I’m pretty sure the Bears are going to win a game this season. They might even beat the Commanders.
Nobody ever has gone 0-17.
But I didn’t pick the Bears to win Thursday night at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, because it’s possible they don’t know how to win.
That sounds stupid, indeed.
Winning just means scoring more points than the other team. Duh.
But since absolutely nothing is going right at Halas Hall these days, you boil it down to feathers and bones: does this team know how to win?
We now are talking about 14 losses in a row, going back to a week before Halloween in 2022. Last week’s loss to the Broncos was bizarrely disturbing. Up 28-7, the Bears lost 31-28.
It’s hard to do that, folks.
If you can’t hold a three-touchdown lead with just 16 minutes left in the game, a la the Bears, there’s something very wrong. You either got cocky, got distracted, forgot to give effort, have no talent, or were lucky to have a huge lead in the first place. Or the coaching was terrible.
I’m not sure which of the flaws we’d like it to be.
And the sad fact is it might be parts of all those things.
Imagine setting a Bears passing record, as quarterback Justin Fields did, with 16 consecutive completions, and then losing the game in embarrassing fashion. Does losing become the default mentality for him and the team, the haunting voice in the back of everybody’s head at crunch time?
The Commanders are not a great team.
They are 2-2 and are led on offense by quarterback Sam Howell, the 144th player taken in the 2022 draft.
Even though he passed for 10,283 yards and 92 touchdowns at North Carolina — both school records — Howell dropped to the fifth round because he’s only 6-1 and weird things popped up such as questions about his ‘‘decision-making in the pocket.’’
Once projected as a high first-rounder, Howell likely now has that old chip-on-the-shoulder thing going. Yet it’s not clear if he’s really any good at all. He only has started five games for the Commanders and has a bland passer rating of 81.5. Against the Bills two games ago he threw four interceptions and no touchdowns. He only has thrown five touchdown passes in his career.
And he wouldn’t be playing at all if the Commanders had a stud at the position. Which they don’t. Consider that Howell is the seventh season-opening starter for Washington in seven seasons.
Yet he did light up the Broncos for 299 yards and two touchdowns in a Commanders win, making Fields’ big numbers against the Broncos a little more meaningless.
But this isn’t just a battle between two quarterbacks — one a low-expectation guy and the other, Fields, a bonus baby intended to be a franchise savior. The Bears’ defense and coaching and talent appraisal are all suspect. As is the offensive line, running-back position, and, yes, again, coaching.
Remember, shrewd teams change up entire schemes during halftime, figuring out how to attack or stop the other team. The Bears? How did their seven-points-scored, 24-points-given-up second half go against the Broncos?
Still, no team ends up with two sacks on defense for a season. The Bears right now have two, worst in the NFL, and maybe Howell is just the bait they need to explode.
But it always seems to come back to quarterbacking in the NFL. It just does. At the end of close games, the ball is in a quarterback’s hands. Fields’ fumble with 6:55 left that Broncos linebacker Jonathon Cooper recovered and returned for a 35-yard touchdown was devastating. Why the fumble? Why then?
Fields’ 335 passing yards, four touchdowns and spectacular passer rating of 132.7 were demolished by that fumble. Fumbles, by the way, don’t count in the passer-rating scale. Pity. Because what we’re talking about here is the ability to win. And it’s better to pass for no yards and win than 1,000 yards and lose.
Before the Broncos game, Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said, ‘‘I think we’re in the process of building something special.’’ He then added, ‘‘It’s a 17-week process. It is not a three-week process.’’
You wonder if it’s a four-week process. Or 10 or 20 or infinity. The Bears have become synonymous with losing. It has been 38 years since their last, and only, Super Bowl championship.
Does anybody even remember winning?
