Chicago Bears: Learn from MNF and the New England Patriots

The Chicago Bears are a bad football team. They were handed another loss on Sunday as the Arizona Cardinals came to Soldier Field and had their way with them. The Cardinals are one of the best teams in the NFL but that is no excuse as the Bears have only won twice once in the last seven weeks.

On Monday Night Football, a game was played that the Chicago Bears can learn from. The New England Patriots defeated the Buffalo Bills by a final score of 14-10. It was an outstanding performance by Bill Belichick’s team to get the win in some very tough conditions.

There was some snow and lots of wind in Buffalo. As a result, Belichick made some coaching decisions that were perfect for that environment. That is the first thing that the Bears can learn. Matt Nagy will never do it because he is too stubborn but when he is fired, hiring someone who can make week-to-week adjustments like that should be criteria.

The second thing is that the bears went for a two-point conversion when they scored the first touchdown of the game. Bill Belichick wanted to get an extra point on the score and knew the conditions might make hit hard to hit chip shot field goals. Of course, they did end up kicking some field goals but only when they had to.

The third and most important thing the Bears can learn from New England is how to develop a quarterback. Tom Brady turned into the greatest quarterback who ever lived as a late-round draft pick but nobody should ever be expecting that. What they can expect is to help a young first-round pick grow into something great.

The Chicago Bears need to learn how to develop a young quarterback in the NFL.

The Chicago Bears aren’t really doing that with Justin Fields. They are and have been playing games with his starts because of the fact that they have Andy Dalton. It isn’t even like they have a winning quarterback to play over Fields as Dalton hasn’t been good in years.

Meanwhile, New England cut Cam Newton (who is incredibly more accomplished than Andy Dalton) so that they can start Mac Jones who was drafted just a few picks after Fields. Jones has been starting all year long. He has had some ups and downs but the Patriots let him learn, unlike the Bears with Fields.

Now, Jones is good enough to win games at a high level. He can throw well if needed but he can also execute a game plan to perfection. He only made three pass attempts on Monday Night Football and completed two of them. He knew that they needed to run the ball in conditions like that and they did a very good job.

Jones learned under Nick Saban at Alabama before moving to Bill Belichick and those are the two best coaches in their respective leagues. Justin Fields doesn’t have that as Matt Nagy is a joke (Ryan Day from Ohio State is great) so it will take more time.

Hopefully, the Bears see this stuff and make some major adjustments as soon as possible. The risk of ruining Fields is already there and that is frightening to think about. Chicago can take all of this in and do what they can to turn him into a winning quarterback.