The Chicago Bears have won two consecutive games and are holding onto the final NFC Wild Card spot. That's the good news coming out of the Bears' Week 10 come-from-behind 24-20 win vs. the New York Giants. The bad news is how many drops Chicago's offense accumulated and how it forced Caleb Williams to turn into Superman during the fourth quarter.
Entering Sunday, drops had not been a problem for Chicago. Through the previous eight games, the Bears totaled seven drops. Against the Giants, the Bears' receivers dropped six passes. The lack of secure catching was staggering for a team that had been sure-handed for most of the season.
When asked if the team would address the drops, Bears head coach Ben Johnson offered a simple approach.
“My strategy is like anything you talk about it and then you move on,” Johnson told reporters via ESPN's Courtney Cronin. “You learn from it, you move on. In my experience—and I’ve coached quarterbacks, I’ve coached receivers, I’ve coached tight ends on the offensive side—you can make things worse by going overboard on some of this stuff, and that’s not the intent. All those guys, they want to catch the football when it comes their way. We acknowledge the fact that there were a few of those that we could have hauled in. We need to do that, turn the page, let’s keep it moving. We’re going to be just fine.”
Johnson's desire to keep things simple and not bombard his roster by pointing out the drops is justified. The Bears are not a team that often drops passes. Week 10 is the only game this season in which Chicago has dropped more than three passes. Bears receivers have dropped fewer than two passes in six games, according to Pro Football Focus. If anything, the team's six drops look more like an outlier performance than a trend that will continue.
