Bears hit rock bottom in Monday night loss to Vikings

It may not have been the most lopsided or even ugliest loss of the Bears' 2024 season, but Week 15's Monday night 30-12 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings felt like rock bottom for Chicago. They were outclassed for the second week in a row, and for the first time since Week 10's loss to the New England Patriots, Caleb Williams looked very much like an overmatched rookie.

At least, he did at times.

Williams finished the game 18-of-31 for 191 yards and a late 17-yard touchdown pass to Keenan Allen. His 86.9 rating was actually better than Sam Darnold's, but there were a lot of completions that he missed throughout the game. To be fair, his receivers didn't help much, either. Allen had a handful of drops, and fellow rookie Rome Odunze let a perfect touchdown strike slip through his hands in the end zone. But Williams deserves the lion's share of the blame for some of the offense's struggles Monday night.

That said, he doesn't deserve all of the blame. Williams was sacked twice, hit three times, and hurried on what felt like all of his dropbacks. The biggest culprit of the poor pass protection was rookie left tackle Kiran Amegadjie, who looked every bit like an Ivy League player trying to make the biggest leap in competition in the sport.

Amegadjie almost got Williams killed... several times.

His failures weren't limited to pass protection, either. He was overmatched on this fourth-down running play, and while D'Andre Swift did him no favors, Amegadjie lost this rep in embarrassing fashion:

General manager Ryan Poles rolled the dice when he selected an offensive lineman with a significant injury from Yale in the third round of the 2024 NFL Draft. It blew up in his face Monday night. Perhaps Amegadjie develops over the next season or two, but he can't be trusted in the starting lineup for the rest of this year.

Allen led all Bears receivers with six catches for 82 yards and a touchdown, but he dropped several catchable passes. That's not how you help a rookie quarterback who's in the midst of a rough patch. Allen has had an uptick in production over the last few weeks, but it's obvious he's lost a step, and I don't see any way Chicago re-invests in him for 2025.

The defense didn't fare much better against the Vikings. The pass rush was solid, sacking Darnold twice and hitting him eight times. But the run defense once again failed to make critical stops, allowing the Vikings to run for 114 yards and two touchdowns.  

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds continues to underwhelm. Montez Sweat isn't producing sacks. The entire group isn't coming up big with third-down stops in critical moments. Simply put, the Bears' defense is nowhere close to what was expected to be a top-five unit when the season began.

Yes, this is rock bottom for the Chicago Bears. It's their eighth straight loss. They're now 4-10 and trending toward a potential top-five pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The hype and hope that existed when the season began has turned into chaos and dysfunction. It was another loss in the NFC North, the division Poles said his goal was to take and never give back. 

At this point, Bears fans would settle for just one win, against anyone, before the season ends. But with how this team has played over the last two months, that win will likely be on hold until next year.