Kyle Brandt rips Bears’ MNF performance, claiming ‘fools’ gold’ was nothing to celebrate

Bears struggled to move the football in the second half, and Brandt suggested there was little to be excited about

The Bears scored a touchdown on their opening drive of the game, with Caleb Williams making multiple throws before scrambling into the endzone himself.

They had all of the momentum in the game. The Vikings had started poorly with JJ McCarthy taking his first snaps in the league, but Chicago couldn’t capitalize on their opportunities.

The Bears did eventually extend their lead, but only thanks to a critical McCarthy mistake. He tried to throw an out route to Justin Jefferson in the third quarter, but made it too obvious, and cornerback Nahshon Wright took it back the other way for a touchdown.

While the Vikings took three quarters to warm up, the Bears continued to sputter offensively. They only scored 10 points as a unit in the game, which opened the door to a fourth-quarter comeback for the trailing team.

Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams have been working all year to help the second-year quarterback settle into his role. On Monday Night Football, it still looked frantic.

After motivating his team in the third quarter, JJ McCarthy led a 21-point fourth, claiming the lead late in the game, and then sealing it with a rushing touchdown of his own.

Kyle Brandt talked about the game this morning, and as a Chicago native, he wasn’t impressed:

“There was a different excitement and a buzz in the city, from my family and my friends. 12 penalties, four false starts. It was completely embarrassing. I was not one of these people celebrating after the first drive, because the first drive to me felt like fool’s gold.”

He explained:

“Everything Caleb was doing was either adlibbed, or scrambles, or just sandlot stuff; there wasn’t any real timing stuff. He didn’t look smooth. My best word to describe Caleb last night was ‘manic’. He was kind of all over the place, looked frantic, looked hyper, did not look comfortable.”

Brandt suggested the Bears have a lot to work on early in the season, and that even the good plays the offense made were not within the flow of the offensive gameplan.

The struggles that Brandt pointed out were along similar lines to the concerns Mark Sanchez had earlier in the week. The ex-QB said he wanted to see Caleb hang in the pocket, and only scramble when he felt he needed to to make a play. Through the first week of the season, that didn’t look good.

Ben Johnson will not be happy with his team’s Week 1 performance

The Bears were poorly disciplined, frantic, and lacked any kind of rhythm all night. Even on the one touchdown drive that started the game, as Brandt said, the touchdown came off multiple chaotic scrambling plays that happened to work out in their favor.

Chicago committed 12 penalties for a whopping 127 penalty yards, to the Vikings’ 50. They punted six times, and completed only three of their 12 third down attempts in the game.

Caleb Williams is yet to prove that he can operate an offensive game plan within the lines of the plays drawn up by the coaching staff. He needs to be able to demonstrate that to Ben Johnson and his staff.

Fans know that Johnson is a great play caller and knows how to design a quality offensive playbook. But what he can build versus what Caleb Williams can execute is a different story.

The Bears will need to figure it out in a hurry, but last night was a disaster from the moment they scored their first and only offensive touchdown of the game.