The Kevin Sheehan Show - Embarrassing Loss To The Bears

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Kevin with his recap on the 40-20 blowout loss to the Bears.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it, but you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheyenne Show. Here's Kevin. Pass is pulled in by Moore, gets free. Washington gambles and lose the gamble that time. 56 yards touchdown. Fuller trying to jump it.

Moore able to make the catch and then free to the end zone. DJ Moore is still catching. touchdown passes. What an epic night for him. What a disastrous night for the home team. This is a postgame podcast. I've got my complete game take coming up. It's going to be a painful one, so I will try to keep things relatively short. I'll have another show out tomorrow afternoon. Jay Gruden will be on that one, Cooley perhaps as well. Windonation is the presenting sponsor of this show. Call them at 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com. for their fall sale, buy two, get too free with no money down, no payments, and no interest for two years, 86690 Nation, windonation.com.

So, for those that want me to admit the defense is overrated or the defense isn't as good as it should be, okay, I admit it. That was a shit show tonight, no doubt about it. For those that have reached out to say thanks for Chicago plus six winner, you're welcome. I bet them too, although I did not bet them on the money line. I didn't want them to win the game. I just wanted them to cover. And boy, did they cover. They won the game 40 to 20.

A humiliating night for Washington. They were out played, they were out hustled, they were out coached. You know, I said earlier this week, these Thursday night football games are rough. There is some real preparing needed to play well on short turnaround, and they didn't play well. And they didn't look prepared. By the way, remember, they've got another one of these, you know, Sunday to Thursday, Thanksgiving week when they go to Dallas on Thanksgiving Day. I think putting this loss solely on the lack of being ready and being hungry for it would be a bit of a mistake. Chicago played exceptionally well.

You can't take that away from them. They were the prepared team. They were the hungrier team. And I emphasized all week, and especially yesterday, that they were more than capable offensively. You know, Fields has not been consistent throughout his career yet, throughout his very young career. that's for sure, but he's got talent, and he played very well last week for three quarters, anyway, before it fell apart in the fourth quarter. DJ Moore is a very good NFL number one wide receiver.

Cole Commet is becoming a very good NFL tight end, and they've got good team speed, their running backs are pretty much all of them got hurt tonight. They had their fullback in the game, blossing game there at the end. but Khalil Herbert is a decent back. Roshan, the back from Texas is going to be a good back. He got concussed tonight. But anybody that had watched Chicago play Denver last week knew what they were capable of offensively.

But still, the defense in the first half showed no resistance. It was really awful. You know, it started with coverage. That was a problem last week in Philadelphia. The front got pushed around at times, too. The tackling was horrendous. And they played, I thought, at the beginning, way too passively in the first half.

You could tell it was a bit of the, you know, same thing that you saw against Justin Fields, I'm sorry, against Jalen Hertz, which was it was more rush contain rather than rush to go get him. They didn't think he could beat him from the pocket, kind of like last week with Hertz. They were wrong.

Now, they turned that around and they got more aggressive as they realized that that was not the right strategy. But you could tell on the first maybe two drives, they were not rushing to pressure or to sack. They were rushing to contain. Problem was they were getting run on too. You know, as humbling as it was for people like me who still believed in the defense going into last night's game, the offense should have been able to dominate a bear's defense that was garbage coming into the game and was a defense that was also missing key starters in their secondary. And yet, you know, in the first half, they needed to keep pace with Chicago,

and they couldn't, as Doc would say, they couldn't bust a grape. Three points, 84 yards, many of those yards coming on that last meaningless drive to run out the first half clock. But yeah, even after one of the worst first halves played by anybody all year long, really anywhere in the league, down 27 to 3, they still amazingly had a chance. They did. Down 30 to 20, the bears were reeling. They were on the ropes taking a pounding. They had players leaving the game left and right. They were praying. that the clock would run out before they blew another big lead like they did last week against Denver. And then Joey Sly misses a 46-yard field goal. Good weather, good snap, good hold, shitty kick.

If he makes that kick, you know, the bears, there you know what's start to shrivel up. The game pressure of 30 to 23 with still over five minutes. left would have been tough, I think, in that moment for them to handle. They had backups to backups in the game. The defense had played better, you know, in the second half. The bears on defense in particular were hemorrhaging. I actually felt in that moment before that kick, you know, on that drive. I'm like, if they can get something before, you know, say the five-minute mark or the four-minute mark, they've got all their timeouts, even if it's a field goal, They're going to either have a chance to win this game in regulation or force overtime.

In fact, I was thinking at the time, if they kick a field goal here, what will Ron do if they score late in the game to make it 30 to 29? Will he go for the two or will he kick? They were one for two tonight on their two-point conversions. But, you know, that thinking was premature and maybe perhaps it was wishful thinking. because, you know, they didn't deserve to win. They didn't deserve to even really be in the game in some ways. And the kicker made sure that they couldn't come back. That was a disgusting miss.

You know, 46 yards on a good night with a good hold with a good snap is a chip shot in this league now. You know, especially for a guy like Sly who's got a big leg. I mean, there's no distance issues with 46 yards. And he pushed it. So they fall to two and three. They've lost three straight games. It didn't feel like they lost to the Eagles, but they did.

And the Bears meantime, they end their 14-game losing streak, dating back to November of last year. It's like when the lions were winless in the first game they had. That next year was against Washington. It's not quite that. If I didn't have a horse in the race last night, and I did, I mean, I did from a rooting standpoint in Washington, and I did from a betting standpoint in Chicago plus the six.

But if I had just been a football fan last night, I would have actually really appreciated Chicago's effort in the game they played. You know, they saw some of it coming. You could tell. You know, they took the ball after winning the toss. They didn't defer. You know, they felt good about their offense coming in. Courtney Cronin had told me that on the radio station,

on the radio show on Tuesday. She's the John Kime equivalent for ESPN. She said they really felt really good about where they were offensively after that Denver game. And you could see it if you watch that game. How crisp they were, how good fields was, until he wasn't at the very end with a sack fumble and, you know,

he had a crucial intentional grounding. But, you know, this was a team that was mocked as dead, you know, and everything that comes comes with being 0 and 4 and being mocked and being called, you know, essentially, you know, the number one pick in next year's draft. You know, everybody's getting fired. The quarterback's going to get benched. They shoved that to the side and stuck this game right into everybody's backside.

So I, if I'd been just an NFL fan tonight, I would have had real respect for what Chicago did and little respect for Washington's effort overall. But anyway, they had a chance, Washington did, to go into this mini-buy with a three-and-two record with Atlanta and the Giants coming up. It would have been a real reason to be optimistic about the season, but now they're going to get to Atlanta next week and the Giants after that, and it's those teams that'll probably be licking their chops because the commanders are coming to town. But anyway, I'll get to my game take in a moment. I did say something two weeks ago after the butt kicking against Buffalo, and I said the same thing after they lost a game in Philadelphia in which they played very well,

and I'm going to say the same thing again tonight. This is just one game. The Philadelphia game was just one game. The Buffalo game is just one game. Hopefully by now everybody realizes how week to week this thing. is, especially for teams like Washington who are really in the middle. You know, are they in the upper middle or are they in the lower middle? I guess the next few weeks will start to determine that.

But make no mistake, they're a middle of the pack team. I think also one thing just to keep in mind, and I just watched Ron's presser. Are changes coming after a loss like this? Ron said that they would be looking at everything. I think he was talking more about players, but who knows? Maybe Jack Del Rio is in trouble. I wouldn't bet on it, but at this point, when you get beat by 40, when you give up 40 and get beat by 20 on national TV against a team that hasn't won a game in 11 months,

sometimes heads roll. Stay tuned on that one. All right, my game take coming up next right after these words from a few of our sponsors. It was made them from 51 and 32's 2 for 2. And this one is no good. It was a shame the way they played tonight. It was also a shame that Joey Sly missed that field goal because these games, you know, they're 60 minutes. and you've got to play the whole game.

They don't let you just walk off with eight minutes to go in a 16-point lead. We've seen the wildest of things happen in the NFL. We've seen massive comeback. Chicago just gave up the biggest lead they've ever had at home in a loss to Denver. And I thought at that point, they were hurting, they were gassed, and they were starting to choke a bit.

I really did. You know, maybe some of you didn't, but you could see that they were starting to fear a one score game and the pressure that that would have put on them. But it didn't happen. Joey Sly missed the kick. If you've not rated or reviewed the show and you can take just 30 to 60 seconds and do that for us,

it would be so helpful. Apple allows you to give us five stars and write a one to two sentence review. that's really, really helpful for us. Also following us on Apple and Spotify and subscribing to the podcast is appreciated. All right, let's get to my Game Take. Pay attention.

Here's Kevin's Game Take. The Game Take is brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.ag and use my promo code, and MyBooky is going to give you a 110% cash deposit bonus. It's only available to my... listeners, and it's only available through the end of this week. My bookie is doing this because of Washington's 2-0 start. They came to me a few weeks ago after they were 2-0 and said, would love to do something for your audience, and this is what they're doing. This is an

unheard-of cash deposit bonus. They're more than doubling your money. Take advantage of it, even if you're betting somewhere else. Take the free cash and have a second place to bet on games. MyBooky.ag promo code Kevin DC, you have to use my promo code to get this deposit of 110% on your initial cash deposit. Minimum 50 bucks all the way up to 1,000. You deposit $1,000. They're going to give you $1,100 into your account. So you'll have $2,100 in your account to bet with. All right, what I liked, what I didn't like, and a few other observations. And I'm going to go through this quickly because I'm not quite as organized as I typically am after the game because I wanted to get this out, but this one's kind of easy, I think, tonight to a certain degree. What I liked,

there were a couple of things that I liked tonight. I guess the fact that they sort of got back into the game in the second half, I liked that. I think Chicago played soft on the first drive of the second half, the one that ended in a three-minute touchdown drive for Washington. But then they started to get super aggressive. They actually started to play a little bit desperately with their blitz pressure. I think they felt that that was the way to really get Sam to unload it even quicker than he was. And I kind of thought that this was going to be part of their strategy tonight, even though they're not typically a blitzing team. But look, after generating just three points in 84 yards in the first half, and again, some of the

those yards were empty yards at the end of the first half when the clock was rolling out. More on that and the way Ron managed the end of the first half coming up. But after a dreadful first half, the offense rolled up 304 second half yards, 17 points. Should have been at least 20 if Sly makes the field goal. You know, I guess, you know, what I liked was they actually came out of the locker room down 27 to 3 and turned it into a halfway competitive game. And the offense, you know, 304 second half yards, it doesn't matter how soft Chicago may have been playing.

They started to come after them, so they weren't playing soft the entire time. But, yeah, the offense for sure in the second half, and the defense, after allowing 27 points and 307 first half yards to the Bears, you know, until that missed field goal, defense had stiffened a ton in the second half. They had allowed just three points in just 74 yards and only three first downs until the miss field goal and then any legit chance they had was gone

and the floodgates kind of opened up on both ends with the touchdown pass to DJ Moore and then the multiple sacks on Sam. But anyway, the second half, I guess it wasn't that bad. so it makes the list of things that I liked. Individually, let me just mention a couple of players that I jotted down here. I know he fumbled trying to get extra yardage, and there was a deep ball that maybe he could have pulled in. They ended up scoring on that drive anyway, but I thought Logan Thomas was pretty solid tonight.

I thought Logan Thomas was pretty solid last week. Logan ended up with nine catches in the game for 77 yards on 11 targets. They had that one third and long. It was like third and 11. They threw underneath to him and he just dove for it. I like Logan Thomas in the way he's playing. I think he's very important to Sam Hal and this offense. For all of the reasons I've discussed before, big target, you know, soft hands, all of that.

But it's his understanding of football. It's his understanding of the position because he was a quarterback. I think in many ways, Logan Thomas is like a coach on the field for Eric B. Enemy. I thought Logan Thomas, despite the fumble, and it was, you know, trying to get extra yards, and it was hurtful, you know. It definitely was because it was 27 to 11, I think, at the time, and they'd gotten the ball back, and that stopped that, you know, that initial push of momentum in the second half. but I thought he was pretty solid in the game.

I thought Curtis Samuel was pretty good in this game as well. He was good last week, too. I liked Antonio Gibson out of the backfield catching balls. There was no rushing attack in this game. I'll get to that in a bit. And yeah, believe it or not, I actually thought that three players specifically on defense, Duran Payne, Montes, Sweat, and Chase Young all made some plays. Sweat had a sack and a half plus a deflected ball on a pain pressure.

Young had a sack in several pressures in the game. So that gives, by the way, if we're keeping track here now, Chase Young has, actually he was credited. I'm looking at it right now. I thought he had a full sack. He was credited for a half a sack. So sweat had one and a half. Chase Young had won.

And John Allen had the other one when he just literally piled drove. Justin Fields into the turf. That was interesting. I thought that could have drawn a flag. But I don't know what the film will show with respect to Chase in some discipline on opening up some rushing lanes. I don't know what the responsibilities he had on some of those plays were. Nobody on defense played great. Nobody even played that good. I'm pointing out some performances because of some plays that were made. Montes Wet made some plays. Duron Payne was very difficult to block,

but problem was Justin Fields made a lot of plays, even with pressure. That's it on the list of things that I liked. Very, very short. Let me get to the list of things that I didn't like. All right, let's just start with everything about the first half. But I'm going to begin with the number of, one culprit tonight, and that was the defense. It was brutal in every sense of the word. It set a

losing tone right from the jump. They couldn't cover. They couldn't stop the run. They started, I think, too passively with more of a contain rush versus fields, and then he killed them from the pocket before they eventually got away from that and brought more pressure really starting midway through the second quarter roughly. The tackling was bad. The energy was horrendously awful. When they took a gamble going for a ball in coverage, they were always like a split step too late. Whether it was Forbes before he got benched or full or late, it just wasn't there. They got lucky, too, that they didn't give up more.

especially in the first half. You know, Fields missed some wide open receivers, and I thought there were at least two missed defensive pass interference calls on the night, including the one in the end zone on a ball to Mooney in the first half. I thought that that was, I think it was St. Juice. I think that was pass interference. Forbes was bad again and got benched for Danny Johnson. To give up 304 yards, 27.6 of 9 on 3rd down in a half,

That's embarrassing. That was by far in a way the worst effort of the season by far. The Bears didn't punt in the first half. Look, I think Fields was really good. I do. I thought he was really good last week. I thought he was again tonight, and DJ Moore was sensational. He set the record, by the way, for Thursday night football receiving yards with 2.30.

Commet is still open. He's good. Cody Barton is really struggling. The first half defense overall, though, was a special kind of bad, a special kind of ugly. But sticking with kind of the first half as a theme on the list of things that I didn't like, the offense didn't do its part either. In some ways, that was a bigger surprise to me. I told you guys yesterday on the pod and on the radio show that even though I was still

optimistic about the defense and still thought it was going to end up being a really good defense this year. And I argued that it was only, you know, the only true rough outing was against Philadelphia. I still believe that. I still do. And the first part of the Denver game. But I mentioned yesterday that I was a little bit worried about last night after watching that Denver game with Chicago. I thought that they could be vulnerable to a mobile quarterback that really could make a lot of plays with his arm and his legs with some really good skill position players. But the offense going into last night was facing an unhealthy team and a bad team defensively, and they couldn't do anything in the first half. One drive produced three points, and that was it. And by the way,

they got lucky on that drive. On third and four before the field goal, Hal had a pass deflected, and it should have been intercepted. So they were close to being blanked in the first half. The biggest surprise, as it relates to the offense in the first half, was their inability to run the ball at all. They missed early on that third and short when Brian Robinson Jr. got stopped. Gates got blown up on that play.

Denver last week, Even in a losing, even down 287, a game they would eventually win, but they were down 287, they still averaged over five yards per carry. Washington averaged 2.9 yards per carry. They just stopped trying. Now, they got behind and they started to throw the football to try to get back into the game. The truth is, the offensive line isn't that good at anything right now. They're not a good pass blocking line.

They're not a good run blocking line. they got manhandled by a defense that everybody had their way with before tonight. But again, the second half was much better and more on Sam Hal coming up in my list of other observations because Sam's not on the good list and he's not on the bad list, not for me. Also on the list of things I did not like from the game. The bottom line is that Ron Rivera did not come through in a spot. in which, you know, you need your staff to prepare your team in these very difficult short week games. Bottom line, you can't lay an egg like that with a two-game losing streak coming in

and being a desperate team should have been a desperate team yourself. You know, if you think of yourself as a decent team, you can't put out an effort in the first half like that. It was pathetic how lethargic everybody on that team looked in the first half, including Ron on the sideline. I know that's bothered a lot of you in the past, and I'm like, well, that's just his personality during a game. But, man, it was tough to watch him with arms crossed and not really worked up.

I guess he got worked up at halftime. I'm sure he did. But this loss is probably first and foremost on Ron. He said as much in the presser. He said, I got to look at what I did wrong this week. That team was not ready to play. and their opponent was. And they had the same kind of game on Sunday,

the same kind of a loss, a three-point loss, a draining loss, and they had to travel to come play Thursday night football. And they were hurting. They were without starters on defense. And yet that team looked prepared, looked energetic, looked ready. Washington, the opposite. That's on the coaching staff. Next up on the list of things that I didn't like.

You know, when you're down like they were at the end of the first half, you need every potential possession with as much time on the clock as possible to try to get back into the game. I know they were getting the ball to start the second half. But when Chicago was driving down for what was the touchdown to commit that made it 27 to 3, Washington should have been using their timeouts on defense post two-minute warning. In particular, there was a second and six Justin Field scramble where he went down at the four-yard line with a minute to go. At that point, Washington should have immediately started to call their timeouts defensively. Because they couldn't get another first down.

They could only score a touchdown or kick a field goal over the next three plays. And if you had used all your timeouts appropriately, you would have probably after the touchdown got in the ball back with about 40 seconds to go. Instead, they scored with 24 seconds to go in the half, and you didn't use your first time out until there were three seconds left in the half as you were picking up garbage, meaningless yards on a pass to Gibson, couple of passes to Gibson, and then a 24-yard pass to Logan Thomas as the clock expired. I mean, they had 84 yards in the first half, but 35 of them came on that meaningless end of a first half where they couldn't, didn't have enough time to score.

They weren't trying to score. Use your goddamn timeouts, Ron. You're down 20 to 3. You're about to go down either 23 to 3 or 27 to 3. You need every possession you can get. And they just let the clock roll. They took two timeouts with them into the locker room. That's just silly.

All right, let me get to some other observations. There was a at 27 to 11, 4th and 3 after Sam Hal run on 3 and long, got him to 4th and 3. Ron opted for the field goal. I was okay with that. There was a lot of time left in the game. You don't want to miss there and not come away with anything. 27 to 11 is not necessarily a 2-score game.

game. Again, people, 48.4% over the last 10 years on two-point conversions. So, you know, you're not more likely than not, more likely than not, you're not going to make two of them back to back. So you're going to need a field goal somewhere along the way. I did not have a problem with that. You were still, you know, several minutes, a few minutes left or whatever it was in the third quarter. I think I mentioned this already if I didn't. Chicago took the ball to start. It's rare when that happens. It only happens like 9% of the time when you win the toss, you take the ball. But they felt good about their offense coming in, and they did not feel good about their defense coming in. And so they wanted a shot at getting the lead in the game, which they did. The picked up flag on the deep ball to Terry, I think was the right call. I did not think that that was defensive pass interference. I didn't at all. So I think they were right to pick that up after huddling for what seemed like, you know, a minute to two minutes. And I guess I want to finish up here with Sam because Sam did some good things tonight. He did some things that I actually really liked.

And then there were a lot of things that I didn't like from Sam. Let me start with the things that I liked. I thought he did a really good job again. And I think this is Eric B. Enemy Driven, the game plan, the play calling, and what they are now deciding Sam's best, you know, the best way to use Sam is, especially with the offensive line and his propensity to hold onto the ball, quick game. You know, not pure drop back all the time, quick game. Sprint outs. I know that they would have liked to have used the running game a little bit more tonight, but they got behind and they couldn't run the football, and so they gave up on that. I mean, I don't know if you guys know this, but overall for the game, Sam was 30.

of 51 for 388 yards. Obviously, you're going to end up with a lot of pass attempts and a lot of yards in a game in which you're down 24 points at halftime. They had six running back rushes from Brian Robinson Jr. for 10 yards. Sam had four scrambles for 19 yards. But I think the most surprising thing to me tonight, most of you would think it's, well, it's the defense, because She was so bullish on the defense. I thought Chicago could have a good game coming into this game. I talked about that all week, and I really emphasized it yesterday. I was surprised at how bad the defense was, of course.

But I was really surprised that the offense struggled in the first half and could not run the football at all against a defense that has been gashed in every imaginable way through the first four weeks of the season. I liked some of what Sam did. I think he's getting the ball out quickly. I think he's becoming more decisive. I think he throws a great ball, a catchable ball. He's not always accurate.

I'll get to that in a bit. I think he throws with great touch. And then, of course, he's mobile, he's tough, sometimes too tough and too physical, because he's taken a pounding on some of these runs this year. I don't love to see that, but I love the zip, I love the touch, I love how tough his nails he is. I like a lot of what I've seen so far in the first five games.

You know, he threw a bad pick in the first half. There's no doubt about that. Quarterbacks, by the way, throw interceptions. It happens. But, you know, you need the quarterbacks who throw occasional interceptions to throw a lot more really good balls and touchdowns to make those interceptions look less important. Look, they had two turnovers tonight,

and they took a lot of sacks again, even though some of them were at the end. But, man, he got out of a lot of sacks. I think it should have been more. There were several times where he was able to escape, you know, the grasp of somebody, breaking tackles. But, you know, look, it's still too early to come to any conclusions on Sam. I'm nowhere near a conclusion on Sam after five starts.

but man he throws it well and he's getting much better at seeing things and getting it out. He's still, you know, not processing great all the time. He still misses guys on occasion. He still throws inaccurately at times. He still takes too many hits. But there's certainly something to like about what we've seen from Sam Hal. And he battled in the second half and, you know, some of it was against soft coverage. Some of it was against a defense that was reeling and losing players left and right and was way down.

This is what I thought we were going to see from the first half, in the first half from the offense. Let me go through some Sam plays that I want to just mention, good and bad. Let me start with some of the good plays. First of all, in the third quarter, the touchdown pass to Logan Thomas, and then the two-point conversion where he runs it in after. looking to throw it on play action. That's just, he's going to make some of those plays. He's tough. And he doesn't mind running and he doesn't mind, you know, taking some hits when he runs to get to where he wants to get. The deep shot to Gibson on their third drive of the second half for 41 yards

was a beautiful touch throw. The third and 12 before they kicked the field goal at 27 to 11, where he avoided the sack. and broke tackles and scrambled for, you know, nine yards to set up the fourth and three. That was incredible. And again, I didn't have a massive issue with Ron opting for the field goal at that point. Here in my notes, 317 left in the third quarter. You got multiple possessions left. You got multiple kinds of scores left in the game. Fourth and three, eh, I don't know.

I was fine with them kicking the field goal in that particular spot. If it's fourth and one, I'm going for it. although the third and one didn't work out so well in the first half. Go to their fourth drive in the second half. The deep shot to Thomas, I thought Logan could have pulled that one in. The third intended Diami underneath where he got the first down after he threw it short was versus the blitz. It was an excellent throw, and it was a really quick decision and a quick throw.

I think that's really a big part of what will make him successful and lead to a potential career as a starting quarterback in the NFL. It's what Phil Longo, his offensive coordinator at North Carolina told me, and I've mentioned this many times, he's a West Coast quarterback. It's, you know, give him the ability to three-step drop and get it out quickly, and he'll be accurate, and the ball will be there on time, and you saw that even on third and ten, he threw short of the sticks, but he threw to Diami Brown and Diami Brown made a really good play. The deep shot on that drive to Samuel, the seam shot was a great ball.

And then the third and goal versus the blitz, the corner blitz. I mean, Chicago is bringing people from everywhere, and he throws an easy touchdown pass to Samuel. He saw that the whole way. On that final drive before the missed field goal, I call that the final drive, the final meaningful drive of the game. A second and ten throw to Terry, which was just such a great time. touch throw for 32 yards. He had some really good throws.

Look, when you're down that much, you can look at what they're doing defensively, and you can call it garbage yards and garbage points, and they're playing soft. Chicago was coming after him. I think they played that first drive of the third quarter soft, but after that, they were starting to feel the pressure of, well, we don't want to get dinked and dunked four times in the second half and lose 28 to 27. And so they started to come after him a little bit. But there was some bad with Sam too.

Let me start with the third drive in the first half. You know, the first first down of the game was this sprint out where he threw to Logan Thomas on a third and two. It was not a good throw. It was a great catch by Logan. It's a terrible throw. I mean, he's wide open. He had to reach down to his shoelaces to pick

that up off the ground. The deep shot, the first and 10 deep shot on that drive that they took to Diami, who was wide open, I think it was a little bit overthrown. I still think Diami could have laid out for it a little bit more, but he's wide open. That's a touchdown. You got to make that throw, and he just overthrew him. A couple of plays later, that deep shot when they blitz. Now, this was on the play that it was third and nine and Chicago was off sides. Maybe he saw the off sides. I don't think he did, though. And he threw a deep hanging ball for Dotson that very easily could have been intercepted.

Now, it would have been nullified by the off sides. And then on the third and four, this was before the first field goal that made it 17 to 3. He had another pass deflected, and this one was an interception that was just dropped. should have been a pick there. The Stroman Interception, look, he was processing too slowly there. Herbstree pointed it out too on the broadcast. He went from left to right way too slowly, and when he got to where he should have been a split second earlier,

he was throwing late. And Greg Stroman, I think I mentioned him yesterday on the podcast, that he was with the Bears, picked it off. That was not a good pick at all. What else did I have on this list? The first and goal, this was before the touchdown at 30 to 14 that made it 30 to 20. They had a first in goal. He had hit the deep shot, the seam shot to Samuel.

First and goal, he was late to Logan Thomas. That should have been a touchdown. Second and goal, he throws behind Diami Brown. That should have been a touchdown. Third and goal, you know, he takes the corner blitz and throws the strike to Samuel for the touchdown. And then on the two-point conversion that would have made it 30 to 22, Gibson is there and he's open, and it should have been part of his early progression.

And I don't know why he didn't pull the trigger, and he took a sack. You know, he got out of that sack and flipped the ball up in the air. But if he hits Gibson there, it's a 30 to 22 game. And then before the Joey Sly field goal, he missed Dotson, I'm pretty sure, down near the, you know, 10, 9, 8-yard line. Dotson one-handed it, if you recall, out of bounds. But I think he was wide open, and I think he was just late to get to him and then threw him out of bounds, basically. But there was some good, you know, even in a poor first half with a turnover, you know, he took

five sacks. It could have easily been seven or eight, but he got out of those. I mean, I don't know how he got out of some of those sacks. He's the most sacked quarterback in the league. This is a problem right now, you know, and it's a lot on him. You know, he's trying to make plays, and when they're down, he was really trying to make plays. Look, he took two of the five sacks towards the end of the game. I agree with what Jay Leno's, Jay Leno, with what Charles Leno said, you know, they shouldn't have exposed him in that spot, you know, at 40 to 20 or 37 to 20 or whatever it was at that point. But the five sacks could have very easily been another nine. He just saved them from, you know, two or three others. But overall, you know, I think Sam was a C plus. You know, I don't think this

was a terrible game from Sam. I mean, I'm half thinking it's closer to a B minus because I see the progress. I see the progress of not holding it on every drop back. I give Eric B. enemy a lot of credit for that. And tonight they had no running game, no semblance of anything, any ability to run the football. So at least you had a little bit of that on Sunday. They should have shredded this defense from the get-go. They should have. And they were just as lethargic and unprepared and, you know, seemingly lacking energy. They seemingly lacked energy and fight in that first half. I hate to call it fighter competitiveness, but it was energy. And I just think they missed a big opportunity to score 34. points against a team like Chicago and they only had three at half time. But again, let me make it

really clear. The number one culprit tonight in this loss was the defense. It set the tone for the entire night. It got shredded in the first half. And yeah, to go back to the beginning of this, I'm concerned for sure. I'm really concerned about the secondary. I think some of you will blame the lack of a pass rush. I actually think that was part of the plan early. Yeah. All right. That is it for this post-game. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon. Jay Gruden will be with me. I think Cooley will as well. Rough loss, 40 to 20 to go to Atlanta next Sunday. If you looked at these three games and said you've got to come up with two of them so that, you know, you're looking at four and three. Worst case after seven, they could still get both of them. I can tell you this.

The Falcons and the Giants, the Giants unhealthy, not with, I mean, they might have Sequan Barkley back, Andrew Thomas back. They might be a different team when Washington gets there in a couple of weeks, but Atlanta's one-dimensional. Chicago's not one-dimensional offensively. They're pretty good on offense, or let me just say they're pretty damn capable offensively of being good, and they were tonight. Back tomorrow.