Bears risers and fallers after ugly loss to Giants originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago

Well that was ugly. The Bears struggled in all three phases, and allowed the Giants to control the game from start to finish. The defense couldn’t stop Saquon Barkley or Daniel Jones in the run game. The offense looked disjointed throughout the day. Critical mistakes on special teams sealed the team’s fate. Sunday’s 20-12 loss was a big failure for Matt Eberflus’ H.I.T.S. system, and a big failure for the Bears.

RISERS

DARNELL MOONEY

For a variety of reasons, Darnell Mooney had been invisible through the first three games of the season. He had just four catches for 27 yards coming into the Giants game. Everybody knew the team needed to get him going to try to get the passing attack back on track, and Mooney did his part on Sunday. He created good separation when facing man coverage, and found soft spots in the defense when facing zone coverage. Mooney’s best play came when he extended to reel in a 56-yard throw from Justin Fields. Problem was, getting Mooney going did not end up fixing the offense. They’ll have to go back to the drawing board to figure out why things aren’t clicking.

MICHAEL BADGLEY

Badgley signed with the Bears on Saturday as the team’s emergency kicker, since Cairo Santos had to attend to a personal matter and didn’t make the trip with the team to New Jersey. Badgley didn’t have any rust from spending the early portions of the season as a free agent, and connected on all four of his field goal attempts. His 12 points accounted for all of the Bears offense against the Giants.

FALLERS

AL-QUADIN MUHAMMAD

Evan Neal was bullied by DeMarcus Lawrence and the Cowboys in Week 3, so Week 4 seemed like an excellent opportunity for the Bears to jump start their pash rush. With Robert Quinn rushing from the left side, Muhammad was the man to get his shot against Neal, but he wasn’t able to do much with it. Muhammad ended the day with no sacks and no QB hits. The Bears’ rotational pass rushers didn’t fare much better, but as the starter Muhammad is expected to contribute more.

NICK MORROW

Tackling Saquon Barkley is not an easy thing to do, but Morrow likely would still want a redo on all of his opportunities. Morrow missed several attempts on Barkley, and was left pawing at the running back’s shoestrings as Barkley slipped out of his grasp. Morrow had other chances to make big plays, and came up short. He didn’t have the speed to catch up to Daniel Jones on what could’ve been a strip sack. In the fourth quarter, Morrow jumped on a Tyrod Taylor fumble, but he was out of bounds when he grabbed it so the Giants maintained possession. Morrow ended the day with four tackles. Not enough for a starting middle linebacker.

JAQUAN BRISKER

The Giants crushed the Bears in the first half with a play-action bootleg package featuring designed Daniel Jones runs. The same concept led to 49 yards on just five carries for Jones, but more importantly it led to two walk-in touchdowns. The big problem was that the Bears had absolutely no contain on Jones, and when TV broadcasts highlighted the plays they found Brisker with his eyes in the wrong places. It’s unclear whether Brisker had trouble simply finding the ball, or if he wasn’t executing his keys, but either way he wasn’t able execute.

VELUS JONES JR.

The Bears were excited about what Jones Jr. could bring to both the offense and special teams when they drafted him this year, but a hamstring injury derailed his development over the summer. He made his regular season debut against the Giants, and the team hoped he could spark their return game. Instead, he contributed one of the final blows to the team’s loss by fumbling a punt with just over two minutes left in the game. Jones Jr. was not a factor on offense at all, and wasn’t targeted in the passing game.

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