Stock up, Stock down after Bears loss to Seahawks |
The Chicago Bears suffered a miserable loss in their home finale against the Seattle Seahawks. Two touchdowns were wiped off the board—one by penalty and one after a review. Despite only allowing six points, the offense could only muster three points.
Thomas Brown - Stock Down The ghost of former head coach Matt Eberflus returned in Chicago’s game against the Seahawks the day after Christmas. Interim head coach Thomas Brown made some Eberflus-like decisions during the game, particularly in the final few minutes and on the last drive. On the fourth and five play where he called a timeout to change from punting the ball to going for the first down, that wasted a timeout that could have become important if his clock management had been better. The Bears wasted a lot of time on the final drive, and the play calls on second and 10 and third and 10 from the Seahawks’ 40-yard line were poor. When you only need three to six yards to get into field goal range when a field goal would tie the game, there is no reason to take back-to-back deep shots. Brown will certainly not be back as a head coach, but he may also have doomed his chances of returning as the offensive coordinator. Caleb Williams - Stock Up This will probably surprise a lot of people. When the offense only scores three points and the quarterback is sacked seven times, usually, the stock for the quarterback does not go up. However, rookie quarterback Caleb Williams was running for his life throughout the game because of the protection from the offensive line. The playcalling was not helping anything. Williams was trying and made some spectacular throws, including his pass on fourth and five to keep Chicago’s final drive alive. He needs a line to protect him, and he certainly has made some rookie mistakes, but he has shown that he could be the Bears' quarterback of the future. Offensive Line - Stock Down This line has been abysmal all season. The blocking is horrible, and while there have been a lot of injuries, there is still no excuse for an offensive line in the NFL to be this bad. Williams has been sacked at least seven times in four games this season. He may be making rookie mistakes, but that is not completely on him. The Bears will need to revamp this unit if they will have any chance next season and for the purposes of Williams’ development. Kyler Gordon - Stock Up The defense as a whole played quite well as they only allowed six points to a team that scored an average of 22.6 points per game prior to facing Chicago. However, cornerback Kyler Gordon stood out above the rest of the players. Gordon has emerged as a shutdown corner. He generated the only turnover of the game, a fumble recovery that gave Chicago the ball at their own 38-yard line. He has combined playing aggressively while also playing smart, which will be vital to the Bears defense going into next season. Tory Taylor - Stock Up While punting the ball seven times is never a good thing for offense or scoring, rookie punter Tory Taylor did well in the seven opportunities he had in this game. He averaged 46.7 yards per punt and pinned five of his seven punts inside the 20-yard line. It marked his second game this season with at least five punts inside the 20-yard line. However, Chicago’s game against the Seahawks was his highest net yards all season, with 327 net yards, as Seattle did not have any return yards. He has the second-most punts and punt yards in the league this season but has managed to establish himself as one of the best punters in the league.
