The Patriots’ loss to the Bears was a game of missed chances, and the most glaring ones came on defense. New England finished Thursday night with 16 missed tackles in a 30-24 defeat to Chicago, twice as many as it had in last week’s gritty win over the New York Jets.
That total stood out for another reason, too. The last time the Patriots were that sloppy in finishing plays was their 29-13 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX, when they were down 19-0 in the fourth quarter.
Head coach Mike Vrabel pointed directly to the issue after the game.
“[Our] tackling wasn’t good enough. Not against his team,” Vrabel said.
“We knew coming in, certainly tackling on Thursday night, but against this team, whether it’s [D’Andre] Swift, [Luther Burden III] or [Caleb Williams], it just leads to extra yards and conversions. But we fought, and I would say that we need to turn the ball over and we have to tackle better, and those are fundamental skills.”
Chicago repeatedly made New England pay for missed stops and failed block-shedding at the line of scrimmage. Luther Burden III was a major problem in the first half, piling up 130 yards and one touchdown on just four catches.
The Bears kept leaning into that physical edge after halftime, too. Early in the third quarter, Chicago used a naked bootleg from 11 yards out. Caleb Williams hit tight end Colston Loveland crossing through the middle, and Loveland turned upfield, shrugged off a Marcus Jones tackle, then powered through two more Patriots defenders to reach the end zone and stretch the lead to two scores.
“I got to make the tackle when it comes down to that,” Jones said. “And then [the Bears] had certain schemes where they would line up in certain formations, run overs to where we’re away from leverage and things like that.
But as the game went on, we learned and stuff, but I’m a hard critic of myself. So, I will get it corrected for sure.”
The run defense also had trouble tightening up when it mattered. With Swift and a few Roschon Johnson carries mixed in, Chicago averaged 3.1 yards after contact against New England’s front. That figure was better than the Kansas City Chiefs’ league-leading average of three yards per attempt this season with Kenneth Walker.
The issues didn’t stop with the run game. New England did bring Williams down three times, and the defense logged 25 total pressures, but too many near-sacks slipped away. Those breakdowns gave Williams room to turn broken plays into bigger gains through the air.
Williams finished 22 of 33 for 308 yards and two touchdowns, and the Patriots couldn’t come up with the turnover they needed to swing the game.
“We talked about it all week. [Williams is] very gifted with how he can run and how he can extend plays,” cornerback Christian Gonzalez said.
“I talked about before the game: you got to defend the second play. There’s a play, and then there’s a second play with a quarterback like Caleb.
So, it’s a challenge for the secondary. It’s about the whole team, but we look forward to it.
We embrace it, and they got the best of us tonight.”
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