The Chicago Bears entered Ford Field hoping to shake off a disappointing loss at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings in Week 1. What characterized that loss, namely sloppy play and costly penalties, continued to haunt the Monsters of the Midway in a 52-21 drubbing to the Detroit Lions.
The Ben Johnson era in Chicago has been disastrous through two games, and the offensive success he found as the former Lions offensive coordinator that catapulted him into a top head coaching candidate has yet to come to fruition for quarterback Caleb Williams and the rest of the Bears offense.
Johnson sounded off on what went wrong in the postgame presser.
"Nothing about that feels good," Johnson admitted in his opening statement to the media. "Offensively, we were able to move the ball a little bit in the first half and then the turnovers and lack of fourth down conversions bit us in the rear."
Much like Week 1, the Bears offense got off to a fast start. After Detroit marched 60 yards in 5 plays to get out to a 7-0 lead in under 3 minutes, Chicago was able to swiftly respond with an impressive 8-play, 74-yard drive of their own that was capped off with a 28-yard pass from Williams to receiver Rome Odunze for a game-tying touchdown. Also, like Week 1, this would not be a sign of things to come. The next four offensive drives ended in a punt, fumble, turnover on downs, and an interception thrown by Williams.
In the meantime, Detroit took advantage of these offensive miscues to jump out to a 21-7 lead, which they never surrendered for the remainder of Sunday's contest. One big reason for these stalled drives was unnecessary penalties committed by Chicago's offensive line, something that Johnson noted after the game. Chicago committed 8 penalties costing the team 50 yards on Sunday, and their cumulative 20 penalties committed is tied for 3rd in the NFL through two weeks.
"Penalties were still an issue for us. You know, false starts, we had a couple of those. We had some holdings...Really, really hurt us," Johnson said to conclude his opening statement.
Much of the offensive woes have been shouldered by second-year signal caller Caleb Williams, who struggled to find success through the air following the game's opening drive for the second straight week. Considering the resume Johnson brought with him to Chicago of coaching elite offenses in Detroit, fans and pundits had expected Williams to grow as a passer more than he has so far. Williams addressed the lack of passing success so far in the postgame press conference.
"It's not necessarily surprising or anything like that," Williams responded when asked why the offense has not found early success under Johnson. "It's a new [head] coach, new offense and all of that, a bunch of new players and we're all trying to figure it out together...It's just us being consistent in the way of our technique, the plays that are called and going out there and being technical and beating the man in front of you and doing that over and over again."
For the Bears offense to finally click as fans were hoping when general manager Ryan Poles hired Johnson earlier this year, the first-year head coach will need to figure out how to build off of that first offensive drive that leads to a touchdown score. Both weeks have felt like Williams and Co. have slowly let the game slip away from them, with necessary adjustments only being made after trailing by double digits.
With the next two matchups being against middling Cowboys and Raiders squads, now is the perfect time for Johnson to right the ship and salvage the season before things turn from bad to worse.
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