Bear & Balanced: A disappointing end to a remarkable regular season

For three quarters, the Chicago Bears looked like a team sleepwalking towards the end of the season, while the Detroit Lions played with passion and urgency. Through three quarters, one team was playing to prove something to the NFL, while the other was playing like they were content to be there.

And then the fourth quarter happened, and the Bears woke up and remembered they had something to play for.

But it was too little too late as the Lions held on to win, 19 to 16.

What a disappointing end to a remarkable regular season, but unlike previous years, this time the Bears have another game to get ready for.

Head coach Ben Johnson was not happy with his team, especially his offense, and he said as much in his post-game press conference.

“That’s one we’ll have to take a look at the tape and figure out why that was,” Johnson said postgame. “I didn’t feel like it was one of our more elaborate plans. I felt it was one of our simpler plans. We need to do a better job of executing it and coaching it up.”

A simpler game plan tells me they were looking for crisp execution in the season finale, but that’s not what they got on either side of the ball.

After they look at the tape, they should probably burn it along with the game plan as they get ready for Wildcard Saturday night against the Green Bay Packers.

Join JB and me live at 6:00 p.m. CT in the embed right here, or head over to our YouTube channel to join in on the show.

Podcast version right here:

Here’s our usual bullet point outline of Bear & Balanced.

• Intro: We’ll both share some general thoughts about the game.
• Trench Tribute: This is our weekly pick for the best Bears lineman.
• Caught up in a numbers game: This segment features one number or statistic from the game that we found interesting.
• Sweet Tweets: We’re both active on social media — so be sure you’re all following us at @gridironborn & @wiltfongjr — and we highlight one Twitter interaction/Tweet each week. We’re both on Bluesky here and here as well.
• The Caleb Corner: We talk about quarterback Caleb Williams before we take our commercial break.
• The 3 Bears: You all know the story of the Three Bears, don’t you? In this porridge-themed portion of the show, we give our picks for the Bear that was hot, the Bear that was cold, and the Bear that was just right in the game against the Lions.

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