The Chicago Bears and Justin Fields have found some mojo on offense. Brad Biggs’ 10 thoughts on the skid-breaking 40-20 win.
10 thoughts after the Chicago Bears had another huge offensive game, jumping out early on the Washington Commanders and then burying them late in a 40-20 victory Thursday night at FedEx Field.
The Bears’ first win of the season snapped a 14-game losing streak hours after the team announced Pro Football Hall of Famer and Chicago native Dick Butkus died at age 80.
1. If the Bears have established an offensive identity in the last two games, things could get interesting.
They put up 451 yards Thursday and 471 on Sunday in the gut-wrenching loss to the Denver Broncos. Who in the world figured the Bears would amass 922 yards in a five-day span?
Two games doesn’t prove the Bears have figured things out on that side of the ball, but there’s a lot to dive into that is very positive.
First, though, let’s talk about how the victory changed the mood for a team that desperately needed it, especially after blowing a 21-point lead at home last week in the final 16 minutes.
There has been speculation about the job status of coach Matt Eberflus, now only 22 games into his tenure. There has been ample discussion about the 2024 draft and the possibility the Bears could have two very high picks. There has been more drama than anyone would have preferred. Defensive coordinator Alan Williams’ exit was a blow. Wide receiver Chase Claypool is still in limbo, and then there were the comments quarterback Justin Fields made about coaching being one potential reason his play was “robotic.”
That’s a lot of crap for a football team to pack into four weeks. Three of the losses were ugly and the Broncos game was excruciating the way the Bears melted down.
Things got a little interesting in the fourth quarter Thursday as Sam Howell rallied the Commanders, but the Bears were in good shape when Joey Slye pushed a 46-yard field-goal attempt wide right with 5:11 remaining and the Bears leading 30-20.
Washington had been moving the ball pretty freely through the air, so the Bears, at minimum, needed to chew some time off the clock and flip field position. Fullback Khari Blasingame — subbing for injured running backs Khalil Herbert (right ankle), Roschon Johnson (concussion protocol) and Travis Homer (hamstring) — hit the left side for 6 yards on first down. Then Blasingame ran behind right guard for 2 yards before Commanders coach Ron Rivera used his first timeout with 4:18 remaining and the Bears facing third-and-2 from their 44-yard line.
Another handoff, right? Safe play. Maybe Blasingame picks it up. If not, punter Trenton Gill ought to be able to pin the Commanders inside their 20.
Wrong.
“Coach (Eberflus), he challenged himself, the coordinators at halftime,” cornerback Jaylon Jones said. “He told the whole team at halftime, we’re going to call it aggressive. Don’t shy away. He challenged the OC (Luke Getsy), special teams (Richard Hightower) and he told us as a defense we were going to keep the pressure on them.
“We liked it. It charged us up. It was something we wanted to hear.”
Eberflus was aggressive before the game started. The Bears won the coin toss and he chose to receive the ball to start. It’s the 10th time since the start of last season the Bears won the toss and only the third time they chose to get the ball. Weeks 1 and 14 last season were the other instances.
A multitude of factors can enter into a coach’s decision with the coin toss, but conventional wisdom is you defer with the hope of scoring late in the first half and then getting the ball to open the third quarter. Eberflus wanted to begin this game with his offense, and his decision paid off.
DJ Moore ran a double move on third-and-9 and wound up wide open for a 58-yard gain. Two plays later, facing third-and-14 from the Commanders 20-yard line, Fields connected with Moore again as he slipped into a good-sized crease between safety Percy Butler and cornerback Kendall Fuller for a touchdown.
Back to the late third-and-2 call. Getsy dialed up a pass play and Fields looked to Moore on the left side on what looked like a little stop route not far beyond the sticks. Fuller jumped the throw in an effort to pick it off — the last of many aggressive moves by Commanders defensive backs. From my vantage point, Fuller was headed for a pick-six or the ball was going to sail out of bounds.
The ball was high. Fuller missed and Moore somehow snared it, and with the cornerback out of position, Moore was gone for a 56-yard touchdown to seal the game.
“A sigh of relief for sure,” Fields said of the play. “When DJ made that catch and run, it was pretty much game over by then. A heck of a play, great catch, great protection up front and executed it well.”
Tight end Cole Kmet was ebullient as he made his way through the tunnel to the locker room. The team’s last victory was on Oct. 24, 2022, at New England. It was a L-O-N-G time coming.
“It’s been hard the past — I mean, it’s been a whole year,” Kmet said. “It’s been hard and we had to grind through a lot of stuff here.”
Said Fields: “The feeling that we all had after the game is just a feeling that you never want to end.”
I wouldn’t blame the loss to the Broncos on the Bears not being aggressive, but they failed to finish that game. The team stressed finishing all week, and as part of that, there were some aggressive decisions with Eberflus dialing up more pressure from defensive backs. More on that a little later.
Music was cranked up in the locker room afterward. It’s something second-year players have experienced only four times with the Bears. It was a clear relief for Eberflus as well.
“That’s why you get into coaching,” he said. “You know, been coaching for 32 years. When I started doing it, I was 22 years and nine months. I was coaching guys that I played with, so that was a little weird. But it’s fun because you get to see the smiles and the joy for the hard work.
“All the staff members, the coaches, you know, it’s a lot of work that you put into this. We’ve gone through some adversity but we learned lessons from that. Those things hurt me a little bit. So it’s going to be fun going forward.”
2. Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy wasn’t too high when asked about Justin Fields and expectations for the offense entering the season.
You didn’t hear anything outlandish. He didn’t get low, either, when the unit struggled through the first three games. He has a measured tone when he answers questions, and he brings that to the meeting room too. He’s consistent in how he communicates with players.
“I think we’re in the process of building something special,” Getsy said seven days before this win. That was coming off the bad loss in Kansas City in Week 3 and before the offensive explosion against the Broncos. “And I think that we’re in the phase of, it’s Week 3 going into Week 4, and we’re going to find a way to attack Denver in a completely different way than we did Kansas City.”
The Bears have a little mojo going with Fields getting to the edge of the pocket and making throws. They’re mixing in designed quarterback runs and they had Khalil Herbert hitting runs downhill before what looked like a gruesome injury but hopefully won’t be too bad after all. More on Herbert in a bit.
What the Bears have done is establish a true triple threat with Fields where he can throw, run or hand the ball off. You saw Commanders defenders in a bind all night because of it. Fields finished 15 of 29 for 282 yards. The offense was clicking from the start, scoring on its first five possessions to take a 27-3 halftime lead.
Getsy leaned into more 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends and two wide receivers) than he had. My unofficial tally had 31 snaps with two tight ends on the field, and that leads the defense to be in base personnel more often. The Commanders felt like they needed to have eight defenders in the box to combat the ground attack and Fields as a runner.
What did that do? It left DJ Moore in solo coverage for a ridiculous game as he caught eight passes for 230 yards and three touchdowns.
The Commanders didn’t want Fields to beat them with his legs — he carried 11 times for 57 yards — and he crushed them with his arm instead as he threw four touchdown passes for the second consecutive game. The Bears consistently outflanked the Commanders on the edges and it was big plays galore. The Bears averaged 7.0 yards per play.
“That quarterback’s been solid,” Commanders coach Ron Rivera said. “Had a very good week last week. He showed what he was capable of. He’s shown it before. He did the same thing to us last year, gave us fits. He’s a heck of a young football player. They have a solid running game, and when you have that kind of rhythm going, it’s tough.”
It will be really interesting to see how sustainable this is. It might be with the offensive line playing better against a stout Commanders front. Like Getsy said before the Broncos game, it’s about identifying matchups and crafting a unique game plan each week. I don’t think you’ll see Moore in single coverage for the majority of the game again anytime soon. But he sure has a knack for catching almost anything thrown his way, and his presence has been so beneficial for Fields.
Defenses will adjust, too, but when Fields can hold the defenders and manipulate them with his eyes, and when he gets the play-action game going, the Bears have shown for two weeks in a row they can move the ball and score.
“You can tell Justin’s seeing things well out there,” said tight end Cole Kmet, who caught the lone TD pass that didn’t go to Moore. “I think he’s confident with the scheme in place. He’s making all the right checks and he’s in sync with the guys that he’s throwing to as well. So he’s been great and I commend him.”
Now you feel like they have a base for something and aren’t lost and searching — because that’s sure how it looked after the loss in Kansas City. The offense appeared broken. It was messy. There wasn’t any continuity. And somehow Getsy saw the beginning of something special.
3. I’m not sure the Bears can throw the football to DJ Moore too much.
He has been targeted 34 times and has 27 receptions. He followed up his 131-yard game against the Broncos with a career-high 230-yard effort Thursday.
If there was a knock on Moore after five seasons in Carolina, it was probably only in the fantasy football world. He was the main cog in the Panthers passing game but he didn’t get in the end zone a whole lot, scoring only 14 touchdowns through his first four seasons. He has five touchdowns this season and needs just two more to tie his career high from last season.
Imagine what his numbers would have looked like had he not been ruled out of bounds on one play along the Bears sideline. He burned just about every cornerback the Commanders had (rookie Emmanuel Forbes Jr. wound up benched at one point) and his season numbers — 27 catches for 531 yards (19.7 yards per catch) and five touchdowns — come after he was targeted only twice in the opener.
Best game of his career, right?
“I feel like it was,” Moore said. “People were like, ‘Do you know how many yards you got?’ And I was like, ‘Please don’t tell me. Let’s not jinx tonight and let’s just focus on this win.’”
It sure looks like Justin Fields and Moore are starting to find some of that chemistry that can really spark consistent production. That’s time on task. That’s getting a feel for how each reacts during games to certain looks or coverages.
I can’t recall a game in which one wide receiver accounted for such a huge percentage of a quarterback’s yardage. Moore’s 230 yards were 81.6% of Fields’ passing yards. That’s bonkers. Tight ends Cole Kmet (five catches, 42 yards) and Robert Tonyan (two catches, 10 yards) pitched in and that was it.
“My biggest thing to Luke (Getsy) is anytime we can give him the ball, get him the ball,” Fields said. “One, he’s a great receiver — we all know that — but two, you know, is to just put the football in his hands. He’s able to make guys miss. Anytime you can get him the ball, it’s always going to be good for us.”
4. The Bears had a plan to work Teven Jenkins into action for the first time this season.
It turned out to be more than they ever planned. The left guard was activated from injured reserve a little more than five hours before kickoff and six weeks after he injured his right calf in a conditioning run in Indianapolis, where the Bears were holding joint practices with the Colts.
The team crafted a plan to rotate Jenkins in at left guard every two series, having him swap out with veteran Cody Whitehair. It’s not unlike what the Bears did early last season when some spots were rotated. Change was necessitated when center Lucas Patrick didn’t come out for the team’s fourth possession as he went into concussion protocol.
Whitehair shifted to center and that left Jenkins out there more than the Bears anticipated. By my unofficial count, Jenkins played 37 snaps. To prevent him from going higher, they used Ja’Tyre Carter at left guard for three series in the second half.
Enough about that situation for now. How about the line’s effort on the road against a loaded front featuring Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne, Montez Sweat and Chase Young? The Bears got beat up a little by that group last season at Soldier Field, and this was a really sound performance across the line. Left tackle Larry Borom deserves some props. He looks like a different player in Year 3. Nate Davis has settled in now for two weeks at right guard.
This was supposed to be a mismatch the Bears couldn’t handle, and they passed the test.
“They’ve got a great defensive front and we were able to bend the defense and establish the run early on,” running back Khalil Herbert said. “It’s something we’ve been trying to do all year and we were able to do it today. Just the O-line.”
Justin Fields was sacked three times, but protection was good and it’s possible the team is two weeks from being at full strength up front. Left tackle Braxton Jones must miss at least one more game on injured reserve with a neck injury.
Jenkins will see how he feels coming out of the game. He participated in two walk-throughs this week and what amounted to a mini practice. He’ll get more work in next week.
“It’s been rough for me,” he said. “I want to be out there with my teammates but I got injured in Indy and things happen. But now I’m here. I don’t want to speak ahead (about playing a full game next week). We’ll see what happens. But I played a lot more than I was supposed to play. It felt good.”
5. The 1984 NBA draft is best remembered for the Chicago Bulls landing Michael Jordan with the No. 3 pick.
Jordan fell to the Bulls after the Portland Trail Blazers inexplicably selected hobbled big man Sam Bowie at No. 2. But it’s the first pick in that draft — the Houston Rockets landed Akeem (as he was known at the time) Olajuwon — that can be used to trace the phenomenon of tanking in the four major sports.
The Rockets were 20-26 two games after the 1984 All-Star break, tied for eighth in the Western Conference. They had their eyes on Olajuwon — who played in college at Houston — and went all out to torpedo the season, losing 27 of their final 36 games.
The Rockets got the prize they sought, ultimately winning two championships with Olajuwon, and the next year the NBA instituted a draft lottery, a system that has been tweaked since.
Tanking is now part of mainstream sports discussion. The Pittsburgh Penguins went further in the tank than the New Jersey Devils could to draft Mario Lemieux in 1984. That’s another example from the 1980s. It has become a greater part of teams’ thinking in the last 15 years or so. It was an element of the rebuilding plan when the Philadelphia 76ers urged fans to “Trust the process.”
The Cubs began their World Series push under Theo Epstein by first taking a step backward in 2012, when they lost 101 games, earned the No. 2 pick in the draft and got a once-every-five-years-or-so talent in Kris Bryant. The Houston Astros followed with a tank job that propelled them to a title (with the help of some sign stealing). Numerous teams have embarked on the same “bottom out and rebuild” plan.
”It’s a different calculus now,” Cubs President Jed Hoyer told reporters late in 2020 after trading pitcher Yu Darvish. “I’m not going to run the same playbook that we ran in 2011 and ‘12. I think that would be foolish. And, frankly, that playbook’s been copied so many times, it doesn’t work the same anymore.”
Several years ago, Josh Lucas, then the Bears director of player personnel under GM Ryan Pace, told me he had visited with Cubs brass in an information-sharing setting. Lucas said it was interesting and time well-spent, but he wasn’t sure if a lot of the Cubs Way could be applied to what the Bears were doing. They weren’t in a position at the time to blow it out for a high draft pick.
So I called Lucas this week and asked about his trip to Sloan Park in Mesa, Ariz., and the day he spent with Jason McLeod, who was the Cubs vice president of scouting and player development.
”Obviously their thing is insane because it’s international and college and high school,” said Lucas, who met extensively with McLeod, watched batting practice from the field and took in a spring training game. “The broadness and the scope is so much different than guys that are coming out with three years of (college) experience or more to the NFL. He was showing me the depth charts.
”I was in there for hours with Jason. I remember focusing on the success of the picks. I remember him talking about, when you are picking this high, you have a chance to completely remake the organization — the pressure on those picks, the need to have these guys be true difference makers. And ultimately how well they did. Obviously the focus was on bats and offensive production more than it was on arms. Honestly I can’t tell you I got anything out of it (that changed how he thought of the NFL process).”
It’s a hot topic in the NFL with USC quarterback Caleb Williams a coveted target in the 2024 draft. Some consider Williams potentially the best at his position since Andrew Luck was the No. 1 pick by the Indianapolis Colts in 2012.
But inside the league, it’s highly unlikely for any team official or coach to acknowledge publicly that tanking is part of any strategy. It’s almost a forbidden word.
The Bears started Nathan Peterman in the 2022 season finale against the Minnesota Vikings. Matt Eberflus said coming out of the Week 17 game that the plan was to play Justin Fields if he was healthy. Three days later, the Bears said Fields had a hip injury and an MRI showed a strain. A loss to the Vikings put them in position for the No. 1 pick when the Houston Texans rallied to beat the Colts.
The Philadelphia Eagles were accused of deliberately losing their finale in 2020 when coach Doug Pederson replaced Jalen Hurts with Nate Sudfeld during a game against Washington. The Eagles were trailing by three, and Sudfeld committed two turnovers. Washington won 20-14. The loss moved the Eagles from No. 9 in the draft order to No. 6.
Pederson denied he was trying to lose and wound up being fired anyway. The uproar was loud because, had the Eagles won, the New York Giants would have won the NFC East. Instead, Washington went to the playoffs.
”It was the last week of the year, and the only impact for Philly was they moved up three spots in the draft,” said a senior personnel man for a team that forbids him from speaking to media. “You can never admit it, but it’s almost negligent if you win that game if you’re the Eagles.
”The whole tanking conversation is always so interesting. No coach is ever going to tank. They don’t spend 80-plus hours a week in the office to go out and lose. No player is worried about next year. They don’t give a (damn). They’ve got to put their best play on film to either stay there or go to the next place and try to make more money.
“Even at this point, if Ryan Poles (has) the worst team in the league two years in a row and you have tried to improve the roster. You’ve made some moves. It’s a conversation that is interesting for fans, and it sounds smart to do at this point for a team like the Bears. But is anybody who has control over the game trying to lose? No chance.”
I texted with an assistant general manager for another team and asked him what signs would indicate a team is tanking. His reply:
Failing to make obvious adjustments.
Trading away good players for draft picks.
Roster adjustments that don’t seem sound.
Firing a coach in season, especially if he is the play caller for one side of the ball.
”The last one, that’s the biggie right there,” the assistant GM texted.
To the point the senior personnel man made that no coach would sign up for losing, who thinks Lovie Smith feels bad about the Texans rallying to defeat the Colts in the final minute at the end of last season? It cost the Texans the top pick in the draft, and Smith is cashing checks from the team for the foreseeable future not to coach.
”It’s real,” Lucas insisted. “It’s a thing. Let’s just be honest. If you’re (Eberflus), the last thing in the world you want to do is tank. The last thing you are thinking about is Caleb Williams. You want to continue to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears. That side of it is easy. He wants no part of that, and I don’t know anything that is going on inside the building. You and I both know 99% of head coach and GM jobs in this league come down to job survival. How do I protect my ass and how do I keep my job? That part is easy.
”The other side that is hard and confusing is what do we do? I am sure Poles is like, ‘If we do this, will I survive? If we do this and we trade Justin (Fields) and put ourselves in position to not win games, what does that do to the culture? What is that doing to the building? What is it doing to these young players that we invested high draft picks in?’ Their first year or their first two years in the league, that losing mentality and culture, it seeps into the building, especially in this town. That’s tough.
“I don’t envy the position he’s in because on the flip side of that, (Williams) is a baller quarterback. This guy is unbelievable. I would be shocked if he doesn’t pan out in the league wherever he goes, whatever city he is in, whoever his coach is. He’s got the rare gifts and talents, knowing his makeup and his personality and his character, but also on the field with regard to physical abilities and playmaking and instincts and vision.”
One luxury the Bears have is they own the first-round pick of the Carolina Panthers, who are 0-4 and heading to Ford Field on Sunday to face the Detroit Lions. The Bears project to have two very high picks in Round 1, and it’s possible the Panthers could deliver them the No. 1 pick without the Bears having to, you know, tank.
6. The way players reacted to Khalil Herbert’s injury in the third quarter, it looked as if it could be potentially serious.
Players know when someone is in rough shape, and initially it looked as if Herbert could be in a bad way. He was out in space on a third-and-5 play near midfield when he twisted back attempting to catch a pass from Justin Fields. Herbert’s right leg folded under him with his knee and ankle twisting awkwardly. It was a freak thing because no defender was near him.
”I’m flexible,” Herbert said with a shrug when I asked him how he escaped without what would appear to be anything too serious. ”It looked nasty. I don’t know. God is good, man. I will be straight. It’s crazy. I will be OK.”
Rookie running back Roschon Johnson already was in the concussion protocol and running back Travis Homer, primarily a special teams ace, had a hamstring injury. That left fullback Khari Blasingame to fill in. He entered for a series and then Herbert, with his right ankle wrapped, came back in the game. He had one carry for no gain and then exited.
So Herbert is dealing with an ankle injury, but if the Bears felt it was serious, he likely wouldn’t have reentered the game. After his 103-yard game in Week 4, Herbert is playing pretty well, and he’s averaging 5.3 yards per carry. He had a 34-yard run Thursday, which is probably what appealed most to the Bears when they considered using him as the top back. He tends to hit the long plays with some consistency.
A long weekend will help him in the healing process.
7. A patchwork secondary was put to the test.
There will be correctable points that coaches deliver, but this was a pretty darn good effort. Without safety Eddie Jackson and cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon, and facing Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel, among others, the Bears had their hands full.
They responded even as more injuries struck. Rookie cornerback Terell Smith went out, forcing Jaylon Jones into action. Fill-in slot cornerback Greg Stroman, who is from nearby Bull Run, Va., had an interception and a sack. Jones had a quarterback hit on a blitz when he forced Sam Howell to throw wide of the mark on third-and-15, the play before Joey Slye missed the 46-yard field goal.
And I thought rookie starter Tyrique Stevenson really battled. He got called for pass interference for impeding McLaurin on a double move on the opening possession of the third quarter. That’s going to happen, and you better believe future opponents will stack double moves against Stevenson all day.
But McLaurin inexplicably came out of the game with only four receptions (on five targets) and 49 yards. It seemed like Stevenson was on him a lot. Just before Jones’ blitz I referenced above, Stevenson was almost called for a second pass interference on McLaurin. After the officials conferred, it was a no-call.
“I think they felt I was a weakness that they could continue to exploit,” Stevenson said. “He ran an out-and-up and I was just trying to do my best job and make sure that I stayed hip to hip with him and be able to make sure I could look back for the ball.
“When I looked back for the ball, it was kind of over my shoulder. I was just trying to make sure I was in a spot where I would be able to try to play the ball and not him.”
Howell’s pass was underthrown, so McLaurin tried to come back through Stevenson to make a play on the ball.
“They saw it was blatant that he tried to create a P.I.,” Stevenson said.
We’re seeing some pretty nice plays each week from Stevenson, who had nine tackles and a pass breakup. We’re also seeing some plays where you chalk up mistakes to inexperience. He doesn’t seem fazed at all by the spotlight, though, and that’s a trait that will serve him well for a long time.
Stevenson sought out McLaurin after the game for a brief chat.
“I was like, ‘You had me nervous all week going up against an NFL vet. I was ready for this challenge,’” he said. “He told me to keep my confidence and keep playing hard.”
Stroman had seven tackles and is feisty near the box. Smith had six tackles, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Safety Elijah Hicks had a pass breakup. The Bears had a lot of inexperience against some pretty talented wide receivers and they stood their own.
8. Tyson Bagent suited up as the backup to Justin Fields for the second week.
Bagent said he’s adjusting quickly to the NFL following an impressive showing in training camp and the preseason after making the jump from Division II. It was an exciting trip for him as three charter buses of fans from his hometown of Martinsburg, W.Va., made the almost two-hour trip to FedEx Field for the game. But Bagent is trying to stay grounded in the moment each day as he learns on the job.
“As a rookie, practice in the NFL is different than practice in college,” he said. “You kind of have to learn how to practice because everything is super professional. You’ve got to know when people are going hard. You’ve got to know when we are being more technical and fundamentally sound and focus on those things. After getting the feel for that, I think I have been able to take leaps and bounds.
”It’s just pressuring myself day in and day out to learn everything and what the new game plan is and any nuances we have for that week. Just getting that down so by the time game day comes, I am hearing the play in my helmet and I am going through all of the processes. I have just continued to build my confidence really.”
Bagent began taking the majority of reps running the scout team in practice last week when he supplanted Nathan Peterman as the No. 2 QB. This week, that meant an abbreviated job of simulating Commanders quarterback Sam Howell. However, running Washington’s offense doesn’t do a lot to prepare him to manage the Bears offense.
”(Quarterback coach) Andrew (Janocko) does a good job,” Bagent said. “We run through the script post-practice. We have a developmental period after practice where I run seven-on-seven with what we have in that week as our offense. And then also on scout team, just playing the game.
“Repetition is the mother of all learning. As many times as I can play the game, understand the protection, understand what the concept is and correlate it into what we do and know what my read is, is a reason I have been able to continue to progress.”
Are there nerves before a game when he knows he could be needed at any moment?
”Not any more than usual,” he said. “I put pressure on myself to learn exactly what we have going on. I’ve been blessed to play a lot of football. Not making more than what it is — 11-on-11. Football field is the same size. At the end of the day, you prepare so much that whatever happens is going to happen.”
9. Safety Duron Harmon had just finished his first practice as a Bear on Wednesday.
Harmon, signed off the Baltimore Ravens practice squad a day earlier, was getting ready to head to the shower and board team buses for the trip when I asked if he had a couple of minutes to chat. Sure, he said.
I asked why a player who won three Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots, has earned more than $25 million in an 11-year career and is 32 years old would want to join an 0-4 team midseason.
”That’s a good question,” Harmon said. “For me, it’s for the love of the game. I put a lot of work in this offseason. Got to spend a lot of time with my family. My oldest son, got to work out with him and I kind of just wanted to show him, ‘All right, when you work and you put so much into something and you get an opportunity, you’ve got to make the most of it.’
“I’m looking at it as this will probably be my last year. So I wanted to end it on my terms.”
Harmon spent last season with the Las Vegas Raiders and worked out with son Christopher, 12, all offseason with the goal of signing somewhere. Offseason programs came and went without a call. He kept working through training camps. Still no offer. Finally the Ravens signed him to their practice squad on Sept. 12, proof Harmon was willing to do whatever it took to get a job for one more season.
”I want to teach my son that no matter the situation, you put your best foot forward, you work as hard as you can and you make the most of the opportunity,” he said. “This was the opportunity that was given to me.”
Was it hard to agree to a practice-squad deal in Baltimore after playing in 178 games (84 starts), including postseason, while earning the nickname “The Closer” for his knack for making interceptions late in the fourth quarter?
”No, because I put so much work into the offseason,” Harmon said. “I’ve got to do this the right way. When you put this much work into it, you can’t just walk away.”
Harmon isn’t sure what to expect with the Bears. He’s happy to be a veteran voice and help young players any way he can.
”They just said there is going to be an opportunity here,” he said. “I am just trying to come here, be a good vet.”
And show Christopher a little something too.
10. The Bears have to reach a resolution with wide receiver Chase Claypool soon.
Maybe I should say the Bears have yet to announce a resolution. He won’t be back with the team and GM Ryan Poles all but confirmed that in a pregame interview with WMVP-AM 1000.
Claypool was inactive for Sunday’s game at Soldier Field against the Broncos and then instructed to stay away from Halas Hall this week. That’s what I would call the nuclear option. I don’t see a path back to the locker room for Claypool. It would be too much of a distraction for a team that has had too many.
“I think Chase is going to learn from this situation — we all will — and I wish him luck moving forward throughout his career,” Poles said on ESPN 1000.
Two teams told me the Bears are seeking to trade Claypool. They’re probably looking at a late-round draft pick or perhaps a swap of picks. There could be conditions attached to playing time. A deadline for trading or waiving Claypool would seem to be 3 p.m. Tuesday. The Bears would have to pay him for next week if he’s still with the team by then.
The Claypool trade has been roundly criticized for a while — and rightfully so. The Bears paid a big price — it wound up being the No. 32 pick in this year’s draft — to get Claypool for 1 1/2 seasons. I remember as last season started, folks were clamoring for Poles to make a move. Do something to help Justin Fields. Get him a receiver. He did. The move didn’t work.
“You’re always disappointed in this situation, and it’s definitely something I take ownership of,” Poles said in the radio interview. “Last year, in the situation we were in, we wanted to add another receiver to the offense, not only to help us be more productive but also to help Justin take the next step.
“The right thought process was there, and I feel comfortable with that. Unfortunately it didn’t work out and we were hoping for him to be a little bit more productive and be someone that could help us take it to the next level.”
10a. A defense that wasn’t getting any sacks took down Sam Howell — the most sacked quarterback in the NFL — five times. The Bears entered with two sacks on the season and pushed that total to seven. T.J. Edwards, Yannick Ngakoue, DeMarcus Walker, Rasheem Green and Greg Stroman each had one. The pressure really got to Howell at the end.
It was good to see the defense get traffic around the quarterback. The Bears were credited with 11 QB hits, so it was a good effort.
“Those last couple drives there, I feel that was big,” defensive tackle Justin Jones said. “We’ve been getting a lot of flak, our D-line. We showed what we’ve been working on.”
10b. Kicker Cairo Santos was 4-for-4 and is now 91.4% on field goals since rejoining the franchise in 2020, hitting 85 of 93. That’s pretty remarkable. Maybe it doesn’t get talked about a lot because we’re not pointing at many game-winners, but how many of those has he even had a chance to attempt the past couple seasons?
