Jay Cutler Was Bad, Bears Defense Was Worse In Blowout Loss To Eagles

Last week Chicago Bears first year head coach Marc Trestman raised a lot of eyebrows when he announced the decision to start Jay Cutler over backup Josh McCown, who had performed extremely well in his absence. Doing all the right things on the field and saying all the right things off the field.

Through he got off to a very rough start against the Browns, Cutler was able to temporarily silence his critics by leading the Bears to a win with an impressive second half. This week against the Eagles, with their playoff hopes on the line, he was less successful—to say the least.

Cutler was extremely inefficient going 20-of-35, passing for 22 yards, one touchdown and one interception. It should be noted however, that the fourth quarter touchdown pass to Brandon Marshall as time expired in the third quarter came long after the game had been well out of reach for Chicago.

Not that Cutler got any help from the rest of his team. He was hung out to dry by his offensive line, who gave up five sacks to the Philadelphia defense. And as useless as he was through much of the game, it wasn’t Cutler’s fault the Eagles were up 21-0 by the end of the first quarter.

For as much blame as the Bears deserve for embarrassing themselves in primetime, the Eagles deserve at least as much credit for coming up huge in an meaningless game. Win or lose on Sunday night, they were heading for a winner-take-all game against the division rival Cowboys in Dallas next week.

Chip Kelly could’ve rested his starters and taken the week off, but he came to play and didn’t let off the gas all night. Nick Foles continued playing mistake free football, finishing the evening with two touchdowns, no interceptions and a quarterback rating of 131.7. He would’ve had a bigger night if the Eagles actually needed him to throw.

As it was, they were able to lean heavily on running backs LeSean McCoy and Bryce Brown. The two backs combined for nearly 250 yards, three touchdowns and averaged approximately 10 yards per carry on 27 total rushes.

Everything that could go wrong for the Bears did, while everything that could go right for the Eagles did. It puts each team on decidedly different trajectories as they head into Week 17, both with their playoff hopes on the line.