Honestly, it’s quite difficult to grade a team when half of them didn’t even turn in their papers. But, we will do our best. You can certainly make the case that no franchise has had worse luck at the quarterback position, or offense in general, than the Chicago Bears have had over the previous two decades. Sunday’s effort in Tennesee against a mediocre Titans defense was the culmination of everything that has gone wrong for this franchise offensively for years.

Here, we’ll grade the offense, defense, special teams, and coaching to determine just where the Bears went wrong and who’s most to blame for the loss to Tennessee. Let’s be straight about this, we all know who will take up the majority of this piece…

Offense: F

They made you want to gauge your eyes out. Yes, the Bears had some garbage time offense in the 4th quarter and Nick Foles had over 300 yards passing, but they set themselves up for failure with an absolutely abysmal first half of football. Somehow, the Bears managed to not commit a single turnover in the first half, yet generated an astounding -0.64 expected points added (EPA) per play. When you take turnovers out of the equation, that’s the single worst EPA per play average of the entire 2020 NFL season. What could be worse than that, you may ask? It was the worst offensive first-half for the Bears since the stat was introduced in 2006 by Pro Football Focus.

The second-half introduced us to the turnovers, and they were costly, to say the least. David Montgomery fumbled the ball running to his right, which new Titans corner Desmond King ll took back 63 yards for the house call. Questions about whether or not Montgomery is the future at RB remain. Anthony Miller continues to answer that question about himself at receiver though, as his fumble late in the game ruined any chance at another miracle Bears comeback.

The offensive line was perhaps the biggest culprit for this grade. Center Cody Whitehair was out of the game due to a COVID-19 diagnosis, guard James Daniels has been out since October with a torn pec and will miss the rest of the season, tackle Bobby Massie was out with a knee injury and backup tackle Jason Spriggs was also out with a COVID diagnosis. The entire line has been a revolving door for a while now, and with all the injuries, opportunities arose for younger players to step in.

Seventh-round rookie Arlington Hambright got his when he moved into the left guard position, while UDFA Alex Bars got his first chance to play center at the NFL level. Rashaad Coward moved from left guard to right tackle. To the surprise of absolutely no one, they played poorly. The Bears allowed the fifth-worst pressure rate in the NFL through Week 9, and gave the run game 0.0 yards before contact, which was the second-worst of the week.

Defense: B+

The Bears, despite their limitations, actually out-gained the Titans in the game. We can thank a relentless defense for that, which took the Titans high-powered offense and silenced it. Derrick Henry, who we all thought was going to dismantle this defense which is the worst in the NFL in giving up explosive runs, was kept in check and didn’t have the day we expected him to. The only player from either team to produce on offense was Titans receiver A.J. Brown, who had three explosive receptions of at least 15 yards and multiple broken tackles.

Rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson continues to show he’s a second-round gem, completely shutting out whoever he was assigned to on Sunday. He allowed zero yards and forced an incompletion across 25 snaps in coverage. His season forced incompletion rate is 22.4%, which is fifth-best among all corners. He has been one of the few bright spots for the Bears this season.

Special Teams: A

Four words: Barkevious Mingo fake punt. The sheer fact that Mingo was the Bears leading rusher for a majority of the game gets the special teams unit an “A” for literally being the offense in the first half. No kicking blunders help out a lot after what the Bears have gone through over the last few seasons, and Pat O’Donnell had his best game as a pro averaging almost 50 yards per punt. Cordarrelle Patterson didn’t do much in the kick return game again, but at this point, we’d be happy if they relegated him to only returning kicks. Could Cairo Santos’ rejuvenation be the answer for the Bears at kicker? He’s been very promising in his short time back from injury and nailed his only attempt in the game.

Coaching: Super F

We’re tired. Tired of the excuses, tired of the ineptitude, and tired of the cuteness. At one point in time, Bears fans relished in the fact of Matt Nagy as their head coach. He had won coach of the year after revitalizing a franchise that had been a failure for so many years and brought them to their first playoff game in almost a decade. It all seems like a lifetime ago. Nagy continues to reassure us that those days are behind him, and the new normal is what we saw on Sunday. It was completely pathetic against one of the worst defenses in the NFL. They were 2 for 15 on third down against the worst third-down defense in football. The unimaginative and uncreative offense is now the staple for Chicago, and Nagy deserves the bulk of the blame.

While his players have failed to execute at times and the injury and COVID lists start to pile up, it still doesn’t excuse why it seems like this team is never prepared to play on offense. Nagy and Ryan Pace chose to trade for Foles, he was their guy that they together decided to go get. He has been abysmal and looks completely lost out on the field, and that points back to the head coach. Maybe we blamed Mitch too early for his poor play and his “bust” status. Maybe if he had a competent offensive mind to train him and coach him up, he wouldn’t be labeled as a failure. However, you want to look at it, defending Nagy is becoming less plausible each week.