Giants 22, Bears 16

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: November 26, 2016

Grading Primer (I wrote this about Michigan, but the grading procedures are still relevant.)

The Bears got points on each of their first three drives (touchdown, field goal, touchdown). They got no points after that. There are multiple reasons for that that we’ll get into in a bit, but no matter the reason, that can’t happen. The defense did their usual thing where the front seven plays really well, but the secondary doesn’t and that keeps the unit from winning the game for the team. Jay Cutler got hurt and his season could be done. Leonard Floyd left on a backboard with a really scary-looking injury. Fortunately, his neck is okay and he left the hospital that night. He’s still out for the game against the Titans as he’s in the concussion protocol. Jerrell Freeman will miss the next four after testing positive for a banned substance. Zach Miller is done for the year with a broken foot. So, yeah, things don’t look great right now. At this point, the focus is on evaluating the young players on this team.

Player Grades

Takeaways

So, the whole “not scoring for much of the game thing.” The first factor there is that Jay Cutler sucked. He may have been playing with a torn labrum at the end of the game and earlier this year tried to play with an injured thumb, so the whole “he’s not tough” thing better be gone for good. I don’t want to see anyone criticizing him for that. As far as his play goes, criticize away. He sucked. Again. Did the line do him any favors? Absolutely not. Sitton and Whitehair were outstanding, everyone else was lousy-to-atrocious. Never mind the whole “the Bears should look at Mike Adams over Bobby Massie” thing. Adams re-defined “suck” in this game. The guy was a turnstile. He was worse in this one than Cutler was against Tampa Bay and I called that performance the worst I’ve seen from anyone in the two years I’ve been grading games.* -12.5 is the worst grade I’ve given out in that span as well and that’s at a position where +2 or 3 is an average day. I know he was going up against Jason Pierre-Paul a lot, but you have to do better than that. On some of those plays, he might as well have just fallen down at Pierre-Paul’s feet at the snap. At least then, maybe he trips over you. Even so, on a couple of those sacks, Cutler got dinged for not doing something with the ball. He had happy feet on a few occasions where protection was fine. He didn’t step up in the pocket when he needed to. Not a good day. If the shoulder injury is season-ending, one would think we’ve seen the last of him in a Bears uniform. And his last pass was a pick to seal a loss. Fitting.

Factor number two was a lack of adjustments for the second half. Again. If you’re in the “Fire John Fox” camp, that’s the first thing you point to. The Bears have not played good second halves this year. If you’re in the “Don’t fire Fox” camp, you point out that the problem has been largely on the offensive side and that Fox’s background is on defense. A legit retort from the “Fire Fox” camp there would be “Yeah, his background’s with defensive backs and those guys suck.” Anyway, yeah, adjustments. None to speak of. New York, on the other hand, figured out the handful of plays the Bears were running. For as good as Dowell Loggains was against Minnesota calling plays, he was almost as bad in this one. It was to the point that I knew what was coming. How are you going to fool professional coaches and players when you can’t even fool some frickin’ blogger?

On defense, the DBs remain not good. The Bears continue to play off receivers who have the ability to beat them for a big play, a category that contains a whole bunch of names. Kyle Fuller could be back playing soon, so there’s that. Hopefully, the Bears are able to get a good look at him this year so they can evaluate what they have going into the off-season.

For all the bad, there were a few positives, though. As mentioned earlier, Sitton and Whitehair were awesome. Whitehair’s been very good, especially considering he’s a rookie playing a new position. Jordan Howard was great again. Jeremy Langford had a nice day. Akiem Hicks played very well. Jerrell Freeman was really good. Bryce Callahan was solid. The Bears might have a decent corner in him, bringing their total of those right now to, uh, one. Well, one, with the jury still out on Deiondre’ Hall.

*Two years of Michigan games, one year of Bears games.

Yet To Be Named Gimmicky Award Meant To Show Who The Best Overall Performers Were

If you have an idea of what I should call this, let me know. Twitter handle and e-mail address are at the end of the blog.

Anyway, up to 3 may be awarded per player. Not necessarily the highest-graded players since different grades mean different things to different players (refer to the primer).

Offense

3: Josh Sitton, Cody Whitehair, Jordan Howard

2: Zach Miller

1: Jeremy Langford, Paul Lasike

Defense

3: Jerrell Freeman, Akiem Hicks

2: Pernell McPhee, Sam Acho, Leonard Floyd

1: C.J. Wilson, Bryce Callahan

Yet To Be Named Gimmicky Award Meant To Show Who The Best Overall Performers Were Count