Any temptation to call the Bears’ victory Sunday against the Cardinals a get-well game should be quashed immediately. Yes, they bounced back from a miserable loss to the Browns the week before. No, that doesn’t change the fact that the Cardinals are awful.
This was a get-it-over-with game that moved everyone a step closer to the end of a trying season.
It served as a get-on-with-it-already plea from anybody who wants to know what the Bears are going to do with quarterback Justin Fields and how they’re going to use what might be the No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft.
Keeping with one of the major themes of the season, the Bears played well in the first half and then went missing and presumed dead in the second half of a 27-16 victory. No matter which side you fall on in any of the several blazing debates surrounding the team, you can’t argue with this ironclad truth: My goodness, the Bears are a hard watch.
They won Sunday because the Cardinals have a bad defense populated by undersized players. Nothing wrong with that. You take what your opponent gives you, and the Cardinals didn’t know how to say ‘‘no’’ in the first half. But it’s hard to make a case that Fields improved as a passer. He threw an interception and could have thrown two more.
The Bears didn’t get well, but they did get a lot of yards, amassing 420 in total, 250 of which came on the ground. They had 252 yards of offense in the first half and scored touchdowns all three times they cracked the red zone. Tight end Cole Kmet had four catches for 107 yards in the first two quarters. Defenders looked like Lilliputians trying to tackle him.
At halftime, coach Matt Eberflus told Fox he wanted the Bears to keep their foot on the gas. He knows his team too well. It treats leads like they’re birthday candles.
So the Bears went into the final 15 minutes with a 24-10 advantage, and gallow-humored Chicagoans were of one mind: What possibly could go wrong?
This: The Bears scored six points in the second half, including three in the fourth quarter.
But that’s not how Eberflus, the coach and spin doctor, saw it.
‘‘It’s just about being resilient,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s attention to detail on some things that we need to do better. You have to do that in the fourth quarter. You have to bring it to the guys’ attention and the coaches’ attention. We’ve just got to keep doing a better job. That’s three out of the last four now that we’ve finished the fourth quarter, going back to Minnesota, the Lions and now this one here. We were real close to getting it done last week.
“So I can certainly see growth.’’
He didn’t mention the Cardinals are 3-12.
Kmet hurt his knee toward the end of the first half. That meant Fields would be without his security blanket. So he ran, finishing with 97 yards on nine carries. Khalil Herbert had 112 yards on 20 carries. It was the Bears’ strength against the Cardinals’ biggest weakness.
The 2023 Bears can be reduced to two back-to-back plays early in the fourth quarter. Fields had a spectacular 39-yard run, making defenders look as though they were chasing a dollar bill in a wind tunnel. He immediately followed that with an interception into the left corner of the end zone, underthrowing Herbert. The first sin was a pass play when the Bears had been killing the Cardinals on the ground; the second was a poor pass.
What did any of it mean? Not a whole lot. Oh, Bears coaches will tell you that every snap and every game is an opportunity for improvement. It’s what football coaches always say. But the victory means the Bears are a game closer to making a decision about their quarterback and their coach. That’s the meaning of life in Chicago right now.
The game shouldn’t have told general manager Ryan Poles anything he didn’t already know. If he doesn’t know that this is what Fields is, in all his greatness (running) and all his unremarkableness (passing), then the franchise is in trouble.
It’s possible the Bears could end the season with a three-game winning streak.
But that’s not what this is about. This is about getting it over with.
