CHICAGO — Disaster.
That’s one word that could accurately describe what happened, from a Bears perspective anyway, at Soldier Field on Sunday.
An opening-game blowout loss, 38-20, against the Packers is bad enough, but for Jordan Love to have outplayed Justin Fields in the process?
Well, it’s just one game but it’s one game that felt like a hundred that came before it.
Bears fans tailgating under blue skies and sunshine or plunked down on barstools and couches, came into Sunday hoping for a new beginning. Instead, they found nothing but a familiar well of misery as wide as Lake Michigan.
Perhaps disaster is too strong, though. Fields came out of the game in one piece, so that’s a positive. Anyone who predicted the Bears would go 16-1 still has a chance of being right. No one was projecting these Bears are Super Bowl contenders, but considering that Aaron Rodgers is finally gone, you can’t blame people for being bullish on the team’s future.
But in the context of this rivalry, maybe “Bearish” is a better way to describe how people feel after the ninth straight loss to the Packers. It feels like Green Bay has won 90 in a row.
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Fields had a different word to relate how it felt from his vantage point, one that begins and ends with an “s.”
“It sucks,” he said. “It sucks. Rivalry, Week 1, going against the Packers. It sucks.”
It did indeed for the Bears. Packers fans who were nervous about a new quarterback ruining their four-year winning streak over the Bears could breathe a sigh of relief after watching Love dissect the Bears on third down and calmly lead Green Bay to an 18-point victory that was not as close as it sounds.
While Love looked like a vet despite it being the first game of his first season as the heir apparent to Rodgers, for most of the game, Fields was running for his life. Bears president Kevin Warren has more protection walking around the suite level with two security guards than Fields did on the field.
When he had time he was barely looking downfield, throwing an array of screen passes, many of which were quite unsuccessful.
I mean this is just coaching malpractice. pic.twitter.com/qb6MGI5Ttk
— Danny Parkins (@DannyParkins) September 11, 2023
Fields said the short throws were a part of offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s scheme.
“I think just with those, we just gotta do better blocking on the perimeter to set those up,” Fields said. “Go back and look at the film. If we block the guys, those are 10-, 15-, 20-yard plays. That’s just the game plan.”
He’s not wrong. But it’s hardly an offensive plan that inspires confidence in anything or anyone. Couple that with new receiver DJ Moore, the supposed savior of the offense, getting two targets all game, with both coming in the same series in the second quarter, and we’ve seen this show before, right? Even worse, Moore gained 25 yards on those two catches, showing his knack for making things happen. Was he surprised he was barely involved?
“Surprised, no, because the defense was kind of pushed over toward me,” Moore said. “It wasn’t a surprise.”
Moore suggested the Bears were “outwilled.” Effort is fixable, to be sure, but that’s not ideal for Week 1 at home against the team’s biggest rival. Forget what they didn’t do in preseason. NFL players know when the regular season starts, but the Bears players seem to have hit the snooze button.
“It’s definitely a wake-up call,” Moore said. “Wins really start counting now.”
So do losses. The Bears had 14 of them last season, but a last-place season actually inspired some semblance of acceptance in Chicago, where the goal shifted from playoffs to the first overall pick. The Bears traded that No. 1 pick with the idea of building around Fields. One game in and there were jokes about scouting USC quarterback Caleb Williams when the Bears go to Los Angeles in late October. (Alas, the Trojans will be playing in Berkeley that weekend.)
Fields is playing for his future this season, which seems harsh, but the reality of it is he’s in the third year of his rookie deal. Bears GM Ryan Poles will have a choice to make. It’s not like Fields was awful Sunday, he just wasn’t special. The questions about him remain to be answered.
He did, once again, lead the Bears in rushing with 59 yards on nine carries and few of those plays were designed runs, which showed his innate ability to run out of trouble. He completed 24 of 37 passes for 216 yards with one touchdown and one interception that was returned for a backbreaking touchdown. The offense was beset by penalties, false starts and holding calls. At one point, when the referee said “False start, the entire offensive line,” the pressbox broke into its first collective giggle. The sounds of gallows humor are as familiar here as “Bear Down, Chicago Bears.”
Between those drive-killing penalties and the offense’s inability to put downfield pressure on the defense, Fields was constantly dealing with traffic in the pocket.
Meanwhile, Love was busy enjoying himself on a beautiful Chicago weekend. He threw for 245 yards and three touchdowns while averaging 9.1 yards per attempt. He had some help, like when veteran running back Aaron Jones took a throwback screen pass 51 yards. And that wasn’t even one of Jones’ two touchdowns.
51-yard pickup for @Showtyme_33!#GBvsCHI | #GoPackGo
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/aQSMxx4eDU
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 10, 2023
But Love, in just his second NFL start, also made some nice throws in traffic and converted on some soul-killing plays, the kinds of which have left Bears fans fuming for decades. On third-down throws, he went 7-for-9 for 101 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for a first down.
The Packers converted 9 of 16 third downs, while the Bears went 3-for-13. Each converted a fourth down, but the Packers’ was special. In the third quarter, on fourth-and-3 from the Bears’ 35, Love found Jones coming out of the backfield for a short catch that he took to the house.
Aaron Jones races to the endzone for the TOUCHDOWN 🙌
The @packers are pulling away!
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/j4awq04KXB
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) September 10, 2023
The Bears were down 24-6 when Fields finally went to the air and found Darnell Mooney for a 23-yard touchdown to cap off a drive that saw rookie running back Roschon Johnson truck some Packers defenders and energize a sullen crowd. A two-point conversion made it a 10-point game with the fourth quarter approaching. Suddenly, hope was in the air. But not for long.
On third-and-8 to start the fourth quarter, Love found Jayden Reed for an easy 18-yard gain near the Packers sideline. The next play, Love bobbled the snap, but collected himself to find a wide-open Luke Musgrave for a 37-yard gain to the 4-yard line, again down the left sideline. Love’s 4-yard toss to Romeo Doubs extinguished the flicker of hope for the Bears. Three plays later, a poor Fields throw was returned for a touchdown.
As much as we focus on Fields and what the offense isn’t doing, it was the Bears defense that failed to show up. Facing a veritable rookie quarterback, in terms of experience, the defense could only tout how it shut down the Packers’ ground game, giving up just 2.9 yards per carry.
“We stopped the run, you know what I’m saying?” Bears defensive end DeMarcus Walker said. “They rushed for what, 80-something yards?”
That would be great news if Jones, the Packers’ top running back, wasn’t the guy shredding you anyway.
I didn’t hear any Chicago fans screaming positively about gap discipline and run fits, but I did hear them booing the home team an awful lot.
By the time Johnson scored a garbage-time touchdown in the fourth quarter, Soldier Field was maybe three-quarters empty. It was quiet enough we could hear an angry fan yelling “Throw the ball!” while the Bears were on offense with under a minute remaining. Fields did as he was told and overthrew Cole Kmet by about a foot.
Fields isn’t new around here. He gets why everyone was so upset and knows it’s about more than one game. The start of a new era in the Bears-Packers rivalry felt like the end of the old one.
“This one hurts,” he said. “I’m not going to lie to you.”
Me neither. This was a disaster.
(Photo of the Packers’ Corey Ballentine sacking Justin Fields in the third quarter: Brandon Sloter / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)