TAMPA, Fla. — The plan that looked so optimistic for the Bears on paper is springing leaks in every direction, and their season is sinking fast.
Very little of this looks as it was advertised for the last several months, and it looks like the payoff for the miserable tank season everyone endured at the beginning of this rebuild is further away than anyone anticipated.
The Bears lost again Sunday, this time 27-17 to a Buccaneers team that simply isn’t good. With a stopgap quarterback in Baker Mayfield and their own rebuild underway in aftermath of Tom Brady’s retirement, the Bucs had plenty of their own malfunctions and maladies, but did enough right to eke by the Bears.
A heavyweight opponent would’ve knocked them out early.
The Bears will see that clearly next week as they stare down the likelihood of an 0-3 start during a visit to the defending champion Chiefs.
When general manager Ryan Poles was pressed before the season to gauge what portion of his rebuilding to-do list was completed, he said 75-80%. But he left some margin, adding that the number could go up or down once the Bears tested this roster against real competition during the regular season.
Almost everybody looks good in training camp. The games always reveal how much of that is real.
He needs to adjust that estimate. Putting it at 50% feels generous after these first two games.
And while they can’t change the roster they’ve been given, coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy need to rethink what they’re doing with it.
Nothing has looked cohesive or promising.
Quarterback Justin Fields led a nice touchdown drive to open the game, but the Bears quickly reverted to their typical meandering: run plays headed nowhere, hopeless screen passes on third-and-a-million and Fields scrambling for safety always a moment away from another turnover.
He led another good touchdown drive in the fourth quarter, then followed with a pick-six on a screen pass he threw from his own end zone.
Fields is central to whether this plan works out, and if he’s not the Bears’ quarterback of the future, it’s time to draft the next contestant in this seemingly endless game that no one wins.
He completed 16 of 29 passes for 211 yards with a touchdown pass and two interceptions and ran four times for three yards and a touchdown. He was sacked six times, at least half of which seemed to be the result of taking too long to decide where to throw.
He had a fumble late in the first half that nearly knocked the Bears out of field-goal range, but Cairo Santos bailed them out with a 52-yarder. Fields also lost a fumble and threw an interception on back-to-back plays in the third quarter that were overturned on replay review, but that didn’t make those errors any less concerning in the big picture.
The Bears aren’t protecting him, they aren’t scheming an offense that suits his skills and there’s no certainty that he’d thrive even if they did.
