CHICAGO (WGN) — The Chicago Bears final home game of the season against the Seattle Seahawks was offense optional, as rain poured down on Soldier Field in what amounted to a cold, wet rock fight.
“I thought special teams played very well. I think the defense played their butts off tonight and the offense wasn’t good enough, which that starts with me as far as the gameplan I had coming into this game and having those guys ready to go,” Interim Head Coach Thomas Brown said after the game. “We had plenty of opportunities to win it.
“That’s extremely frustrating and disappointing and 100% on me.”
The Seahawks won the game, 6-3, and Chicago tied a franchise record by dropping their tenth matchup in a row. This is how the game played out.
Game Recap
The Bears went three-and-out on their opening drive, like they have so many times this season.
Tory Taylor’s first punt of the evening marked the 12th time Chicago punted on their opening drive in 2024. In their other four opening drives, the Bears have hit two field goals, missed one and turned it over on downs.
Coming up empty on offense was a reoccurring theme for both teams Thursday night, but not for Seattle on their opening drive.
The Seahawks first drive sputtered out inside Chicago’s 10-yard line before Jason Myers knocked a 27-yard field goal through the uprights with nine minutes left in the first to take an early 3-0 lead.
The Bears also failed to score a touchdown in the first quarter for the 14th time this season. The last time they scored a touchdown in the first quarter was Week 12 against the Minnesota Vikings, when Roschon Johnson scored on a 1-yard TD run with 53 seconds left in the quarter. Before that, their only first quarter touchdown was in Week 5 against the Carolina Panthers when Caleb Williams hit DJ Moore for a 34-yard TD pass with 5:54 remaining in the opening frame.
Six consecutive punts followed Myer’s first field goal before Cairo Santos hit a 42-yarder to tie the game with a little more than two-and-a-half minutes to go in the second quarter.
Santos’ field goal would have never happened had it not been for a costly penalty earlier in the drive that nullified a touchdown.
On third-and-10 from the Seattle 17 with 3:27 left in the first half, Williams found Rome Odunze for a 17-yard TD pass, but backup guard Jake Curhan — standing in for the injured Teven Jenkins — was called for an offensive hold that wiped out the TD pass.
A minute later, Santos hit a game-tying field goal, which turned out to be Chicago’s lone score of the game.
Myers hit his second (and final) field goal of the game — a 50-yarder with 21 seconds left in the second quarter.
Both teams combined for seven punts, a fumble and an interception in the second half to mercifully end the ballgame at 6-3.
If the score and outcome wasn’t enough, the lone silver lining Chicago had was Williams’ streak of passes without an interception.
Williams had attempted 326 consecutive pass attempts without throwing a pick going into the game, which included nine consecutive games with at least 20 pass attempts and no interceptions.
He made it all the way until the Bears last offensive play of the game, where a last second, desperation heave off his backfoot intended for Moore fell far short, and into the hands of Tariq Woolen for Williams’ first pick since Chicago’s Week 6 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in London.
The former USC Trojan and Heisman Trophy winning quarterback’s streak of 353 passes without an interception will now be the fourth-longest string of passes without a pick in NFL history, behind only 2024 Justin Herbert (357), 2022 Tom Brady (399) and 2018 Aaron Rodgers (402).
“[On] offense, we didn’t play well,” Williams said after the game. “There were miscues. There were stupid sacks that I was taking, losing ten, 14 yards, which is frustrating. I will say that. I’ll definitely take the heat for this one, just because some of the situations that I put us in.”
Williams was sacked seven times and finished his day 16-for-28 with 122 yards passing and one interception. Williams has now been sacked 67 times this season, which is the most any quarterback has been sacked in the NFL this year, and is nine sacks short of tying David Carr’s rookie record of 76.
Clock Mismanagement Strikes Again
Clock mismanagement was once again a theme in the Bears loss to the Seahawks.
It wasn’t quite to the same detriment as the mistakes made in their Thanksgiving Day loss to the Detroit Lions that went on to cost Matt Eberflus his job, but it was still a major player in how this game ended.
Chicago started their final drive with 5:12 remaining in the fourth quarter at their own 11. By drive’s end, they had moved the ball 49 yards and into Seattle territory, but let large chunks of time run off the clock (40 seconds at one point, 38 seconds another) before the Seahawks blitzed one more man than the Bears could cover, leading to Caleb Williams’ first interception in ten weeks.
40 seconds came off the clock from 2:54 to 2:14 when Williams scrambled for a 1-yard gain that set up fourth-and-1. Seattle called a timeout before Jake Curhan was flagged for his second costly penalty of the game, a false start that set Chicago back five yards, which led to the Bears sending out the punt unit.
This was when Brown used Chicago’s first timeout of the second half and Chicago appeared to be confused on what to do next. Brown was asked about it after the game.
“It wasn’t confusing at all. I just changed my mind,” Brown said. “I think being able to have, use Tory [Taylor] as a weapon, and we still had, I think it was 2:16 on the clock, still had all three time outs, plus a two-minute warning. [With] the way our defense been playing all day, [we] possibly have a chance to go and flip the field, force a three-and-out, get a shorter field and have a ‘last hit of the game’ drive.
“That’s my thought process. Then over the course of that, I changed my mind and said, ‘Let’s go for it now.'”
When asked what made him change his mind, brown said, “I just wanted to be more aggressive.”
The next large chunk of time came off the clock with 1:15 left in the 4th, when Williams hit Rome Odunze for 15 yards on third-and-14.
Williams said he “got hit in the throat” after making the throw and he wasn’t sure if his coaches on the sideline saw him down after the play. On the broadcast, Williams could be seen grabbing his throat while running back up to the line of scrimmage and snapping the ball around the 0:37 mark. He threw an incompletion six seconds later.
“I don’t know if the coaches saw me even though I got hit in the throat and the face,” Williams said. “[I’ve] got to just get up and go and run down and snap the ball. So yeah, once again, just … taking the heat in this game. [I] didn’t do a good enough job in situations. Didn’t do a good enough job throughout the game, being able to manage the game.
“It doesn’t mean just managing the clock. That also means just managing down and distances and things like that.”
Williams went on to throw two more incompletions before he was picked off by Tariq Woolen to effectively end the game.
Up Next
The Chicago Bears take on the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field to wrap up the NFL regular season next weekend. A day and time has not been decided since Packers-Bears is a game that can be flexed from Jan. 4 to Jan. 5 based on what the NFL deems necessary.