Chicago Bears woes continue, drop third in a row

The Chicago Bears continue their losing ways, falling to the Tennessee Titans. After falling behind, they attempted an improbable comeback, but drops and turnovers doomed them in the end.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before — another week, another Chicago Bears loss, another player lost. It seems to be the new motto for this franchise. The Bears dropped their third straight game. After going into their bye week with high hopes, all there is now is despair and anger.

The Bears were short-handed, but after falling behind 27-7, they showed life in the fourth quarter. He generated two touchdown scoring drives to pull to within six, and the defense gave the team a chance to win it at the end.

The Bears literally dropped the ball, however.

The team looked listless for most of the game. Matt Barkley, making his first NFL start, threw his first NFL touchdown in the first quarter. That was the only highlight, however, as he threw two red zone interceptions, including one in the end zone.

Then the fourth quarter happened, and the Bears gave their fans something to cheer. Barkley completed 18 of his 33 passes, two of them for touchdowns.

Barkley was in position to become the hero late in the game after the defense held the Titans on a third-and-two. The Bears receivers, though appeared to have oil on their hands.

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Unofficially, the Bears had ten dropped passes in the game on Sunday. EIGHT of them came in the fourth quarter. Every time they needed a big play, Barkley made a good throw, but the receiver would drop it.

That is what happened when the Bears got the ball back with 1:57 left in the game. Barkley took the offense 58 yards on four plays, getting to the Titans’ seven-yard-line.

With :47 left, Barkley threw a perfect pass to the right end zone, but Josh Bellamy could not hold onto the pass. All he had to do was catch and walk into the end zone, as the defender was completely juked out of the play. Barkley missed on two other passes, then on fourth down he threw to the end of the end zone, where Deonte Thompson could not make a sliding catch.

Barkley played well

Barkley finished the game 28-of-54 for 316 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. Not bad for his first NFL start.

Afterwards, he sounded like a guy confident in himself and his teammates.

“I know who I am as a quarterback and I know what I’m capable of,” Barkley said. “Football is a wonderful game because of the team sport it is, it takes 11 guys doing the right thing to make a play work. So it’s encouraging, even though we lost, it’s encouraging at the same time to see how these guys fought and how we all banded together to play for each other. It was cool to see.

“So I think just moving on from here, knowing that we can win, we have guys that can win games. We just have to make sure we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot, that’s the goal from here on out.”

Another player lost

As I mentioned, the Bears lost another player with injury. It wouldn’t be normal if they didn’t lose somebody.

Linebacker Danny Trevathan appeared to severely hurt his knee late in the game.

“At this point, it appears to be serious,” coach John Fox said after the game. “But we do not have all the tests run to give you a real solid prognosis at this point.”

If it indeed is serious, it means that the Chicago Bears lost their top two free agent signings from this past offseason. Jerrell Freeman is out four weeks due to suspension for PED use.

We can now add Trevathan to the long list of injured Bears players. The team keeps losing, but the doctors checking out all the players sure are winning.

Next: Bulls continue to impress after winning trip

Next up for the Bears is the also-reeling San Francisco 49ers. They are 1-10 (the Bears are 2-9). After winning their first game, they lost their next ten consecutive. Watch out for a barn burner at Soldier Field next Sunday.