Thursday Night Football was far from the pinnacle of the sport. The Chicago Bears and Washington Commanders tried their darnest to put on a spectacle that more closely resembled a debacle fans mercifully wanted to end.
The Commanders came out on top with a finals score of 12-7, but even the win feels like a loss in spirit after that one. Ron Rivera even ended up lashing out at reporters at the end of it which goes to show how even after a win, quarterback Carson Wentz didn't exactly come out smelling like roses.
The numbers paint that same story of chaos and confusion as well. Here are eight stats from Bears-Commanders that attempt to explain what we all watched on that fine Thursday evening:
What's more telling of a dysfunctional contest than stats favoring one team, but the other one winning? Well, that's how it ended up as the Bears outgained the Commanders by a mile and somehow managed to fumble the final result.
The Bears have outgained the Commanders 202-88 but trail 3-0.
– Washington's 88 yards are the fewest this season by a team to lead at halftime
– Chicago's 202 yards are the most this season by a team to be scoreless at halftime pic.twitter.com/Gy849P1Otf— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 14, 2022
Not only that, but teams who tallied those exact numbers against each other had a rather straightforward result in the first 214 times it's happened since the Super Bowl era began. This one went against the grain. The parameters may feel a bit cherrypicked, but the 0-214 record prior to Thursday night speaks for itself.
0-214
Record of teams (in the Super Bowl era) scoring 12 or fewer points in a game, achieving 86 or fewer passing yards, and allowing opponents 375+ total yards, prior to yesterday.
Now 1-214
The Commanders had 12 points, 86 passing yds and allowed 392 total yds by the Bears.
— René Bugner (@RNBWCV) October 14, 2022
The Bears-Commanders contest also seemingly took the baton from the Broncos-Colts barnburner that saw zero touchdowns for a game that went into overtime. Both teams had one field goal and nothing else between them through halftime with that spell of futility finally seeing its end with an end zone score in the middle of the third quarter.
Thursday Night Football has now gone 40 consecutive offensive possessions without a touchdown.
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 14, 2022
At half:
Bears — 0
Commanders — 36 consecutive Thursday Night quarters without a touchdown. pic.twitter.com/R31TcDkCir
— StatMuse (@statmuse) October 14, 2022
It wasn't from a lack of opportunities though, as the Bears were right at the cusp of a hearty touchdown celebration several times but couldn't capitalize against D.C.'s defense that indeed deserves credit, but also caught a few breaks themselves.
The #Bears had three drives end inside the #Commanders five-yard line and scored zero points. That’s wild.
— Evan Lazar (@ezlazar) October 14, 2022
There were also several instances when the Commanders had sent out the wrong number of players on the field. They tried a few with an extra man on and even did one with a man down during the final drive. That level of confusion was just bold enough to work, as they outlasted the Bears during the final minutes of the game.
The #Commanders defense had two plays tonight with 12 men on the field and had a play on the final drive with 10 men on the field.
The Bears offense had three offensive possessions inside the Washington 5-yard line tonight and scored 0 points.
Messy all around.
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) October 14, 2022
Perhaps the most eye-popping number is the fact that Amazon coughed up a whopping $78 million for the rights to broadcast that game. They clearly took the biggest L from a Bears-Commanders game that seemed to have several losers.
In the grand scheme of things, they probably still made the right bang for their buck from the ad revenue, but just the thought of $78 million being spent for that feels like buying a wonky NFT that your friends don't understand how it could be worth as much as you paid for it.
Commanders-Bears, another $78 million https://t.co/koEm3qH0ML
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) October 14, 2022
Next Week features Cardinals-Saints, which isn't the sexiest matchup either but it probably can't get even worse than what we've all seen the past two weeks, right? Right? Well, I guess we shouldn't tempt fate.