SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The Chicago Bears responded to the first in-season coach firing in franchise history with a dud.
Instead of getting an emotional bump from changing coaches, the Bears went into free fall against the San Francisco 49ers with a non-competitive performance that led to their most lopsided loss of the season with a 38-13 loss on Sunday.
“We got our butts kicked,” interim coach Thomas Brown said in his first game in place of the fired Matt Eberflus. “There’s no other way to say it.”
Eberflus was fired on Nov. 29 after a string of bad late-game decisions contributed to a six-game losing streak, capped by a Thanksgiving loss at Detroit when the Bears ran out of time for a potential game-tying field goal even though they had a timeout remaining.
There were no critical late-game mistakes for the Bears (4-9) against the 49ers (6-7) as this game was mostly decided by halftime.
Chicago was outgained 319-4 in the first half for the ninth-largest discrepancy since 1991, managed only one first down and trailed 24-0 at the break.
The Bears allowed the San Francisco offense to move down the field with little resistance with the Niners scoring three TDs and one field goal on their first five possessions.
Chicago couldn’t move the ball at all on offense, generating minus-3 yards passing thanks to four sacks and losing 37 yards on five failed third down attempts.
It led to the team’s most lopsided loss since losing 41-10 at Kansas City in Week 3 last season.
“We got our (butt) kicked today,” rookie quarterback Caleb Williams said. “There’s no way around it. We got it handed to us. As an offense, defense, special teams, myself, we have to come out and be better. We have to have our screws screwed. We have to be on point, and that’s not what happened today.”
Williams had shown signs of improvement the past few weeks since Brown took over as play-caller following the firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.
The performance on Sunday was a major step back even if Williams was able to connect on two second-half TD passes to fellow rookie Rome Odunze after the game was mostly out of reach.
Williams finished 17 for 34 for 134 yards, lost a fumble and was sacked seven times as the Bears managed just 88 yards on his 30 drop-backs.
Williams’ 56 sacks this season are the most for any Chicago quarterback since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger
“We continue to try to find ways to get our guys open so we get the ball out on time,” Brown said. “When you’re behind and having to come back in games, you’re kind of forced to have to drop back more, which obviously exposes you more to sacks.”
But the problems went well beyond Williams and the offense.
Chicago’s defense repeatedly got gashed for big plays with San Francisco’s nine plays from scrimmage that gained at least 20 yards ranking as the most allowed by the Bears in any game in the past nine seasons.
The Bears allowed their most points and tied for the second-most yards (452) of any game this season as the defense struggled with Eric Washington calling plays instead of Eberflus.
“I thought our prep was really good this week,” linebacker T.J. Edwards said. “I thought we had a really good plan and again, we didn’t execute. They kind of made things happen and we didn’t.”
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