The Chicago Bears’ chance at a playoff upset was spiraling through the air Sunday, a deep shot from quarterback Mitch Trubisky sailing perfectly toward the end zone at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Javon Wims’ chance at redemption was floating down into his grasp. The Bears had a well-timed, well-executed gadget play dialed up and a legitimate chance to make something of their playoff opportunity in New Orleans. They had an opportunity at least to threaten the Saints.
Only what should have been a 40-yard touchdown pass — on a play that started with a direct snap to David Montgomery and included an end-around pitch to Cordarrelle Patterson, a reverse to Trubisky and that aforementioned deep ball — finished with Wims letting the football slip through his hands and to the ground.
Ouch.
So much for that.
[Most read in Sports] NFC playoff recap: Chicago Bears lose 21-9 to New Orleans Saints and head into the offseason with questions about the future »
“I’d be sitting here lying to you if I told you that didn’t hurt,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said. “It hurt.”
Added Trubisky: “It was a touchdown. You don’t get a lot of opportunities like that where you get your guy pretty wide open behind the safety. (It was) a play we’ve been practicing for the last few weeks. I was excited Coach got it called.”
As the years pass, that’s the play that likely will be remembered most from Sunday’s 21-9 playoff loss, the missed opportunity that, in actuality, was the perfect representation of this painful Bears season — seemingly promising in flashes but ending in disappointment so frequently.
“That definitely would have helped early on getting on the board and getting us some momentum,” Trubisky said. “I thought it was going to be a touchdown.”
In the end, that play and this season will go down as undeniable failures.
Wims, who was ejected from the Bears’ first game against the Saints in October and then suspended two games after punching cantankerous cornerback C.J. Gardner-Johnson, could have provided another reason to be remembered with a scoring catch that would have tied Sunday’s game at 7 late in the first quarter.
But Wims, quite literally, dropped the ball. And in a game in which the Bears had to be close to perfect to win, they were anything but.
When 60 minutes were up, the better, more complete, more disciplined team won. And won handily. And that left the Bears to spend one last flight home looking into the mirror and coming to terms with the ugly reflection staring back.
What they should have seen is Anthony Miller’s ejection for, like Wims, punching Gardner-Johnson. What they should have seen was Eddie Jackson’s neutral-zone infraction on fourth-and-3 that extended the Saints’ second touchdown drive.
What they should have seen were repeated failures to make game-changing plays while avoiding momentum-shifting mistakes.
Said Nagy: “Making the playoffs is great. But what we did today has to be a lot better. So how do we do that? … Today wasn’t good enough. And you look at a team like the Saints that has been there and done that on the coaching side and player-wise, and that’s a start for us to realize that if you want to go ahead and do damage in the playoffs, you can see that situationally, discipline-wise, we have to be better.”
Sure, the Bears were technically a playoff team this season. But they lost more games than they won and proved Sunday that their wild-card invitation was a flimsy consolation prize after following a 5-1 start with eight losses in the final 11 games.
Maybe it’s all for the best. Even if Wims had made that touchdown catch early and changed the complexion of Sunday’s game, the Bears likely wouldn’t have been able to complete their upset mission. Not with the majorly flawed performance they put forth for a national audience on a playoff stage, the final embarrassment in a season that confirmed over and over and over again just how far from championship contention they are.
Where do you want to start? With the fact the Bears started their final drive with 2:19 remaining and, at that point, had 140 total yards and three points? With the fact they began that drive with more penalties (eight) than first downs (six)? That they had 10 possessions but squeezed out only nine points from an offense and a starting quarterback that weren’t magically fixed after all.
The Bears’ only touchdown came on the game’s final play, a meaningless 19-yard Trubisky completion to Jimmy Graham to cap a meaningless 99-yard garbage-time march.
And what about that once-vaunted defense, the one that was the league’s best two years ago and spent parts of last week, according to Khalil Mack, taking notes on the disrespect it had been feeling from somewhere in the outside world? Well, that defense allowed the Saints to convert 11 of 17 third-down attempts. (The Bears offense, meanwhile, didn’t get its first third-down conversion until less than 2 minutes remained.)
The defense did get one takeaway — a fumble forced by Tashaun Gipson and recovered in mid-air by John Jenkins in the second quarter. And playing without Roquan Smith, Jaylon Johnson and Buster Skrine, the defense did an OK job overall. But this unit was invested in to be far more than just OK.
If Trubisky’s final numbers (19-for-29, 199 yards, one touchdown) were hurt by Wims’ costly drop, they were padded by a final drive that included 10 completions for 99 yards.
Who knows if that final scoring toss to Graham was the last pass Trubisky will throw in a Bears uniform?
What can be said for certain is Sunday provided added evidence that, despite Trubisky’s admirable effort and focus and determination, his production has been far too ordinary far too often. And the Bears’ 1-for-10 effort on third down was a new illumination of old and familiar problems.
The biggest problem the Bears face, of course, is the reality they are a middle-of-the-road team that does very little at an elite level. They went 8-8 in incredibly disappointing fashion last season. And the only thing that distinguishes this 8-8 season from that one is the playoff opportunity they were gifted as the first No. 7 seed in the NFC playoffs.
The Bears took that opportunity and dropped it. They lost by double digits and now limp into the offseason with another reality check of just how far away they truly are.
