Chicago Bears grade high for zany thrills while beating punching bag

There are, and not even all of them are players.

Here are the grades from a 47-42 Bears shootout so wild that it made the one at the OK Corral seem like a cordial discussion.

Passing: A

With the exception of Rome Odunze's skillet hands and Theo Benedet's ability to make it seem like Trey Hendrickson really was playing, the Bears passed the ball, caught it and blocked for it better than any time this season. Maybe the Dallas game was close but not performed with so wild an assortment of plays and passes from different points on the field. Caleb Williams didn't back down when Joe Flacco was bombing away at the Bears defense. They always said Colston Loveland looked like he had speed and on Sunday he looked like Tyreek Hill for one play when he really needed it.

Rushing: A+

It never looked better even when D'Andre Swift was healthy. Kyle Monangai gave a 176-yard performance in the mold of Walter Payton, bouncing off tacklers, bursting through small holes and then to the clear. You wondered at the season's start where the hard running would come from with Swift being their starter because Johnson's rushing attack requires Sonic and Knuckles. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Bears' Knuckles. Monangai is not very big for a Knuckles at 5-foot-8, 207 pounds, but he's a compact explosion on every run. Brittain Brown ran better on his 22-yard TD than Roschon Johnson has in three years in Chicago, and he's been on their practice squad this year. Don't forget Caleb Williams' scrambling. Although he had a few pirouettes too many in the pocket trying to escape and then got himself in trouble, he made the big first-down scramble they needed to get out of a hole on the final drive and a few other runs for 53 total yards. The surge from all the offensive line throughout the game was getting to the second level and beyond but let's not get too carried away. The injury report said Trey Hendrickson was out Sunday for the Bengals but that defense was so bad you'd swear the other 10 starters had been among on the inactive list as well.

Pass Defense: F

Even the critical interception by Tremaine Edmunds and the final Nahshon Wright pick, and the sacks by Austin Booker and Montez Sweat couldn't elevate this embarrassment. You can pick off the ball four or five times and the effort still stinks if you've given up the second most passing yards to any quarterback (470) in franchise history. Especially at the end of the game when the threat of the run was irrelevant, the Bears' secondary had no clue how to stop a pass and their pass rush didn't make the big pressure to force a mistake. Regardless of Daniel Hardy's special teams gaffe, that comeback never should have happened for the Bengal and it was on the Bears' secondary. Is it possible for Ryan Poles to trade for an all new secondary by Tuesday at 3 p.m.?

Run Defense: A-

Giving up 46 yards on 15 attempts and only 37 on 11 to the starting running back is a credit to the front and 12 of the 46 yards came on one play. Still, you wonder whether their run defense was excellent or their pass defense was so porous that it attracted more pass attempts like a neon sign attracts insects.  Allowing backs 43 rushing yards is still an A in any football book.

Special Teams: F-

They achieved a grade so low it says they shouldn't have bothered showing up. Daniel Hardy letting the onside kick go off his leg when the ball hadn't even gone 10 yards and couldn't even be touched by the kicking team yet was one of worst mistakes ever made on a special teams play anywhere at any time. Cairo Santos' low kick and the shoddy blocking on the left side made for a blocked field goal. Santos had even missed one prior to that block but it was wiped out by a timeout. Jahdae Walker wiped out a 52-yard kick return by Devin Duvernay with a penalty, questionable call or not, and Durham Smythe had a special teams penalty. And we haven't even reached the worst play of all yet, the putrid attempt at kick coverage when Charlie Jones went 98 yards on the opening kick through a hole so wide you'd swear half the kick coverage team hadn't been on the field for the start of the game.

Coaching: B

The tendency is to give out a terrible grade on the defensive side but Dennis Allen was dialing up blitzes at key times to apply pressure and doing what he could with disguises while trying to double team Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins as much as possible. You can't really make up for lack of a lockdown corner like Jaylon Johnson when going against that receiver corps. Nahshon Wright just doesn't handle actual pass coverage well in man-to-man situations. He seems like a cornerback more well suited to zones. Ben Johnson's creative play calls mixed in with domination on the line of scrimmage made the play calling seem like applied science. It had to be to make up for the laughing stock special teams play and coaching.  

Overall: B-

If you're a kid and you come home with a report card that has almost all "A's" and two "F's," you can be sure the parents' first reaction will be "how the heck did you flunk two classes" but not a word about anything else. That needs to be the reaction from their fan base, too. Maybe there is no need to apologize for victories like the Bears had over a Bengals team which lacks any defense, but there's no need to celebrate it, either.