The hope in Chicago for four months, since the NFL announced the Bears would host the Green Bay Packers in the season opener, was that the game could be a statement for quarterback Justin Fields.
Aaron Rodgers was gone from the Bears-Packers rivalry, and the circumstances seemed ripe for Fields to seize its crown with another year of experience in the Bears offense and better players around him.
Well, Sunday ended with Fields making a statement at Soldier Field. But “sorry” is not likely the one Bears nation imagined.
After the Packers thoroughly outplayed the Bears in a 38-20 win — their ninth straight victory in the rivalry — Fields apologized to fans.
“It definitely hurts, not only because it’s the first game of the season and it’s a loss, but it’s a loss to them,” Fields said. “Just want to say sorry to teammates and all the fans that were rooting for us. We’ll bounce back and be good.”
After Fields completed 24 of 37 passes for 216 yards, one touchdown and one interception and rushed for 59 yards on nine carries, he started his assessment of the Bears’ night by saying “we shot ourselves in the foot so many times.”
The Bears had seven penalties for 61 yards lost, and four of them were on left tackle Braxton Jones, who had two false starts and two holding penalties.
“They’re drive-killers,” tight end Cole Kmet said of the penalties. “It changes the play calls, especially where we are on the field. You get in a backed-up situation, it kind of limits some of the stuff that Luke (Getsy) can call. Strategically then you’re just trying to get breathing room for the punt or trying to get room off the end zone. Those are things we can’t have happen, and we have to be better going into next week.”
But the penalties were just the start of the problems.
On their first drive, the Bears didn’t convert a third-and-1 on a direct snap to Kmet or the ensuing fourth-and-1 on a Fields keeper. On their third drive, which ended in Cairo Santos’ second field goal, the Bears had first-and-goal at the 8. But Fields took a sack for a loss of 7 yards on second down and had a pass to Kmet in the end zone broken up on third down.
The Packers sacked Fields four times. He took a sack for an 11-yard loss in the Bears’ first drive of the third quarter and they went three-and-out. Fields’ third-and-18 pass to Roschon Johnson went for 6 yards, igniting the first boos of the season from Bears fans. Fields said the many short passes were part of the game plan but the Bears “just didn’t do our best at perimeter blocking, blocking on the edge, for our guys to catch the ball and run.”
Fields also lost a fumble on a strip-sack by Kenny Clark and Devonte Wyatt and threw a pick-six to linebacker Quay Walker in the second half. Walker returned the interception, on a pass intended for Darnell Mooney, 37 yards for a touchdown and a decisive 38-14 Packers lead.
The Bears didn’t cut into that lead until late in the fourth quarter on Johnson’s 2-yard touchdown run. But the two-point conversion attempt started with rookie right tackle Darnell Wright’s false-start penalty, and the pass to wide receiver DJ Moore was incomplete.
“Don’t nobody want to lose a home opener, especially against an in-conference opponent,” Moore said. “This game was hyped up. We didn’t bring the juice and hype to the party today. We lost, and we just have to go back to the drawing board going into Tampa this week.”
Much was made in the preseason about what Moore can do for Fields. There is plenty of evidence for that optimism, both from Moore’s 5,201 career receiving yards over five seasons and multiple big plays during training camp.
And for one two-play span during the first drive of the second quarter, those dreams came to fruition.
First, Moore caught a short pass from Fields near the sideline and clawed his way to an 11-yard gain. Then he caught another pass over the middle and kept churning forward with a mob of Packers defenders trying to bring him down. That catch was for 14 yards, a fourth-straight double-digit gain in yards for the Bears.
But that was it. Moore wasn’t targeted again in the game.
“They did crowd him up a little bit,” Fields said. “His time is going to come, so it’s just kind of how the chips fall. He’s not going to go for a hundred every game. Of course, I wish he did. That’s just not how it’s going to happen. He’s definitely going to get more touches in the future.”
According to Pro Football Reference, Moore had just six games in five seasons with the Carolina Panthers in which he was targeted two or fewer times, and they were all in 2018 and 2019, his first two seasons in the league.
But Moore said he wasn’t surprised by the lack of targets.
“The defense was kind of pushed over to me, so it was hard to see me,” Moore said. “And I understand that, and we just have to learn from it and build on it.”
Fields, who threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Mooney in the third quarter, tried to keep the same big-picture perspective, that the Bears just need to keep working toward a performance worthy of a celebration and not an apology.
“It definitely sucks,” Fields said. “In the grand scheme of things, you have to look at the bigger picture. It’s Week 1. We have 16 games to go in the regular season. We have a lot of room to improve, a lot of room to grow. I think that’s what we’re going to do.”