On what was the Bears’ most important remaining moment of the 2023 regular season, with roughly 30 seconds to play and a chance to send the division-rival Lions to overtime, Justin Fields dropped back in the most obvious passing situation one can fathom. His rookie right tackle, Darnell Wright, was on an island trying to anchor down against Aidan Hutchinson, one of the best pass rushers in the NFL.
And, as one might imagine, just a few seconds later, Wright found himself kicking a loose football through the back of the end zone for a safety. Before Fields had the chance, before the Bears could regain a sense of on-field competence, the Lions capped a massive comeback from down 12 points with a little more than four minutes to play. Fields was strip-sacked and stripped of an opportunity to cauterize the growing narrative that Chicago will eventually replace him with one of its two likely top-five draft picks in April.
This was just one of the handful of unforced errors the Bears committed Sunday, which obscured a spirited performance from coach Matt Eberflus’s defense. The Bears picked off Jared Goff three times, sacked him twice and hit him eight times. The team was up 26–14 at the 4:15 mark of the fourth quarter.
