(670 The Score) Heading into their game in Pittsburgh on Monday night, the Bears had a 2% chance of making the playoffs. It got late awfully fast in Chicago this year, though it doesn't help that the NFC is stacked, and that the Bears play the Packers twice a year, and that they're not particularly good. That's why it doesn't really matter that the Bears' 29-27 loss to the Steelers won't technically end their playoff hopes just quite yet – their season has been over for a while now.
None of the problems Monday night were new. There was nothing surprising about the Bears' decision to kick a field goal from the 4-yard line, no matter how easy it would've been for widely available math or previous personal experience to help make a better decision. The pocket wasn't moved around for huge chunks of the game, and rookie Khalil Herbert got four carries. It was Matt Nagy's football game, from the visor on down.
Call it overly simplistic, but the Bears (3-6) aren't getting better and it's a problem. Justin Fields is getting better. Jaylon Johnson, Roquan Smith and Cole Kmet are getting better. But for a bunch of different reasons, the Bears are getting worse. The reasons aren't new, and a lot of them aren't even particularly complicated. No one is expecting a top-five passing offense anymore, but it feels like assuming that the team knows what formation to line up in coming out of a timeout isn't an unfair ask. There may be more damning trends in the Nagy era, but I'm not sure there's a funnier one.
"I just look at what we have with 12 penalties as too many," Nagy said after the game. "What it does is it pushes you back or it gives them free yards. It's a rhythm game, and you want to stay in rhythm. You want to stay away from penalties, and I feel like we need to be better there."
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And speaking of places that the Bears need to be better, the offensive line had themselves another night. The first two quarters were especially disastrous, and even with a slightly better back half, it's hard to look at eight quarterback hits, four penalties and three sacks with a whole bunch of enthusiasm. A lot of that damage came from Pittsburgh star pass rusher T.J. Watt, who had all three Steelers sacks. After the game, Nagy said he thought the Bears "did a good job of really making sure that TJ Watt really didn't affect the game."
"Along with (Cameron) Heyward too," he added. "I thought our offensive line, especially against this front, had a good game."
Given that we all know, very specifically, just how dramatic a situation needs to be for Nagy to publicly call out one of his own players, the Watt comment isn't necessarily surprising. There's something commendable about how far he'll go to avoid making anything seem like anyone's fault. But it's impossible to say that the Bears did a good job making sure Watt didn't affect the game, just like, for a while now, it's been impossible to say that the offense is improving.
And sure, it's an issue that Nagy continues to say otherwise, but by now, we're at the point where the bigger problem is that the Bears continue to believe him.
Cam Ellis is a writer for 670 The Score and Audacy Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KingsleyEllis.
