offense. He designs passes for offensive linemen, runs hook-and-ladders regularly and most importantly has a knack for getting everyone involved almost every week.

Imagine Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren and general manager Ryan Poles looking on and saying, “How creative can you be?”

Johnson shrugs and replies, “Want to see something cool?”

Johnson, players said, took notice of how hard Bears defenders reacted to fumbles in general, and they cited a play in which Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love fumbled — accidentally — and recovered to connect with tight end Luke Musgrave for a big gain.

That happened early in the fourth quarter of the 2023 season opener at Soldier Field. Love recovered his own fumble and found Musgrave to be the only player on the left side of the field, connecting for 37 yards. Had Musgrave not fallen down, it would have been a walk-in touchdown. The Packers scored on the next play.

So the Lions, who have had the play in their offense for a few weeks, repped it about four times in practice. Last Monday, Johnson asked Goff if he could intentionally fumble the football before recovering it and then making a play.

Say what?

“I said, ‘I don’t know about that,’” Goff said. “We kind of got off that pretty quickly and we were just like, ‘Let’s just pretend we’re falling or pretend I’m fumbling, but I’m holding on to the ball.’ That part where Gibbs dives really sells the play. I’m only doing half of it. It worked like a charm.”

After Goff stumbled and as soon as Gibbs went to the ground, Lions players were yelling, “Ball!” That’s why you saw Bears players, for a second, lose any focus in coverage.

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Let’s not pretend the Bears were back in the game, but they had given themselves a chance to make it interesting. The Lions were ahead 27-14 — the Bears had made it a two-score game just before halftime — and on the play before the chicanery, officials tacked on 15 yards to a short pass for unsportsmanlike conduct against cornerback Jaylon Johnson.

“After a penalty, we’re thinking they are going to run it,” said safety Jonathan Owens, who got caught with his head in the backfield when LaPorta turned upfield. “They got the look they wanted to run it and they executed.”

LaPorta ran a tight end leak route. You’ve seen Cole Kmet hit on that before. LaPorta delayed, dragged across the field and then turned it into a wheel route. Nasty stuff. There was no one near him.

“I didn’t see Goff (stumble),” Owens said. “I saw the running back (Gibbs). I saw him go down. They were all yelling, ‘Ball!’ It was a great play. It was one of them where everyone is looking in the backfield and you never see LaPorta coming from the other side.

“We call it an, ‘Oh, crap!’”

To the Lions, it’s Stumble Bum.

“No particular reason, I don’t think,” LaPorta said of the name. “Just something fun. Cool to get that one off the call sheet and come up with a touchdown.”

Owens said it wasn’t until the players got to the sideline that they got a better idea of how they’d been hoodwinked.

“People run that play (leak route) all the time,” he said. “We have seen that play but not like that to have the guys falling. Saw still pictures on the sideline. You could see Goff was stumbling and you could see the running back rolled on the ground. We were kind of like, ‘What’s going on?’ We’re looking for the ball and next thing you know, quarterback is throwing it.

“It’s like the fake in baseball, where the runner is walking off the base and then you tag them. Same thing.”

Same thing if one out is equal to six points — more of a cushion than the mighty Lions (13-2) would need against the Bears, who have only two remaining chances to stop the skid that began with the Hail Mary way back on Oct. 27 at Washington.

Early game woes that have plagued the Bears of late — they had gone three consecutive games without scoring in the first half — finally ended. Caleb Williams threw touchdown passes to Kmet and Keenan Allen in the second quarter. But the Bears were down 20-0 before they got in the end zone as Williams and Rome Odunze botched the handoff on one play and Odunze fumbled for two quick turnovers.

Williams finished 26 of 40 for 334 yards and the two scores — the 45-yard shot down the sideline to Allen for a touchdown was a beauty — and extended his streak of pass attempts without an interception to 326, the sixth-longest single-season streak in NFL history. Few teams are built to play from 20 down against the Lions, and the Bears sure as heck aren’t one of them.

Detroit got 109 rushing yards from Gibbs and 143 receiving yards from Jameson Williams, who scored on an 82-yard bomb. Goff completed 23 of 32 passes for 336 yards and three touchdowns. The Lions piled up 475 yards on offense — they didn’t really need to do anything in the fourth quarter — and were 7 of 12 on third down.

It would be surprising if the Bears didn’t request an interview with Johnson. They’ll have to see specifically what NFL guidelines are for the upcoming hiring cycle, and one source said the league is expected to release that sometime this week. It also would be surprising if Johnson didn’t take an interview with the Bears. Where it could go from there, who knows?

Johnson is so creative, there are plenty of other intricately designed plays he could review with the Bears, ones he didn’t draw up specifically to use against them.

“Ben, that was one of his brainchilds,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “It started that way, and then we massaged it and worked it. How do we make this thing better? And then just Goff and Gibby and LaPorta and the O-line making it work. We cooked it all week and they did a heck of a job.

“Those make you feel good because everybody is invested in it. It’s fun. It’s different. It’s sound. I know it sounds crazy but it’s sound. It’s like dribbling the ball on the ground.”

Gibbs said he used to be surprised by the different stuff Johnson came up with on a regular basis.

“Now,” he said. “I expect something every week.”

Swing tackle Dan Skipper, who has a touchdown catch this season, said it’s one way to keep things fun for the players.

“The well is deep, man,” he said. “There is a bunch of stuff. You don’t know what is going to be up each week.”

This week, it was Stumble Bum, which led the Bears to exclaim, “Oh, crap.” Either could be used to describe the Bears season.

2. Left tackle Braxton Jones was lost for the final two weeks of the season with a gruesome lower left leg injury.

Early indications are Jones, who returned after missing last Monday’s game at Minnesota with a concussion, may have avoided a very serious injury.

Lions defensive tackle Levi Onwuzurike powered between Bears center Coleman Shelton and fill-in left guard Jake Curhan on a drop-back by Caleb Williams. Onwuzurike lost his balance and went down, and his right knee pinned Jones’ right ankle to the turf. Pushed back, Jones’ weight transferred to his left leg and his ankle buckled underneath his body as he went down backward.

Medical staff put an air cast on Jones’ left leg before he was taken by cart to the locker room. I’m told the fibula is fractured and Jones is scheduled to meet with a specialist Monday, with surgery likely to be performed this week. A source said the belief is Jones avoided potentially serious ligament damage or multiple fractures.

Jones has a long road to recovery ahead. It could be a four- or five-month process to return to the field after surgery, but it could have been significantly worse. He’s not out of the woods yet. They’ll need to see what doctors say, but the hope is it’s a simple fracture that needs to be stabilized with surgery.

It’s a shame because when Jones has been on the field — he also missed two games in the middle of the season with a knee injury — you can make a case he has been as consistent as any offensive player. The bar isn’t really high for that accolade, but the Bears’ issues on the offensive line start from guard to guard and it’s where I believe the focus will be in rebuilding the line in the offseason.

Now with Jones injured — he will become the third offensive lineman placed on injured reserve, joining Ryan Bates and Bill Murray — it creates more questions about the unit projecting ahead to the offseason and 2025. Jones is in the third year of his four-year rookie contract and will be evaluated by a new coaching staff.

“I told Braxton I love him and all of that,” Williams said. “You know, it’s tough. But we’ve got to find ways to — it’s a part of football. It’s probably the worst part about football — the injuries and your big players going down. But it is a part of football. And we’ve got to find ways as a team to have that next guy up and go in and execute, do the right thing.

“That even means, for me, when we get a lineman in like we did, understanding that this is (his) first snap, and we’ve been in the game and the D-line is flowing and the offensive line is flowing and this is (his) first snap and getting the ball out of my hands. So many different situations that happen in football and throughout the games that I have to take into account but also everybody else.”

How the Bears will pivot Thursday night with the Seattle Seahawks coming to Soldier Field remains to be seen. Larry Borom replaced Jones on Sunday. Kiran Amegadjie, who started in place of Jones against the Vikings, was inactive.

That wasn’t necessarily a demotion of Amegadjie. The Bears needed a backup center with Doug Kramer inactive because of a shoulder injury, and they elevated Chris Glaser from the practice squad to fill that role. Borom offered a little more versatility as a reserve because he also can play guard.

3. No one has benefited more since Thomas Brown took over offensive play calling than Keenan Allen.

Allen made a nifty move on his 45-yard touchdown — it was a great throw by Caleb Williams — and now has five scores in his last five games.

Allen caught nine passes for a season-high 141 yards, and the 32-year-old has positioned himself for a one-year deal in free agency with the way he has played down the stretch. In six games with Brown calling plays, Allen has been targeted 62 times and has 36 receptions for 453 yards (a 12.6 average) with five touchdowns.

In his 12th season, Allen doesn’t have the play speed he possessed earlier in his career. That’s evident. But Allen, who is earning $23.1 million this season, remains a crafty route technician who can diagnose coverage as well as or better than any player in the game.

That was the case late in the second quarter after Williams’ 25-yard pass to DJ Moore moved the Bears to the Detroit 45-yard line with 46 seconds remaining in the half. After a timeout, Williams and Allen had a little communication as the play was about to start with Allen split out wide to the right.

“Right before the snap, I saw obviously they had a two-out show,” Williams said. “And right before the snap, I yelled to Keenan because I was thinking it was going to be Cover-2. Keenan ran a great route. He ran it kind of perfect. We’ve practiced this route many times, and we were just on the same page right before the snap.”

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Allen’s perspective: “We got quarters. The corner kind of played it a little aggressive. Had an out and was able to beat him inside. Perfect ball. Was able to catch it and run.”

Allen faked an out route on rookie cornerback Terrion Arnold, and when he turned it upfield, safety Ifeatu Melifonwu was late arriving from the middle. Allen ran away from both of them, and believe it or not, the 46-yard touchdown — the 66th of his career — was his longest.

“Nah,” Allen said. “Don’t do me like that.”

Look it up. Allen had a 43-yard touchdown on a pass from Philip Rivers in 2013 and a 42-yard touchdown reception from Rivers in 2017. This was his longest.

We’ve seen Allen fill the role the Bears envisioned when they traded with the Los Angeles Chargers to acquire him. That has worked lately. He has been that target in the middle of the field and has made plays on the outside. With one more touchdown this season, Allen would tie his career high of eight (2013 and 2020).

But the offense has been broken in that the Bears have not been able to run the ball effectively with any consistency. They had 59 yards on 17 carries against an opponent ravaged by injuries on the defensive line and at linebacker. It’s tough to keep pounding the rock when you’re chasing 20-0 right away.

Allen has 966 career receptions, so he needs 34 to become the 15th player in NFL history to reach 1,000. The Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce (996) and DeAndre Hopkins (982) could get there first, but Allen should reach that plateau next season.

We’ll have to see whether the Bears re-sign him. Considering where they are right now — and the need to prioritize both sides of the line of scrimmage — I wouldn’t bet on it. But Allen has proved he has more in the tank and has performed in games that were meaningless in the big picture.

“Just trying to do my job,” Allen said. “Keep fighting. Just keep putting good stuff on tape. You’ve just got to prove it to all 32 teams. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about. The last name on your back is really what matters. I ain’t ever going to quit. Just going to keep going.”

4. Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson isn’t the only Dan Campbell assistant who will be in demand.

Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn will be in the interview cycle, and it wouldn’t be all that surprising for the Lions to need two new coordinators in 2025.

Glenn interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons, Tennessee Titans and Chargers last offseason. He has strong ties to the other two teams that currently have openings.

The two-time Pro Bowl cornerback spent the first eight seasons of his 15-year career with the New York Jets. He finished his playing career with the New Orleans Saints in 2008 and was a defensive backs coach for them from 2016 through 2020 before the Lions made him coordinator. He has had other head coaching interviews, including with the Jets in 2021.

Glenn’s work this season — and it’s difficult to measure with statistics — is the most impressive of his coaching career. The Lions have been crushed by injuries, and missing so many frontline players on that side of the ball could prevent them from chasing the first Lombardi Trophy in franchise history. Fewer injuries to key players has crippled other teams in the past, and at 13-2 and coming off a 48-42 loss to the Buffalo Bills in Week 15, the Lions are finding ways to stay in the hunt for the No. 1 seed in the NFC.

How bad has it been? In the first two series against the Packers two weeks ago, the Lions used four players on defense who joined the team that week. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, defensive tackle Alim McNeill, cornerback Carlton Davis and linebacker Alex Anzalone are big pieces to lose. Add linebacker Derrick Barnes and defensive end Marcus Davenport, and that’s a long list. Really, that’s just the beginning. Others have gone down too.

“We’re 12-2 and the sky’s falling?” Glenn said during his news conference Thursday. “We’re going to the playoffs. We’re in the tournament. Why in the hell is the sky falling for us? What do we have to sit back and be sad? We let you guys do that.”

Glenn, 52, hasn’t changed what the Lions do scheme-wise to account for all of the lost talent. He has turned to the next man and the next man and the next man, and if the Lions can make the NFC’s path to the Super Bowl go through Ford Field, maybe they have a chance.

“The next guy’s got to come up and play — that’s the reason why they’re here,” Glenn said. “And I’ve said this also, I’m not going to disrespect any of the players that we have here because they work their ass off just like everybody else, and I hope that you guys don’t do that also because they deserve a chance to go out there and play whenever their time is to go play.

“Our personnel department does a really good job of finding guys that fit who we are, and we’re going to put them on the field and we’re going to play.”

The Lions entered Week 16 ranked No. 1 in the league on third down. Yes, they’ve been hit for a lot of points lately by the Bills and Packers, but they have the firepower on offense to play in games like that when required.

“We’re in Week 16 and I think our stats … are better now than what it was early in the season,” Glenn said. “And that has a lot to do with the players. Our players understand exactly what our play style is. Even the new guys coming in, that’s been the most impressive thing to me is the new guys coming in, they’re saying: ‘Coach, we haven’t seen guys practice like this. We haven’t seen teams, we didn’t practice like this. This is why you guys continue to improve on the things that you need to improve on.’

“And I like to hear that, really, because it lets me know how other teams are operating and it lets us know as an organization that we’re doing things the right way. But those guys come in and they do a good job for us, so each week we look forward to the challenge of each team that we play and we don’t want to take a step down as a defense. And I’m sure that the offense feels the same way.”

It’s not a decision between Johnson and Glenn for the Bears. They very well might want to speak with both of them about their coaching job. Johnson is a more prominent name right now because he’s on offense — offense is always in demand — and the Lions have major firepower.

But Glenn’s work is helping hold this team together, and he has a personality that brings some swagger as well.

5. Nothing better encapsulates the Bears’ current funk than the possession to begin the fourth quarter.

They had first-and-5 at the Lions 22-yard line and came away with a Tory Taylor punt. How do you go from one to the other? A quick pass to DJ Moore for a 1-yard loss and a false start on fill-in left guard Jake Curhan made it third-and-11 from the 28. Then Caleb Williams was sacked for a 9-yard loss by ex-Bear Al-Quadin Muhammad.

From there, the Bears punted.

They trailed 34-17 at the time and it was highly unlikely they were going to claw their way back into the game. But that’s the kind of thing you watch and wonder, “How the heck did that just happen?”

Lions defensive end Za’Darius Smith has gotten a good look at the Bears for a while. Detroit traded with the Cleveland Browns for Smith to fortify their pass rush. Smith played in Minnesota in 2022 after a three-year run with the Packers. So this is his third team and fifth season in the NFC North.

His teams, including the Browns last year, are 11-0 against the Bears since 2019. Smith missed three of those games because of injuries.

“Hopefully one day Chicago will get it fixed,” Smith said. “Detroit went through the same thing for a lot of years. The Lions got it turned around. Hopefully the Bears get it figured out.”

I asked Smith if he believed Williams could be the quarterback to help the Bears turn the corner back to relevance and he didn’t hesitate.

“Yeah, for sure,” he said. “They get great guys around him and he starts leading a new group, he will be perfect.”

That will require a lot of work this offseason. There are too many instances week in and week out when you see things that are confounding. Punting after having first-and-5 at the opponent’s 22-yard line fits in that category.

6. A Lions fan from Texas made the play of the day at Soldier Field.

Ben Roth happened to be in the right place at the right time and might have saved the life of another fan on the field before the game.

Roth, a firefighter and paramedic from Frisco, Texas, is a Lions season ticket holder and attended the game with his 6-year-old daughter, Isadora. He’s in the area for the holidays, visiting the family of his wife, Brittany Roth, the swimming and diving coach at the University of North Texas.

Roth and his daughter were in the stands pregame near the Lions tunnel when he noticed a fan on the field wearing a North Texas shirt. They chatted and it turned out the guy on the field had two extra pregame sideline passes that he shared with Roth and Isadora.

They happily joined their new friend on the sideline.

“We were talking and all of a sudden I heard somebody say, ‘This guy just passed out,’” Roth said. “I am a firefighter and paramedic and he was 10 or 12 feet away. I recognized he was not doing well. I asked for the AED (automated external defibrillator).

“They thought he was having a seizure, and a lot of times when you’re having a cardiac event you can look like you’re having seizure activity. It’s called a cardiac seizure. It’s what we refer to in the medical field. It looks like a seizure but it’s cardiac-related.”

I’m told staff nearby quickly retrieved an AED from the visiting locker room and hustled it out to the field.

“When we put the pads on him, once the Bears staff brought over the thing quickly, I had some state troopers that were doing CPR with me because he did eventually lose his pulse,” Roth said. “We hooked the pads up to him and were able to recognize he was in a rhythm that needed to be shocked.

“We cleared the area. We shocked him and did CPR for a little bit more because sometimes a person can go back into cardiac arrest. He didn’t on the field.”

Roth said the man was responsive when he was loaded onto a cart and then transferred to a hospital. Talk about a chance encounter. Roth just happened to be at the game and by total chance wound up on the field after a random encounter because of a Mean Green shirt.

He attends four or five Lions home games a year, and this was an easy game to get to because it wasn’t far. Isadora came with him because Roth said his wife didn’t want to attend any more cold-weather games.

“It’s been special to be with (Isadora),” Roth said. “The Bears staff, the state troopers, myself and everybody involved was wanting to get this man to see his family and have Christmas and all that. The game was very secondary afterward. Family, holidays, that is the most important thing. I hope this man’s family gets to spend that time with him.”

Someone ought to figure out a way to get Roth and his family to a game with good weather — Super Bowl LIX will be played in New Orleans. He was the real hero at Soldier Field on Sunday.

7. Teven Jenkins appeared on the injury report with a left calf issue this week, the fifth body part he has been on the report for this season.

The left guard was listed as questionable, and the Bears decided to start him after he worked out in front of offensive line coach Chris Morgan and athletic trainer Andre Tucker on the field about 2½ hours before kickoff. He lasted into the second quarter, when Jake Curhan replaced him. Jenkins was seen limping after the game.

Jenkins, a second-round draft pick in 2021, has missed only one game this season because of injury, the Week 11 meeting with the Packers when he had an ankle issue. But he really has struggled to start and finish games.

The Bears have pulled starters late in some games this season, so Jenkins would have played 100% of the offensive snaps in some games if wholesale changes hadn’t been made in garbage time. But Jenkins has played less than 75% of the snaps in five games in which he was forced out early. He has been on the injury report in eight weeks for thigh, rib, ankle, knee and now calf injuries.

On one hand, you have to give him credit for battling through injuries to be available for games. On the other, you have to say this is a huge red flag that should prevent the team from thinking about re-signing Jenkins, who is coming out of contract, even if he would be a bargain.

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Jenkins missed five games because of injury in 2023, and in two others he started and didn’t play 75% of the snaps. He missed four games because of injury in 2022 and had four games that he started but didn’t play 75% of the snaps. He missed the first 11 games of his rookie season after back surgery.

Players with extensive injury histories rarely become models of durability as their careers advance. Jenkins has a hard time staying on the field, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an offensive lineman come out of games with such regularity. There have been questions in my Bears mailbag this season that I’ve passed over, asking about the possibility of the Bears bringing Jenkins back because it’s clear they have to make other moves on the line as well. I don’t see it happening.

The Bears cannot re-sign Jenkins and have any level of expectancy that he all of a sudden would have improved availability. I imagine the front office reached this conclusion a while back, but as this season grinds to an end — who knows if we see Jenkins back on the field again — the reality is inescapable. He comes out of games too often.

The best-case scenario for Jenkins, 26, might be signing a one-year, prove-it deal elsewhere. If he can shake the injury bug in 2025, that might position him for a lucrative multiyear deal. I imagine every team would be concerned about his durability.

8. We’ve gotten a good reminder this season of how great Mike Ditka was as a player.

Maybe that reminder isn’t necessary for everyone, but I’ve always thought Ditka’s massive personality and role in the franchise’s revival as the coach of the Super Bowl XX champions overshadowed — at least to a degree — his role as a player. He was fantastic, the first tight end enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

Ditka’s record of 1,076 receiving yards in 1961 — the most by a rookie in NFL history — will fall this week unless something totally unexpected happens. The Las Vegas Raiders’ Brock Bowers, who had 11 receptions for 99 yards in a 19-14 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, is up to 1,067 yards on 101 receptions. With two games remaining, only an injury would prevent the first-round draft pick out of Georgia from surpassing Ditka.

It’s amazing, with the proliferation of passing offenses in the NFL, that Ditka’s record has stood for 63 seasons. Kyle Pitts of the Falcons is the only other rookie tight end to reach 1,000 yards, finishing with 1,026 in 2021. Jeremy Shockey had 894 for the New York Giants in 2002, and the Lions’ Sam LaPorta had 889 last season. Keith Jackson (869 in 1988) and Charle Young (854 in 1973) of the Philadelphia Eagles are the only other rookie tight ends to eclipse 850 yards.

Ditka piled up his totals in a 14-game season. Bowers probably will need 16 to set the record. He passed LaPorta two weeks ago for the most receptions by a rookie tight end.

The one number no tight end is likely to pass anytime soon is Ditka’s whopping 19.2 yards per reception in 1961. When he was elected to the Hall of Fame, Ditka credited George Halas with “inventing” the position. Soon, others such as John Mackey, Dave Casper, Charlie Sanders, Ozzie Newsome, Jerry Smith, Kellen Winslow Sr. and Jackie Smith followed.

“We were the first to flex (split) the tight end and throw to him,” Ditka told the Tribune’s Don Pierson. “He created the position of a tight end that was going to catch the ball and prevent double coverage.”

Bowers, the 13th pick in the draft, has been a huge hit for a Raiders team that otherwise has struggled across the board. Hopefully the light shines on Ditka when Bowers passes him. It’s incredible that a receiving record like this has held up as long as it has when you consider some of the greats at the position in some high-profile passing attacks.

9. Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Justin Fields was inactive for Saturday’s loss in Baltimore with an abdominal injury.

That eliminated the slim chance he could have played enough by the end of the season for the draft pick the Bears are receiving from the Steelers to improve.

The Bears will get a sixth-round selection as compensation for Fields. The pick would have improved to a fourth-rounder if he was on the field for 51% of the Steelers’ offensive plays. Fields started the first six games before Russell Wilson replaced him. Entering Saturday, he had played 408 of the team’s 933 offensive snaps (43.7%), according to Pro Football Reference.

Fields probably would have needed to play the final 3½ games to reach 51%, but when he was forced out Saturday, that sealed things.

Now that we know it’s a Round 6 pick for Fields, here’s a look at the Bears’ eight 2025 draft picks:

• Round 1
• Round 2
• Round 2 (from Panthers)
• Round 3
• Round 5
• Round 6 (from Steelers)
• Round 7 (from Bengals)
• Round 7 (from Browns)

It looks like the Bears will have three picks in the top 40 and four in the top 75.

10. Fifteen of the Bears’ 17 opponents for the 2025 season are known.

We know the Bears will have home and away games against NFC North foes. They will have home games against the Cowboys, Giants, Browns and Steelers. They will have road games against the Eagles, Commanders, Ravens, Bengals and Raiders.

Hanging in the balance is a home game against the corresponding finisher in the NFC South and a road game against the corresponding finisher in the NFC West. If the schedule were based on the current standings, it would mean a home game against the Panthers and a road game against the 49ers. But it’s not locked in.

The Panthers are 4-11 after a 36-30 upset of the Cardinals on Sunday. They are in last place but only 1½ games behind the Saints, who are 14-point underdogs Monday night in Green Bay. If the Saints lose, they would be only one game ahead of the Panthers.

Here are the remaining schedules:

• Panthers (4-11): at Buccaneers (8-7), at Falcons (8-7)
• Saints (5-9): vs. Raiders (3-12), at Buccaneers (8-7)

The 49ers are in last place in the NFC West at 6-9, a game behind the Cardinals and two behind the Seahawks. The 49ers lost to the Cardinals in Week 5. Keep that in mind for a potential tiebreaker.

Here are the remaining schedules:

• 49ers (6-9): vs. Lions (13-2), at Cardinals (7-8)
• Cardinals (7-8): at Rams (9-6), vs. 49ers (6-9)
• Seahawks (8-7): at Bears (4-11), at Rams (9-6)

10a. The Bears remained ninth in the draft order based on Sunday’s results, last in a group of three 4-11 teams. The Panthers’ win dropped them to No. 7 in the draft order. If that holds, the Bears would be picking at No. 39 and No. 41 in the second round.

10b. The Seahawks opened as three-point favorites over the Bears for Thursday’s game at Soldier Field.

10c. Happy holidays.

Originally Published: December 23, 2024 at 7:29 AM CST