Chicago Bears are who we thought they were all season long

The 2020 Chicago Bears showed their true colors in an NFC Wildcard loss on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, one Chicago Bears fan told me these exact words: “This game is enough to make me hate the game of football.”

That about sums it up for the 2020 Bears.

Once labeled the “worst 5-1 team in history,” the Bears fell back down to earth with a 6-game losing streak and limped into the NFC Playoffs as the last and final seed thanks to some help from other teams.

Going into the Wildcard game against the New Orleans Saints, the Bears didn’t exactly have it all going for them. Playing without Roquan Smith, Darnell Mooney and Jaylon Johnson was going to hurt — and it did. But, it wouldn’t have mattered if those guys played. The real Bears showed up against the Saints.

Chicago showed exactly why they didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs in the first place. It began early, with a would-be touchdown dropped by Javon Wims on one of the only downfield throws by Mitchell Trubisky all game long. From there on out, it was downhill.

The Bears’ tackling was poor — as usual. One particular player stood out in that area, and it’s a guy who has taken an enormous step back — Eddie Jackson. Sticking with the secondary, we saw them playing off quite a bit against the Saints. It’s a staple for Chuck Pagano, who has coached with the same scheme all year long and it’s proven this Bears defense is no where near as scary as it once was.

These Bears don’t take the ball away anymore. Offenses don’t have to be afraid of an aggressive, angry, nasty defense in Chicago. It disappeared the moment Pagano walked in the door, and it’s been the same all season — and again on Sunday.

Offensively, the team failed to move the ball effectively and much of it had to do with play-calling. I don’t care if it’s part Bill Lazor and part Matt Nagy, or mostly one or the other. The offense looked atrocious. The play-calling was that of an 8th grade B-squad playing with a lead.

Trubisky finished with 199 yards passing, much of which came on a final garbage time drive that started near the opposite goal line.

The Bears could not get the run game going because they mostly decided against establishing it in the first place. Ryan Nall even took a handoff on a crucial third down when the game was still within reach.

Why was Nall in the game, in a crucial moment, in the postseason?

Nagy’s game plan was head scratching, but again, what’s new? This game was the epitome of the 2020 Bears. The defense played well enough to hold the Saints’ offense down for a good majority of the game, but New Orleans eventually pulled away because Chicago’s offense couldn’t sustain a drive.

Nothing in this game should surprise a single one of us. This is exactly who the Bears were for the entirety of the season. If they played an above-average team or defense, this is how the offense looked. This is how the games went, for the most part. It was a perfectly scripted game from the opening kickoff if the Bears wanted to remind us exactly who they’ve been all season long: mediocre.

Here’s to an eventful offseason which will hopefully feature plenty of change, starting at the top.