The Bears took care of business this week in Chicago, disposing of the Arizona Cardinals 27-16. They improved to 6-9 behind fantastic rushing performances from both Khalil Herbert and Justin Fields. It wasn’t pretty, and the Bears suffered some injuries along the way. Cole Kmet left the game at halftime and DJ Moore was shaken up on the first drive, but gutted out the rest of the contest.
Advantage in the Rushing Attack
While the passing games evened out, the Bears won on the ground this week. Against a poor Cardinals run defense, the Bears rushing attack was able to get back on track. The Bears ran for 250 yards on the ground on Sunday, compared to only 93 for the Cardinals. Khalil Herbert finally looked fully healthy this week after a few uncharacteristic performances following his return from injury. He ran for 112 yards on 20 carries, adding in a touchdown. Justin Fields turned in arguably his most impressive rushing performance of the season, running for 97 yards on nine carries. He also added a rushing touchdown in the first half.
Arizona has good rushing efficiency numbers, but I suspected that this was only due to them constantly playing from behind. This proved true, and the stout Chicago defense absolutely shut down James Conner on the ground. He averaged 3.8 yards per rush. Kyler Murray boosted the team total thanks to a couple of scrambles, so the Cardinals ended up averaging 4.7 yards per rush. However, the normal running was nowhere near that efficient. The lack of efficiency on the ground caused the Cardinals offense to pass almost twice as often as it ran (38 pass attempts to 20 rush attempts). It’s tough for an offense to succeed while being so unbalanced (especially with its number one wide receiver out), and the Bears did a great job of causing this issue.
Defense Keeps it Rolling
The numbers aren’t as gaudy as they have been in previous weeks, but the defense continued to impress. It didn’t get any takeaways for the first time in over a month, but played well enough that it didn’t matter. They were many moments like hard hits from Brisker breaking up passes to Dexter Jr. creating disruptions that don’t show up on the stat sheet. The unit is just tough, and ended up forcing five three-and-outs in Week 16. Though the defense only got home twice, Murray felt the pressure nearly every drive. DT Justin Jones might have had his best game of the season. He added a sack and was very involved all day long. It goes without saying, but Montez Sweat also did his thing. He forced a couple rushed passes and added a massive swat to his highlight reel. This is a top-ten defense, and has been for a while now.
Fields’ Day
I don’t have much to add about Justin Fields. He had an amazing day rushing the football, which we may be getting spoiled with as fans. It was an ugly game all around, and the Bears’ inability to pass the ball was a part of that. Maybe I’m being greedy and overlooking the fact that the Bears got the win, but I really wanted to see more out of the passing game this week. Fields finished 15/27 with 170 passing yards, one touchdown, and one interception. He only took one sack, which is good improvement (though the Cardinals pass rush is abysmal). Arizona’s secondary has been getting torched all season long, so I was hoping Fields could showcase his abilities.
Luckily, I’ll argue that a big passing day just wasn’t in the cards. DJ Moore, already banged up, was injured on the first drive of the game. He returned after missing a couple of possessions, but was clearly not himself. In his absence, Cole Kmet became Fields’ go-to target, racking up an insane 107 yards in the first half. However, he missed the entire second half due to injury. In addition to these vital injuries, the Khalil Herbert and Fields, himself, were ripping the Cardinals apart on the ground. As much as I wanted Fields to show us what he can do against such an awful secondary, the chips just didn’t fall that way.