The Chicago Bears were one play from waking up 5-2 this morning. Instead, their fanbase is waking up from the nightmare that was the ending in Landover, Maryland, Sunday: A gut-wrenching Hail Mary that was tipped into the waiting arms of Washington Commanders wide receiver Noah Brown to drop Chicago to 4-3.
Bears tight end Cole Kmet—a Chicagoland native who knows all about the past heart-wrenching losses this fan base has suffered—called Sunday’s ending “demoralizing.”
“It’s obviously demoralizing. We’re in a results-based league, and we’re going to look back and see we lost the game. I think looking back on it, and it stings now, in here we have to be process-driven still. If you want to get the consistent results you want, you’ve gotta maintain the process that you go about it. Look, that’s a good football team, and we didn’t start too hot offensively. Defense kept us in it. I haven’t been here—I’d have to go back to my rookie year—where you’re down two scores, and we come back, and we go take the lead. I think that’s a huge step from us.
“Look, a Hail Mary is a Hail Mary. It’s a prayer. You’re just tossing up a prayer. To get obsessed with that with where we’re at right now is probably a bit immature. It’s gonna be important that we come back tomorrow and throughout next week and look at the positives, look at the negatives—us offensively, how we started out slow—and get those things corrected. To obsess over the result of what happened is a little immature. It’s understandable at the moment, but there’s a lot that we can be better at.”
Kmet is correct; that ending was demoralizing. It’s demoralizing for the fan base because there’s finally a belief that this franchise has a great team and, more importantly, a quarterback with whom they can win.
That said, Caleb Williams was bad for three quarters. We can blame the offensive line, which allowed pressures on 51.6 percent of Williams’ dropbacks and provided their rookie quarterback with a 2.47-second time-to-pressure average. Or we can admit that Williams wasn’t good for three quarters. If we truly believe—and I do—that Caleb Williams is the franchise quarterback he was billed to be, then he has to be good even in the face of an obscene amount of pressure allowed by his less-than-adequate offensive line.
The silver lining is that Williams was nails when it mattered. He was 6-of-11 for 95 yards in the fourth quarter and led not one but two game-winning drives in the final seven minutes. He gave his team a chance to win that game. Twice.
Twice, his team failed him. Once on the galaxy-brained call by Shane Waldron to hand the ball off to an offensive lineman at the goal line, which led to a fumble and an empty possession, and again when the defense allowed Jayden Daniels to execute the Hail Mary that defied the 96.4 percent win probability the Bears owned when they gave Washington the ball back with a 15-12 lead.
All of that has to be factored in if we’re going to talk about maturity. Williams’ maturity is in overcoming an awful three quarters of football to be the quarterback we’ve dreamed about in winning time. The Bears’ immaturity is in them not being quite ready for the bright lights of primetime, where the league and its television partners place the best of the best.
If we talk about maturity, we have to discuss cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, who had a rough night at the office. Stevenson is one of the best young corners in football, and he plays with a fire that is endearing to Chicago fans. Still, he let that fire get the best of him last night as he flamed out in his matchup against Terry McLaurin, getting called for a silly personal foul and then was captured on video by a fan in the stands taunting the D.C. crowd seconds before the tip heard round the NFL world.
Stevenson apologized after the game and vowed to be better.
“To Chicago and teammates, my apologies for lack of awareness and focus …. The game ain’t over until zeros hit the clock. Can’t take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen,” he tweeted.
I’m sure Stevenson will learn from his mistake on Sunday. Nevertheless, it’s a part of the immaturity this team showed against the Commanders.
Head coach Matt Eberflus has come a long way since the Bears last faced the Commanders in 2023, when the entire Thursday Night Football pregame show was speculation of him being fired. He’s helped the Bears’ defense become one of the best units in the league. Let’s not forget that Washington ranks near the top of the league in scoring and yardage, and his unit held them to 18 points, six of which came on the flukey Hail Mary that sealed Chicago’s fate.
Three times, Eberflus’ defense stood tall in the red zone. Four times, they held the Commanders to field goals. For 59-plus minutes, they played well enough to beat one of the best offensive units in football with minimal help from their offense.
So, credit where credit is due.
However, Eberflus is not a defensive coordinator. He’s a head coach. If we talk about maturity, we must talk about the head coach. If the Chicago Bears aren’t ready for the bright lights, that falls at his feet.
I’m not calling for Eberflus’ job. Yet. This could be a learning experience, much like losing to Indianapolis in Week 3. It could also be one of two losses we look back on as the reason the Bears just missed the playoffs. But if that’s to be the case, they’ll have to have a winning record against a fierce NFC North down the stretch, or none of this will matter.
If that ends up being the case, then we have to have a conversation about the head coach.
Matt Eberflus’s legacy in Chicago will be written in November and December when the team plays its NFC North foes six times. That’s where this season is going to be made or broken.
For now, it’s on to Arizona.
The Chicago Bears have two more dress rehearsals before the real season starts on November 17, when they take on the Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field.
Now is the time we need to see maturity from the Chicago Bears.