Last weekend's game between the Bears and the Browns was ugly. Rookie quarterback Justin Fields started the game in place of an injured Andy Dalton. We all knew that Fields would start eventually, but this was not the game to throw him to the sharks.

Just like I said at the end of preseason, the Bears' offensive line was completely unable to hold off an aggressive pass rush from the Browns. But it was far uglier than I think any of us thought it would be, as the Browns totaled 9 sacks of poor Justin Fields. I think we all hoped that his mobility would allow him to escape the pocket and make plays on the ground, but it did not pan out that way. Fields often looked timid while moving around, as if he was trying to force the ball downfield rather than let himself take off and run. This resulted in him being dragged down from behind several times, and taking a lot more hits than he should have.

Photo by Associated Press

Justin Fields was sacked 9 times by the Browns, and couldn't move the ball at all.

The Bears' offense was completely incompetent. It wasn't just pass blocking and Fields. The running game wasn't very effective, and receivers were dropping more than their fair share of passes. The whole offense looked like it was completely overwhelmed and shell-shock -- not just Fields.

When I wrote earlier this year about the Bears benching Mitch Trubisky in favor of Nick Foles, I said that I was surprised that Trubisky had been named the pre-season starter, that I expected Foles would eventually have the starting job, and that I was still surprised that Trubisky was suddenly benched in the middle of the week 3 game against the Falcons. It all seemed so indecisive. Trubisky had supposedly earned the job in training camp, was playing well, had lead a comeback victory in week 1 against the Lions, but was benched after a single mistake.

From my position as an un-informed spectator, the whole thing made no sense.

Then Foles came in and didn't exactly light up the scoreboard either. Foles lead the team to 2 victories, and it almost looked like the decision to change quarterbacks wouldn't hurt the team. Then the Bears' offense started playing far worse with Foles as starting quarterback, dropping the next six games straight. Granted, most of those 6 losses were against solid good offenses, such as the Saints, Packers, and Titans, and the Bears struggled to keep up. But Foles just wasn't looking good, and he wasn't helped by a stagnant run game while Tarik Cohen has been sidelined with injury. By the time of the week 10 matchup against the Vikings, I was starting to expect that a switch back to Trubisky probably should happen.

Mitch Trubisky has re-taken the starting job from Nick Foles. But was it too late to save the season?

That switch waited a few more weeks until the week 12 game against the Lions. The Bears still lost that game with Trubisky playing, but the offense did put up 30 points. The offense has also gone on to score more than 30 points in the Bears' 2 wins since, including a victory over the Vikings this past weekend that moved the Bears up to the top slot for playoff runner-up. The Bears are now 1 game behind the 7-seed Cardinals with 2 games left to play. They're also 2 games behind the Buccaneers and Rams, but only have a tie-breaker with the Buccaneers. Their victory against the Vikings puts them 1 game ahead of the Vikings (who are the only remaining team eligible for a wildcard berth). The Bears basically need to win both their remaining games (including a week 17 rematch against a Packers team that embarassed the Bears at the end of November), and then also hope that the Buccaneers, and/or Cardinals lose their last 2 games.

The most likely path to a playoff birth is if the Cardinals lose both their remaining games, and the Bears win both. That would give the Bears a 1-game lead over the Cardinals. The Cardinals' remaining games are a home matchup against the 49ers (coming off an upset loss to the Cowboys) and a road game against the Rams. Both are tough matchups for the cardinals, but very winnable ones. The 49ers also have nothing left to play for except pride and the satisfaction of maybe playing spoiler to a division rival.

Readers of my blog know that I was not a big fan of the Chicago Bears' decision to trade up in the 2017 draft to select Mitchel Trubisky. The decision seemed flat-out stupid considering how much money they had given Mike Glennon in the trade with the Buccaneers. Why spend so much money to trade for veteran QB, if you were planning to go all-in on a QB in the draft? It was especially non-sensical considering that Trubisky wasn't even the highest-rated passer in the draft.

This past offseason's decision to trade for Nick Foles initially excited me. That excitement turned to disappointment when head coach Matt Nagy announced that Trubisky would remain the starter. The move to pay for a high-profile QB in a trade, only to keep the under-performing incumbent as the starter wreaked of poor decision-making in the same way that the Glennon / Trubisky situation did 3 years ago.

Mitchel Trubisky has not been nearly as infuriatingly bad as Jay Cutler was.

It isn't like Trubisky is a horrible quarterback. He had a phenomenal 2018 season that lead to a Pro Bowl invitation. His 2019 season was a noticeable regression (possibly due to nagging injury), but it was never as bad as the worst Jay Cutler years. Remember that Cutler lead the NFL in interceptions multiple years during his tenure in Chicago that got three coaching staffs fired. Trubisky has not been that bad, and he is a big upgrade over Cutler.

But Foles seemed like an upgrade over Trubisky. Foles had, after all, lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl (as a backup to injured Carson Wentz). If the Bears made the trade for Foles, then I had to conclude that it meant they didn't have faith in Trubisky.

When Nagy announced that Trubisky had won the job in offseason competition, I expected that he must have looked damn good to have beat out Foles. In fact, Trubisky did look fantastic in the comeback win against the Lions in week 1. The offense then went on to struggle in week 2 against a bad Giants team, then appeared to falter again in the first half against the Falcons. Apparently, all it took was a single interception from Trubisky for the Nagy to decide to pull him out in favor of Foles.

I didn't get to watch the game because it wasn't televised in my region of the country. The highlights that I saw made it look like Trubisky was playing a good game up until that interception. The offense was moving the ball. They just weren't scoring points, and some of that is on the kicker for missing a field goal on the opening drive.

Trubisky was benched after botching the primary read on a dagger concept.

Even though the interception was a bad decision, there must've been more going on that wasn't in the highlights that I saw. I can't imagine that the one interception by itself was enough to replace the starter. Even though Trubisky ultimately is responsible for botching the primary read and throwing the drag route right into a flat zone defender who Trubisky is supposed to be keying off of (instead of the wide open deep in route), Jimmy Graham didn't help Mitch by running a lazy-looking route and carrying it right into the defender (as opposed to stopping and sitting in the hole of the zone). So this one wasn't all on Mitch.

I thought I'd take a break from talking about the Bears, and talk about some of the other stories around the NFL, and who I think are going to have good or bad seasons in 2019.

Let's start with the biggest news of the recent draft: the selection of Kyler Murray first overall to the Arizona Cardinals. This pick gave me flashbacks to the Bears trading up one spot to draft Mitch Trubisky in 2017. This move by the Cardinals wreaks of desperation! The Cardinals had just selected Josh Rosen 10th overall with their first-round pick in the previous year's draft. And now they're dumping him in favor of Kyler Murray?

The Cardinals appeared desperate when they selected Kyler Murray, despite having drafted Josh Rosen last year.

Rosen didn't have a particularly good year in 2018 -- in fact, you could probably say that he had a bad year. But he was also playing QB for a bad team. Very few quarterbacks can single-handedly turn a team around. When you draft a guy to be the QB of the future, you've got to at least give the kid a chance!

Yeah, sure, the Bears may have cut Mike Glennon's knee-caps out from under him after drafting Trubisky, but Glennon was only signed to a one-year contract anyway. It was apparent that (unless he proved to be a superstar) he would not be the QB of the future for the Bears. Rosen had every expectation that he'd be "the guy" in Pheonix for at least a few years. He had the expectation that he'd have time to develop and improve. Not so.

The lack of faith in Rosen isn't even the problem here. The problem is that the Cardinals didn't even bother to trade Rosen away until after they had drafted Murray! From what I understand, they hadn't even been shopping around for a possible trade. After selecting Murray, it was apparent that Rosen would not be on the team moving forward, and his trade value plumeted. The Cardinals were able to trade him to the Miami Dolphins, but probably for a fraction of the value that they could have gotten had they performed the trade even just one day before.

And it isn't like they had to pretend they didn't want to trade Rosen, in order to hide the fact that they were going to take Murray. They had the first overall pick. Nobody could sneak in ahead of them without the Cardinals willingly giving up that pick. This isn't like the Bears in 2017 feeling like they had to trade up one spot to prevent someone else from trading up to take Trubisky. There was no risk of Murray being poached by another team. I can only assume that even the Cardinals didn't know who they were going to draft until it came time to announce the pick.

Unlike the Bears in 2017, the Cardinals were at no risk of losing Murray to another team trading up.

Stuff like this is why the Cardinals are the Cardinals, and why the Cardinals aren't very good.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, props to the Redskins for having the patience to not trade up to draft Dwayne Haskins. They got a great deal when Haskins fell to them 15th overall.

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