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This was a must-win for Matt Nagy and his Bears.
For credibility, for progress, for proof that the process of the plan was working.
The Bears were facing a beat-up Jets team. The Bears had a more talented roster, a more experienced quarterback and the home field. The Bears had legitimate playoff hopes, and playoff teams beat the patsies in front of them.
Must-win indeed.
This might have been just the sixth game of Nagy’s rookie season as head coach of the Bears, but life in the NFL moves pretty fast. It moved pretty fast in September when the Bears jumped into first place in the NFC North with a 3-1 record. It moved pretty fast when they came out of the off week bored and slow and bad, losing two straight to fall into the cellar, a familiar spot the previous four seasons.
And so, at 3-3 and facing a must-win, the Bears happily got the Jets, undermanned and under .500, quarterbacked by a rookie with no healthy receivers who had caught a touchdown pass in the NFL.
Despite playing without Khalil Mack, the Bears held Sam Darnold to 153 yards and a TD. The star outside linebacker finally was told to rest that injured right ankle. The Bears made the right call long term with division games coming up next month. Short term, sitting Mack offered the Bears defense an opportunity to show it was more than just Mack, which hadn’t been the case the previous two games.
The Bears defense forced a three-and-out on the first drive of the game. But when the offense put together a time-consuming drive into Jets territory, Mitch Trubisky was tripped up on third down and then Cody Parkey missed wide right to continue to make Ryan Pace look stupid for cutting Robbie Gould.
But on the second drive, after the defense forced another three-and-out, the Bears offense stung the Jets for a score. On second-and-10 from their 30, the Bears hit a screen on a seven-man blitz as if they had stolen the Jets’ signals. Trubisky lobbed it over the assault to Tarik Cohen, who had nobody close to him, and like that, the 70-yard TD marked the Bears’ longest play of the season.
The Bears gave up a field goal on an eight-minute drive on which they offered little pass-rush pressure, which has been an issue all month.
And then this began to feel like math homework, necessary and aggravating, just waiting for the Bears to put the Jets out of everyone’s misery.
The Bears committed to the inside running game, but when they passed, Trubisky showed his unfortunately standard inaccuracy while mixing in some strikes, completing just 5 of 13 for 116 yards in the first half.
The Bears finally put together another scoring drive, and hey, look at that: Trubisky was accurate. He drilled a back-shoulder throw to Anthony Miller in the back of the end zone midway through the third quarter to make it 14-3, which should’ve made a comeback impossible from this ragged and injured Jets bunch.
But the Bears defense displayed some stupid and bad play to help the Jets mount a TD drive to make it a game.
First, Bears safety Eddie Jackson extended a Jets drive with an idiotic unnecessary-roughness penalty on a third-down incompletion when he drilled a receiver long after the ball had sailed past his hands.
Two plays later, Kyle Fuller mistimed his jump and gave up a 29-yard gain into the red zone, and a couple of plays after that, the Jets made it 17-10.
But then Trubisky, who looked better in the second half, answered with a terrific drive that ate up 4:02 and covered 79 yards in eight plays, never facing a third down as Jordan Howard capped the effort with a 2-yard TD run to make it 24-10, the eventual final score.
During the week, Nagy stressed that his team must find that “finishing mentality.’’ This was that.
OK, so the opponent wasn’t the Patriots. In fact, it was the opposite of the Patriots. But it was a win on a day when any other result would’ve been inexcusable.
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