Three Takeaways from Bears' loss to the Bengals

This week on Bears takeaways after their big win last week in their first preseason game vs the Browns they had a stinker today against the Cincinnati Bengals. Chicago lost 27-9 in what was rather a winded contest from the beginning where the Bears couldn’t really get going to build a massive lead like they could’ve last week. 

Last week we saw Beanie Bishop Jr. shine in the big win where he had two interceptions and the Bears offense was rolling. This week however was a different story and not for a good reason this time around. I give my three takeaways from Chicago’s loss to the Bengals. 

Defensive Disaster:

I’ll just be blunt here and say the Bears defense did not show up at all today. The Bengals had over 300 total yards on offense letting veteran quarterback Josh Johnson and Sean Clifford dice up the defense and have control the whole way from the first minute to the last. 

This performance should be a wake up call for the Bears defense and defensive coordinator Dennis Allen as they cannot afford these types of performances come regular season when games start to matter. The other blunder to this performance was the Bengals backups doing this as Cincinati did not play any of their starters tonight, while the Bears did to start the game. Head Coach Ben Johnson and Allen will surely let their players hear it from them and have a better game plan next week in the preseason finale.

Help in the Secondary:

This offseason one thing was for sure the Bears needed to redo their whole secondary and they thought they accomplished that goal. The Bears went to sign safety Coby Bryant to a massive payday in free agency and drafted safety Dillon Thieneman in the first round. The Bears also drafted cornerback Malik Muhammad in the fourth round with everyone saying he was a steal and shouldn’t have dropped that far down the draft board. 

Unfortunately for the Bears, Bryant will miss most of if not all of the season with a knee injury, the Bears signed veteran Xavier Woods hoping he would replace Bryant but is dealing with a groin issue and that leaves two rookies out to make plays right away and can definitely tell they are still learning the ropes of the NFL. 

It will take some time for these two to develop but the Bears have enough veterans on defense to hopefully mask this flaw for as long as they can and hopefully Woods can be back on the field by then to help balance the secondary out. 

Jahdae Walker is WR4: 

One of the more interesting battles in training camp is who would step up at the wide receiver position. Obviously the Bears have Luther Burden III and Rome Odunze holding the first two spots at the WR position and deservedly so. The big question is who will fill the third and fourth spots. It seems that the third spot will go to free agent signing Kalif Raymond to start the season, Raymond should have the early edge due to his experience with Head Coach Ben Johnson as Raymond played under Johnson during his time on the Lions. 

That leaves the fourth spot and it’s up for grabs. Rookie Zavion Thomas has yet to take a preseason snap yet as he dealt with an injury during the first preseason game. He has returned to practice however but didn’t play in this game against the Bengals. With the uncertainty around Thomas it has left the door open for someone else to take that spot. Enter second year player Jahdae Walker who was a pretty valuable player last season. 

Walker came on the field last season due to numerous injuries at wide receiver but he made the most of his short opportunities including a game tying catch against the Green Bay Packers in the regular season before eventually leading to the infamous Caleb Williams to DJ Moore overtime game winner. That overtime catch doesn’t happen if Walker doesn’t make that catch in the 4th. 

Walker since then has really improved his game and had a great game today in his short sample size he recorded 36 yards on three receptions. For the preseason finale next week I’m definitely keeping a close eye on Walker to end the preseason on a high note. 

While this game didn’t turn out what the Bears had hoped for there is still time to get it right and to get things back on track before their final preseason game next Saturday against the Titans.