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Bears grades: Foles, Nagy, O-line lead to another loss

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The Bears lost another game thanks to poor coaching and poor play from their quarterback and offensive line. JJ Stankevitz gives his position-by-position grades from the Bears' 24-17 Week 9 loss to the Tennessee Titans.

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Nick Foles’ decision-making and accuracy looked thoroughly scrambled on Sunday, likely because he can’t trust the offensive line in front of him. It’s apparent the less-than-mobile Foles needs good protection to be even a league-average quarterback; right now, the offensive line’s mistakes are compounding his own mistakes. The weekend’s most deceiving stat line (32/56, 335 yards, 2 touchdowns) does not represent the kind of game Foles played. This offense looks like it’s going nowhere with Foles as its quarterback.

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David Montgomery’s fumble – which was returned for a touchdown – effectively sealed the Bears’ loss, but he couldn’t get anything going running behind an atrocious offensive line. He had 30 yards on 14 carries before being evaluated for a concussion; Ryan Nall, at least, showed some fight with four catches and his first career touchdown in Montgomery’s absence. Cordarrelle Patterson’s explosiveness is still not translating to playing running back.

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Allen Robinson might’ve got a first down on the Bears’ first possession of the game. It looked like he stretched the ball beyond the chains before going out of bounds, but without Matt Nagy challenging the play – and without the FOX broadcast showing a different angle – it’s hard to be sure. Darnell Mooney did some good things, again, but his most memorable moment was exasperatedly putting his hands on his helmet after Jimmy Graham’s false start early in the third quarter. Anthony Miller’s otherwise encouraging game ended with a lost fumble. At least Riley Ridley came down with an impressive 18-yard snag for one of the Bears’ two – two! – third down conversions.

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I don’t know what it’s going to take for Cole Kmet to actually get involved in the Bears’ offense at this point. He played 36 snaps and ran 17 routes, but was not targeted once. The Bears threw a few swing passes to Jimmy Graham, expecting the 33-year-old to pick up yards after the catch (he did on one, to be fair) instead of throwing those to their athletic, fast rookie tight end. Graham did a few good things and now has five touchdowns, but his false start in the third quarter was brutal.

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It’d be one thing if the deep-down-the-depth-chart reserves were the only ones who struggled in Nashville. But Charles Leno Jr. had a terribly-timed false start, and Germain Ifedi was overwhelmed by an undrafted rookie on a fourth-and-1 stop in the first quarter. There were too many mistakes from the veteran starters who should be held to a higher standard than, say, Alex Bars (playing center for the first time ever) or Arlington Hambright (playing his first NFL snaps). Rashaad Coward struggled in his first start at right tackle, too.

It’s almost like investment in personnel matters more than the position coach.

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The Bears got contributions up and down the defensive line, even with Roy Robertson-Harris and John Jenkins out for Sunday’s game. Daniel McCullers – playing the nose in place of Jenkins – held his own, while Mario Edwards and Bilal Nichols chipped in with sacks, and Brent Urban made a few plays too. And Akiem Hicks was still Akiem Hicks. The Bears don’t hold Derrick Henry to 68 yards on 21 carries without some standout work up front.

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Khalil Mack didn’t have a sack but still made an impact on the Titans’ offense with a handful of pressures. Robert Quinn disappointed in not pressuring Ryan Tannehill despite lining up against a backup left tackle, but he did stay on the field against the run quite a bit (a season-high 20 snaps) and was not a liability against Henry.

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Danny Trevathan played his best game of 2020, not only tackling well but running step for step in coverage with wide receiver Corey Davis to break up a pass in the fourth quarter. Roquan Smith was everywhere, again, stuffing the box score with a team-high 11 tackles, two TFLs and a sack. With the D-line playing well, Smith and Trevathan were critical in muting Henry’s impact – the Titans’ running back had just 26 yards on 13 carries at halftime.

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We’re at the point where the Bears’ defense has to hold itself to an incredibly high standard to cover for an awful, broken offense. So yeah, I guess Kyle Fuller should’ve came down with what probably would’ve been a pick six on Tennessee’s first possession instead of merely knocking Tannehill’s pass to the ground and forcing a punt. But Fuller, Jaylon Johnson and Buster Skrine all played well – Skrine’s coverage on A.J. Brown’s spectacular touchdown was good, Brown just made an incredible play.

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Eddie Jackson whiffed on a tackle that allowed Brown to pick up a big chunk of yards after the catch, and he might’ve been a little late getting to help Skrine on Brown’s touchdown. But he had an important pass break-up that held the Titans to an early field goal. He and Tashaun Gipson did something right to help hold Tannehill to just 158 yards on 10/21 passing.

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Credit Chris Tabor for drawing up a flawless fake punt, on which Barkevious Mingo ran 11 yards for a first down early in the second quarter (Mingo was the Bears’ leading rusher in the game until the third quarter). Pat O’Donnell boomed a 64-yard punt and had two of his six punts downed inside the 20. And Dwayne Harris averaged about 10 yards per punt return. Special teams were hardly the problem.

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The fake punt to Mingo could’ve been a spark for the Bears’ offense, which was near midfield after the linebacker’s 11-yard dash. But the Bears inexplicably couldn’t get the right personnel on the field after, leading Nagy to call a timeout. The Titans were able to regroup on defense and the Bears did not score on the drive.

The Bears’ lack of discipline continues to show up at the worst possible moments. It begs the question if Nagy should finally give up playcalling to become more of a CEO-type head coach. If the offense can’t be fixed – and I tend to believe it doesn’t matter who the playcaller is – the least the Bears can do is stop committing so many penalties. Maybe Nagy focusing less on his play sheet during games and more on everything else could help. At this point, too: Could it really hurt?

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