Bye Bye Bye. Thank God, We Need One!
Bears 27, Buccaneers 24
An ugly win is still a win.
I don’t care how you do it. Just do it.
Because the Bears beat the Bucs on Sunday night, and somehow I finished a game we WON feeling like I needed to walk around the block.
We’re 7–2. Four straight wins. I’ll take every bit of that.
But five turnovers? At home? Against a team you had down 14–0?
Bro. We need this bye week. I need this bye week.
For a Little While, This Was Beautiful
That first quarter was everything I wanted.
Caleb was moving around, using his legs, and looking comfortable. Whatever concerns I had about that hamstring, I wasn’t seeing them in the way he was moving early.
The offense had rhythm. Tampa was off balance. Rome Odunze made plays, finished the opening drive with a touchdown, and Soldier Field sounded ready to tear the fucking roof off a stadium that doesn’t have one.
Give yourself a chance to play meaningful games at home. Make teams come into THAT noise when the season is on the line.
And how much fun has it been watching this team actually start games with an offense? Real drives. Early points. Receivers catching the ball with room to do something.
For years, the Bears’ opening possession had me saying, “What the fuck?”
Now I’m watching Caleb distribute the football and thinking about Bill Walsh and Steve Young.
Then Luther gets loose, breaks tackles, and takes one to the house.
That dude is a fucking stud. Every week, he gives you another reason to get excited.
Fourteen–nothing.
I was having a wonderful evening.
Then the second quarter happened.
Here Come the Fucking Picks
The first interception hurt because we were in position to build on the lead.
All right. Bad mistake. Settle down. Get the ball back.
And the defense did exactly that. Devin Bush and James Lynch stuffed Baker Mayfield on fourth down.
There you go. Your teammates picked you up. Now let’s—
Another fucking interception.
That was when that old Bears “here comes the shit” feeling started creeping into the room.
The offense that had looked so comfortable was suddenly forcing things. Caleb looked increasingly rushed and uneasy. Once Tampa started bringing pressure through the middle, his feet and his decisions stopped working together.
Todd Bowles deserves credit. He changed the questions on the test, and we struggled to answer.
But some of those throws, man.
What are we fucking doing?
I started getting flashbacks to that Matt Eberlose era hero-ball bullshit. Trying to rescue a play that needed to end. Making a bad situation worse because you think the next ridiculous throw will fix the last one.
Stick with what’s been working. You don’t have to win the entire fucking game on every snap.
By the third interception, I wanted somebody to call a hockey timeout.
Get Caleb to the bench. Give him some water. Let him look at something other than a Tampa jersey for thirty seconds.
I’m watching this thinking about Raging Bull, when Jake’s trainer starts smacking him. Somebody get in Caleb’s ear and wake him the fuck up.
I can’t read Ben Johnson’s mind, but watching him on that sideline, I had a pretty good guess how he felt.
My wife and executive editor offered a calmer assessment:
“He needs to calm down.”
At that point, so did I.
The Defense Kept Answering the Phone
The defense kept getting handed a problem and going back out there to deal with it.
Devin Bush played his ass off. Cam Lewis crushed somebody last week. Sunday, he jumped a route for an interception when Tampa was threatening.
And Austin Booker kept showing up.
Booker looks like a guy having the kind of season that changes what you expect from him. I’m starting to look for his number when we need a play.
At halftime, Tampa had turned all that opportunity into six points.
My lovely executive editor noticed that, too.
They weren’t scoring touchdowns. We kept giving them chances, and they kept leaving us alive.
Tampa’s mistakes helped us survive. Absolutely.
But our defense had a lot to do with those chances becoming field goals instead of something worse.
That bought us time.
Unfortunately, the offense kept finding ways to use it badly.
Steve Young Had Left the Building
Tampa opened the second half with the kind of deep completion I’ve been worried about all season, setting up a Bucky Irving touchdown.
I said it during the summer. I’ve said it on the podcast. The deep ball still scares the shit out of me with this defense.
You can love the stops and still see the problem.
And I warned you about Irving last week. He keeps chipping away. You let a team like this hang around, and suddenly the trap game you were worried about starts looking very real.
Then Caleb threw his fourth interception.
Four, bro.
That one came off a deflection. Fair enough. They weren’t all the same mistake.
But by then, the whole offense felt rattled.
We started the evening with Steve Young. Now I’m getting Mitchell Trubisky flashbacks and wondering who switched the fucking channel.
Run the football, bro. Give the quarterback a chance to breathe.
God help me, I even found myself agreeing with Cris Collinsworth about running to the right side of the line.
That’s where the evening had taken me.
And where was Roschon Johnson in the offensive plan? After what I’ve liked from him lately, I wanted to see him getting opportunities to help settle this thing down.
Some of the calls felt too cute for the game we were actually playing. Bowles had adjusted. I wanted better answers from Ben.
Big Jeff and a Whole Lot of Bailing Us Out
I hadn’t loved everything I’d seen from Jaylon Johnson.
Then he picked off Mayfield and took it back for a touchdown.
That’ll fucking help.
After Caleb’s fourth interception, with the whole game threatening to swing Tampa’s way, Jaylon handed us a 24–13 lead.
That was a big play. We desperately needed somebody to change how this game felt, and he did.
And Big Jeff kept working.
Those orange sleeves are becoming very easy to spot when we need somebody to ruin a play. His fourth-quarter sack of Baker was huge.
You want to talk about an early return on that trade? There it is.
I’ll keep asking questions about the price. Meanwhile, Jeffery Simmons keeps giving me reasons to enjoy the purchase.
And a shoutout to Tampa’s Cody Mauch: I liked that kid from North Dakota State during the draft process. Watching him battle Big Jeff reminded me why. There were some real fights going on along that line all night.
Our guys kept fighting, too.
Of Course It Wasn’t Over
That hit on Burden was brutal to watch. I hope he’s all right.
His late fumble gave Tampa another chance, and I was like, oh shit.
Irving scored again. Then Mayfield got the two-point conversion.
Tied ballgame.
All that defensive work, all those chances to put this away, and we were right back where we started with this shit.
This is what five turnovers does.
Then Caleb found Colston Loveland.
A huge catch, and finally, a reason to breathe.
Caleb had spent much of the night helping Tampa stay in it. On that last drive, he helped us win it.
Cairo Santos came out and delivered.
Bears win.
Thank fucking God.
Take the Win. Use the Bye.
If you want to be a great team, you have to find ways to win ugly games. You’re going to have nights when the timing is off, the quarterback struggles, and somebody else has to carry you.
Sunday, the defense did the heavy lifting.
I love that we have a team capable of surviving a night like this. I also don’t want to spend the rest of the season testing exactly how much it can survive.
Five turnovers will get you sent home when the games get bigger.
The old Belichick idea about football starting after Thanksgiving is worth remembering here. You want to be playing your best when the season gets tight.
We’ve put ourselves in a position to have something worth playing for.
Now use this break. Get healthy. Figure out what happened when Tampa changed things up. Clean up the decisions, the drops, and the penalties.
I want Rome holding on to the football. I want Burden healthy. I want Caleb back in rhythm, looking more like Steve Young and less like Steve Urkel.
And I want that first-quarter offense to stick around long enough to meet the defense that saved our ass.
Enjoy the bye.
We're waiting…
