It’s too soon to call the Bears contenders
Nancy Armour: Bailing out Chicago’s woeful offense might be too tall a task
CHICAGO – Dial back the swelling hype over the Bears just a bit.
Yes, the Bears manhandled the best team in the league Sunday night, holding the Rams without a touchdown and making Jared Goff look as inept as he did when he was a rookie. Not only did Chicago’s 15-6 victory give the Saints the inside track on home-field advantage, it gives the Bears at least a chance of moving up to the No. 2 seed in the NFC.
But that is assuming the Bears’ defense, as nasty and opportunistic as they come in the NFL, can continue to bail out Mitchell Trubisky. And that’s simply too big an ask right now.
Until Trubisky and the offense can contribute even a fraction of what the defense does, game in and game out, Chicago cannot be considered a serious contender for the Super Bowl.
The Saints, the Rams, the Chiefs, the Patriots — Chicago’s defense can shut down any of them. That’s how scary good the unit is.
The Rams rolled into this game averaging 35 points and almost 440 yards per game, and Todd Gurley had already topped the 1,000-yard mark. Chicago held them to a paltry 214 yards. Through
three quarters, Gurley had 6 — yes, you read that right, 6 — yards rushing, and finished with 28.
It was his lowest total since Nov. 29, 2015, his rookie season.
The Bears picked off Goff four times and sacked him three times, once in the end zone for a safety. Goff finished with a passer rating of 19.1.
“Certainly a humbling night,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “I put him in really bad spots tonight against a great defense.”
The conditions likely didn’t help. Goff has spent his entire life in California, and his idea of cold is far different than Chicago’s, where the game-time temperature was 29 and the wind chill dipped into the teens after halftime. He looked uncomfortable and out of sync all night, as if he couldn’t wait to get off the field and into every fleece he owns.
That’s not to take anything away from Chicago’s defense. But unless chaos reigns over the NFL as it did Sunday, the Bears will not have the advantage of the frigid confines of Soldier Field in January. They’ll be home for the wild-card game and then hit the road, playing in either warm weather or domed stadiums.
If that’s the case, the Bears will need more from Trubisky.
Trubisky has made strides in his second season but remains far too reckless with his throws. He had three interceptions Sunday night, bringing his season total to 12, and was too close for comfort with a couple of other passes.
Yes, this was his first game back after missing the last two with a shoulder injury. That explains one of his interceptions. Maybe. As he’s done throughout the season, he repeatedly sent balls zipping over his receivers’ heads and tried to force passes into double or triple coverage.
His last pick, by Rams safety John Johnson, was so telegraphed even the folks in the top row at Soldier Field could see it coming.
He did throw one touchdown pass, though even that took a little bit of coach Matt Nagy’s trickery. Facing third-and-goal from the Los Angeles 2, the Bears sent in four defensive linemen, and offensive tackle Bradley Sowell reported as an eligible receiver.
After faking a handoff to defensive tackle Akiem Hicks, Trubisky lofted a pass to Sowell for the score.
“It wasn’t (Trubisky’s) best game,” Nagy acknowledged. “I told him, ‘Who cares? We’re about winning the games.’ ”
That’s the point, though.
A stout defense is a proven winning formula in the postseason, but it can’t be all a team has to offer. (Even those 1985 Bears had Walter Payton, Willie Gault and Jim McMahon.) A one-dimensional team is going to have a short shelf life, as will a team with a quarter- back who doesn’t yet have the maturity to know that, sometimes, the best throw is the one you don’t make.
“There were times I was just trying to do too much, make a play,” Trubisky said.
The luxury of having a defense like Chicago’s is that Trubisky doesn’t need to be Steve Young, as one broadcaster laughably compared him to this year. He just needs to be smart.
Trubisky has thrown multiple interceptions in four games this year, and only one, against New England, has been a loss.
If the Bears are going to have legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, they can’t count on that trend holding.
“I’m pretty disappointed in myself, the way I played,” Trubisky said. “We’re still going to celebrate because it’s big for this organization.”
But one game in December isn’t the end goal. The Bears have a defense good enough to carry them to the Super Bowl but an offense that will get in the way.