INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Breaking down three gaffes and the sole bright spot from the Bears’ 24-10 debacle against the Rams on Monday:
More timeout problems
Coach Matt Nagy screwed up another timeout situation Monday. First, he used two of them, one play apart. Then he didn’t use his third.
With about four minutes to go in the first half, quarterback Nick Foles called for protection help, moving slot receiver Darnell Mooney into the backfield — first to Foles’ left, then his right. Amid the confusion, Nagy took a timeout.
After then completing a pass to Mooney, the Bears went no-huddle, got to the line of scrimmage — and couldn’t line up correctly. Rather than being behind Foles, running back Cordarrelle Patterson was offset left. Nagy took a second timeout.
The Bears continue to struggle with the basics.
“I just wanted to protect our guys and make sure that we didn’t waste a play,” he said. “Where [Foles] turns around and goes to hand the ball off and, you know, we’re not there.”
Nagy said he’s “a little more lenient” with using first-half timeouts than ones in the second half. Which makes what happened next inexplicable.
With 20 seconds left, Nagy let the clock run to halftime rather than using his last timeout to force the Rams, facing fourth down, to punt.
That was damning of returner Ted Ginn, who has been useless — he’s returned five punts for 24 yards and, Nagy said, let two balls fall that he should have caught Monday — since replacing an injured Tarik Cohen.
Had he taken the timeout, Nagy would have tried to block the punt rather than return it.
So why not try?
“I wasn’t, y’know, too concerned about that decision at the end of the half,” he said.
He should be. Monday marked the second-straight week Nagy bungled a timeout at the end of the first half. Against the Panthers, Nagy took one with 2:07 to play rather than save it and lose only seven seconds before the two-minute warning.
“That was a poor, poor decision there,” he said last week.
This was, too.
‘That would have been nice’
On third-and-6 from the Bears’ own 5 about four minutes into the second half, Mooney lined up left and fooled star Jalen Ramsey on a stutter-and-go. He was streaking down the sideline, wide open, but pressure on Foles led to an early, overthrown ball — and an incompletion.
“If [Foles] probably had just half a tick more that probably would have been a 95-yard touchdown … ” Nagy said. “Man, that would have been so nice to hit that and tie the game up at 10-10.”
With an empty backfield, the Bears had scat protection, in which five linemen were set to block five rushers. The Rams had four down linemen; the Bears had to find the fifth player Just before the snap, inside linebacker Micah Kiser rushed between left tackle Charles Leno and left guard Rashaad Coward.
Nagy claimed his linemen heard the call the rusher was coming from the left. But when center Cody Whitehair looked right to help with star Aaron Donald, the left side was playing two-on-three. Leno looked inside to block Kiser, leaving edge rusher Jachai Polite with a run at Foles.
Foles — who was pressured on 37.2% of dropbacks, per NFL Next Gen Stats —could have thrown a hot-route pass to Allen Robinson, who ran a slant from the left slot, for a first down. Tight end Jimmy Graham was open in the flat, too. He took a shot, though, that didn’t work.
“Nick knows he can throw those,” Nagy said. “But he also knows he can go ahead and hit Mooney too.”
The end-zone pick
At the 9 in the third quarter, receiver Anthony Miller ran a five-yard out toward the left sideline, but cornerback Darious Williams crashed down. Rolling left, Foles went to his second read – a corner route to Mooney.
Rams cornerback Troy Hill had his back turned as he chased Mooney to the back left pylon. As the ball arrived, Hill popped the ball with the back of his left hand — and to safety Taylor Rapp.
Like a lot of plays this season, it looked better to Nagy in the planning stages than it did on the field. Foles should have thrown it away.
“The play design, before you see the play, you like it,” Nagy said. “It’s something that we’ve talked about that we liked: It’s an ability for us to get on the edge with Nick and maybe have a receiver to throw it to. …
“When they do cover it like that, Nick would be the first to tell you that you just throw it even further in the back corner of the end zone — or just throw the ball away and live to see the next down.”
The only TD
Eddie Jackson was scared twice. The star safety grabbed his left knee while jumping on a blitz in the third quarter, but said he knew it wasn’t a torn. He had that injury in 2014.
“It started to calm down,” he said. “I started to feel much better.”
After having two defensive touchdowns called back this year, Jackson finally found the end zone — but not before he thought the Bears had been flagged again.
Halfway through the fourth quarter, he picked up a Robert Woods fumble, forced by outside linebacker Robert Quinn, and ran eight yards for a score. He saw a flag — “Oh God,” Jackson said — but it was a hold on tight end Johnny Mundt.
