Brad Biggs: Everything plaguing the Chicago Bears — and there's a lot — was on full display late in the disastrous loss to the Detroit Lions

Typically, it’s difficult to summarize all that is wrong with a team headed in the wrong direction over the course of a season.

It’s a four-month marathon with ups, downs, twists and turns, and encapsulating everything in a tidy package can be a stretch, especially in a space as limited as this.

But the 2020 version of the Bears that took the field Sunday at Soldier Field in a likely win-or-else game against the lowly Detroit Lions packaged it all for you to see in the final half of the fourth quarter, and it’s easily summarized here.

It had been seven weeks since the Bears (5-7) scored first in a game. That happened in their last victory, way back in Week 6 at Carolina. Not only did they score first Sunday, they mounted an impressive drive at the end of the second quarter to carry a 23-13 lead into halftime. The last time the Bears scored that many points in the first half was in Week 3 of the 2019 season at Washington.

Things looked good heading into the fourth quarter. Rookie tight end Cole Kmet caught an 11-yard touchdown pass off a play fake to stake the Bears to a 30-20 lead with 11:23 remaining. Then Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford somehow stuck a pass intended for tight end T.J. Hockenson right into the hands of Bears nose tackle Bilal Nichols for the unlikeliest interception.

Bears ball at the Lions 46-yard line with 9:22 remaining? It looked like they would end a five-game losing streak, would return to .500 on an afternoon when the seventh seed in the NFC playoff picture, the Arizona Cardinals, lost for the fourth time in five games and would at least change the vibe at Halas Hall for a week.

Suddenly, everything that is wrong with the Bears — and everything that will be difficult, if not impossible, to fix in one offseason — came crashing down on them.

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1. The Bears need a new quarterback.

Mitch Trubisky had a pretty good game up until the end. He finished 26 of 34 for 267 yards with the touchdown pass to Kmet, and the Bears had 389 yards of offense, a huge day by their standards.

But Facing third-and-4 on his 17-yard line, Trubisky lost the ball in the pocket when Lions defensive end Romeo Okwawa swiped it out of his hands. The Lions took over on the Bears 7-yard line and went ahead after two Adrian Peterson runs.

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The Bears’ quarterback need isn’t revelatory; it’s the longest-running storyline with this franchise. In the big picture of Trubisky starts, this wasn’t bad when you go back to, say, the start of last season. But it wasn’t good enough, and his third-and-4 throw to Cordarrelle Patterson in the flat, just after the Nichols pick, was off the mark, forcing a punt.

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2. The Bears are deficient when it comes to offensive playmakers.

Their best offensive player, Allen Robinson, didn’t get to the sticks on third-and-5 from the Lions 24-yard line. Cornerback Amani Oruwariye fell down, but Robinson didn’t see that and hopped out of bounds to stop the clock just short of the sticks, which were right in front of him.

Why was Trubisky targeting Patterson on third down earlier in the quarter? The Vikings, Raiders and Patriots all tried to fit in Patterson on offense where they could. To borrow from former Bears general manager Jerry Angelo, it’s trying to put a square peg in a round hole. There have to be at least three better options on a third down. Patterson ran for 59 yards on 10 carries, huge production by his standards, but in this key moment, with the Bears trying to tack on a score, he can’t be the target.

Tight end Jimmy Graham, who is earning $9 million this season and has been surpassed by Kmet in playing time the last three weeks, didn’t have a catch. He can’t get separation on his routes, not even against a woeful Lions defense. It was a miscalculation in free agency, and it has been that way all season.

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3. The offensive line continues to be a problem.

It was an issue last season, and GM Ryan Pace signed two veterans to one-year minimum deals, drafted two guys in the seventh round and banked on a new position coach, Juan Castillo, transforming the unit.

One of those veteran minimum guys, Germain Ifedi, got beat by Okwara for the strip-sack. Trubisky can’t lose the ball, but there wasn’t a lot of space for him to step up in the pocket.

Then, facing fourth-and-1 after Robinson went out of bounds, the line couldn’t create enough space for David Montgomery to slip through the middle. A first down there would have given the offense 11 seconds at the Lions 19-yard line, a chance for probably two shots at the end zone, maybe three. Instead, they turned the ball over on downs.

In a game in which the Bears ran for 140 yards, their second-highest total all season, it still wasn’t good enough, and the line wasn’t in a good position to begin the season.

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4. The Bears have poured huge money into their pass rush and aren’t getting a return.

They sacked Stafford twice — Nichols and Barkevious Mingo got him — but rarely pressured him. The Lions converted three third downs when they needed 7 yards or more and easily marched 96 yards in seven plays, needing just 2 minutes, 15 seconds to pull within 30-27 with 2:18 to play.

Outside linebacker Khalil Mack has gone four consecutive games without a sack, the longest stretch of his career since the start of his rookie season in 2014, when his first sack didn’t come until his 10th game.

Robert Quinn, signed to what amounts to a fully guaranteed two-year, $30 million deal, didn’t have any impact on the game, and that has been the case nearly every game since his debut in Week 2 against the New York Giants, when he sacked Daniel Jones on his first play. He’s trending toward being the worst free-agent signing the Bears have made since the NFL introduced the system in 1993. That’s saying something.

Akiem Hicks, back after missing last week’s game with a hamstring injury, has gone eight consecutive games without a sack.

Pace’s master plan this offseason was to take a strength and make it the edge that would restore the Bears to contention in the NFC. The plan was to close out opponents with a pass rush that would help create a flock of takeaways in the secondary. Quinn was the key to that, but he hasn’t freed up anything for Mack or Hicks and they’ve struggled to dominate consistently on their own in terms of reaching the quarterback.

It’s a terrible loss. The Lions are in disarray, a little more than a week removed from firing GM Bob Quinn and coach Matt Patricia. But since the Week 1 opener at Ford Field, when the Bears needed a furious rally against a terrible and injured secondary to escape with a victory, the Lions (5-7) have managed to win five games. The Bears have won only four times since then and not since that Oct. 18 game at Carolina.

Soon, the McCaskey family will have to consider moves with the franchise, and everything that is currently wrong with the Bears — and there is plenty — was on full display Sunday.

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