5 big takeaways from Chicago Bears’ Week 2 loss to the Indianapolis Colts

INDIANAPOLIS – The Chicago Bears traveled to Indianapolis on Sunday with hopes of answering some questions offensively after two tough weeks to start the season. They left town with more questions than answers.

The Bears offense started to click too late in their 21-16 loss to the Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium. Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams threw his first two career touchdown passes but also threw two more interceptions.

The team dropped to 1-2 and seemed to have lost almost all of the hype and goodwill built throughout the offseason.

Below are the five big takeaways from Sunday’s matchup.

1. Missing chances to score

Bears head coach Matt Eberflus had a simple message for his team after the game: They missed opportunities to score.

“We had opportunities to win that game,” Eberflus said. “The first thing that we have to do is honor the football. We have to honor the ball, that’s the most important thing in winning. Once we do get takeaways, we have to score off those opportunities and that was the different in the game today. They scored on those opportunities and we did not.”

The Bears defense forced at least one turnover for the third straight time to start the season. Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds intercepted a pass in the second quarter while cornerback Jaylon Johnson picked off a pass to the start the third quarter.

Williams threw his first of two interceptions of the game on the drive after the Bears took over thanks to Edmunds’ turnover. The Bears scored their first points of the game after kicker Cairo Santos made a 53-yard field goal.

The Bears also had a chance to tie the game before halftime when they got to the Colts 1-yard line but failed to score on third and fourth down.

Bears tight end Cole Kmet said he and his teammates needed to have a better attitude toward those types of fourth-down situations in order to make sure to score.

“That mindset shift,” Kmet explained of what he meant by attitude. “It was a long drive and we’re tired at the end but we had to have that attitude that we’re going to finish these guys off. We should think that whatever type of run [offensive coordinator] Shane [Waldron] calls, it shouldn’t matter.”

2. Questionable fourth down call

Williams and the offense seemed poised to tie the game near the end of the first half and put together one of its best drives of the season. It ended up becoming a questionable play call that could’ve helped the Bears win Sunday.

The Bears drove 58 yards down to the Colts 1-yard line with two chances to score. After the Colts stopped running back Khalil Herbert at the line of scrimmage on third down, Williams pitched the ball to D’Andre Swift on fourth down and the Colts picked up on the play right away. Swift lost 12 yards on the play.

“When I got the ball, defense was flowing,” Swift said. “So I tried to make something happen. Just wasn’t there.”

The Bears said after the game that they had worked on that play at practice during the week but some thought the play wasn’t ideal based on what the Colts were showing defensively. Eberflus said he needed to look at the tape but said the design of the play was to go against that personnel group.

“We like the play,” Eberflus said. “We just have to get to the second level, get to the linebacker there, zone up to him and get him there. We were going to pitch off the in man at the line of scrimmage. We have to execute better.”

3. Building blocks for Williams

The Bears will need to differentiate the good and the bad after Williams’ performance Sunday.

Williams threw a career-high 363 passing yards, the first time a Bears quarterback threw for more than 350 yards since Mitchell Trubisky did it in 2018. He also threw his first two touchdown passes to Rome Odunze and Kmet in the fourth quarter.

At times late in the second half, Williams looked like the franchise quarterback the Bears hope he becomes.

“I thought at times he looked like the No. 1 overall pick,” Kmet said. “Like he had a swagger about him, getting rid of the ball, his decisiveness with football, giving us receivers chances, that was really cool to see.”

But Williams also threw two costly interceptions that prevented the Bears from prolonging drives to win the game.

Eberflus said the Bears do need to realize that Williams completed two scoring drives late when the Colts were giving up yardage trying to hold on to 14-3 and 21-9 leads. But Ebeflus said running a two-minute offense is important in the NFL.

“I think you have to operate in two-minute in this league,” Eberflus said. “Sometimes you’re down by a score, sometime you’re down by a field, you’re still going to have to move the ball in that situation and I thought we did a solid job of that today.”

4. Defense gives up big passing plays

While the Bears defense limited the Colts to their lowest passing totals through three weeks, the Colts used big passes to drive down the field. The 21 points the Colts scored was the most an opponent has scored against the Bears defense this season.

Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson completed a 40-yard pass to Kylen Granson in the second quarter, which then set up a 29-yard scoring run for running back Jonathan Taylor to give the Colts a 7-0 lead. During a scoring drive in the third quarter, Richardson completed a pass to Taylor, who took it for 25 yards.

Richardson also connected on a 44-yard pass to Alec Pierce in the second quarter. Bears linebacker Tremaine Edmunds eventually ended that drive when he intercepted Richardson’s pass in the end zone.

“We have to be better,” Bears safety Kevin Byard III said. “I think overall we played really good as a pass defense, take away those two plays and they probably don’t have 100 passing yards. But at the end of the day those are the plays that we’re talking about where we have to be better as a defense, make more complimentary.”

The Bears defense did force Richardson to throw two interceptions and limited him to 167 passing yards. But players like cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who had a interception Sunday, are more worried about the wins and losses.

“At the end of the day, it’s about wins and losses,” Johnson said. “It’s not good enough, we’re not where we want to be. It’s definitely not good enough, it’s not where we want to be right now. It’s definitely not good enough for ourselves. We definitely left some plays out there, we need to make them.”

5. Fixing the run

Sunday was supposed to be the day the Bears running game took off against a poor Colts run defense. The unit had its worse performance of the season.

The Bears finished with 63 rushing yards Sunday on 28 carries. The low total came after the Bears started the season with 84 rushing yards against the Titans in their Week 1 win and then 71 yards in a loss to the Houston Texans in Week 2.

Swift admitted after the game Sunday that the slow start was starting to get frustrating.

“It’s high,” Swift said of the frustration level. “I ain’t going to sugarcoat it. It’s high. We’ve got to be better. Like I said the other day, it starts with me. I’ve got to be better.”

Swift finished second on the team with 20 rushing yards on 13 carries to go along with his two catches for 22 yards. Running back Roschon Johnson led the team with 30 yards on eight carries after not earning a carry the first two weeks of the season.

The Bears had hoped Sunday would change a slow start. Through two games, the Colts allowed the most rushing yards in the NFL, 474. After another slow performance, the Bears will go back to the drawing board about what to do.

“There’s obviously some things we need to clean up and that will be the biggest there, trying to get better from each look we can,” Bears left tackle Braxton Jones said. “We have to be better. It’s as simple as that.”

• Bears reporter Sean Hammond contributed to this report