The Ravens’ bad habits turn games against teams like Detroit and Miami into close wins or outright defeats. The Ravens need to get back on track. But in today’s NFL, that’s much easier said than done. That’s why I predict this will be a close game.
WHAT: Week 11, Game Ten at Chicago Bears
WHEN: 1 p.m. (ET); Sunday, November 21
WHERE: Soldier Field, Chicago (61,500)
RECORDS: Ravens, 6-3; Bears, 3-6
LIFETIME SERIES (regular season): Bears lead, 4-2. Chicago is one of nine teams around the NFL that have a lifetime winning record against the Ravens. Chicago is also one of three franchises that have never lost to the Ravens at home in the regular season, the others being New England and Minnesota; the Ravens are 0-3 in Chicago. The Bears have won three of the last four overall meetings, including an overtime game in Baltimore in 2017, the teams’ most recent regular-season clash.
LOCAL TV/RADIO: WJZ-TV, Channel 13 (Jim Nantz, Tony Romo, booth; Tracy Wolfson, sidelines). WIYY-FM, 97.9 (Gerry Sandusky, Obafemi Ayanbadejo, booth)
REFEREE: Shawn Smith
About the Bears
—According to the Bears’ official Web site, Chicago will be wearing its customary dark blue home jerseys for the visit from the Ravens this Sunday. It is unclear what color pants will be worn, although the home standard with the dark blue jerseys would be white pants. That would put the Ravens in their customary road white jerseys; again, it’s unclear if the Ravens would wear purple, black, or white pants with their white tops.
—Along with the Cardinals, the Chicago Bears are one of the league’s charter franchises, having operated in each of the league’s 101-plus seasons. AThe team began as the Decatur Staleys, the nickname taken from the surname of the team owner and sponsor. The team moved from Decatur, Illinois to Chicago after just one season and have remained there since 1921. The team was called the Decatur Staleys, then the Chicago Staleys (named after a sponsor) before taking the Bears’ name in 1922 as a way of pointing out their physical domination over baseball’s Cubs.
—It was the A.E. Staley Food Starch Company that began it all, using a football team as a way to foster in-house employee camaraderie. But the owner, George Chamberlain, wanted the team to compete with any and all professional teams around the country, so he hired George Halas to run the operation. It was Halas that changed the team name to Bears and assigned it the orange-and-dark blue color scheme, a tribute to his alma mater, the University of Illinois.
—The team played its home games in Wrigley Field until 1970 when it moved to Soldier Field. The Bears had to move out in 2002, playing its games at the University of Illinois in Champaign while Soldier Field was renovated. Soldier Field opened in 1926, having cost $13 million to build, an exorbitant figure at the time. The stadium was designated a national historic landmark in 1987 but delisted in 2006 after the renovations that kept the stately columns for which the stadium is known outside while the interior was totally redone.
—In their 101 completed seasons, the Bears have made 27 playoff appearances, tied with the Boston/New England Patriots and Philadelphia for the sixth-most in NFL history and only seven less than their bitter rivals and leaders in this category, the Green Bay Packers (34). The Bears have 19 division championships, four of them in the present-day NFC North, the most recent in 2018, and eight wild-card berths. Chicago has made the playoffs in two of the last three years.
—The Bears have made five appearances in the post-merger NFC Championship Game, winning two of them in 1985 over the Los Angeles Rams and in 2006 against the New Orleans Saints. Those wins put Chicago into Super Bowl 20, where they beat New England in New Orleans, 46-10, and Super Bowl 41 in Miami, where they lost in a rain-soaked game to the Indianapolis Colts, 29-17. In the latter game, Chicago kick returner Devin Hester, who later played for Baltimore, became the only man so far to run back the opening kickoff of a Super Bowl for a touchdown.
—When the Baltimore Colts were part of the NFL, they and the Bears were both in the Western Conference for competitive-balance purposes. The teams met twice a year from 1953-1966, then played each other many more times before the Colts moved to Indianapolis. The Colts posted a 21-13 record against the Bears, winning the last seven straight meetings before the move, including a 22-19 overtime win in 1983 at Memorial Stadium mere months before the team relocated.
—Weather and history have played a big part in most of the six meetings between the Bears and Ravens. In 2001, the defending champion Ravens opened their season at home against the Bears and won, 17-6, two days before the 9/11 terrorist attack. A daylong rain in 2005 at Soldier Field highlighted the Bears’ 10-6 win over the visiting Ravens, then a blizzard the night before a 2009 game in Baltimore nearly postponed what would be a 31-7 Ravens win (the kickoff time was pushed back three hours).
—Also, in 2013, a tornado warning delayed the game in Chicago for over two hours before the Bears eventually won in overtime. Four years later in Baltimore, Mitch Trubisky became only the second rookie quarterback to beat the Ravens on their home field when the Bears won in overtime, 27-24. The teams have met twice in preseason games, with the Bears being the visitors in the first-ever game at M&T Bank Stadium in 1998; the Ravens won, 19-14. In 2018, the Ravens and Bears clashed at the Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio, with Baltimore again winning, 17-16.
—The Bears make no bones about celebrating their rich history, having officially retired 14 jersey numbers, which is more than any other franchise. They also lead the league in Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinees. Thirty individuals, including Centennial Class of 2020 members Ed Sprinkle and Jimbo Covert, have played or worked for the Bears at some point in their careers. As of the end of the 2020 season, Chicago had played 1420 regular-season games (first all-time), 778 regular-season wins, which also ranked first in the league, and the team’s .563 win percentage is tied with the Ravens for third-best all-time.
—Chicago is coming off its bye week to play this game, one of two Ravens opponents who will have had two weeks to prepare for them. Cleveland will be the other, as it will host the Ravens after its week off in December (it will play them at Baltimore before the bye as well). The Bears have lost four straight and are 3-6 overall, sitting in third place in the NFC North. The team’s first five losses were by a total of 96 points before playing Pittsburgh to a mere two-point defeat in a road Monday-night game before the bye. After the off-week, starting with the game against Baltimore, Chicago has a home-away-home-away sequence on its schedule the rest of the way.
—The Ravens currently have 13 players on season-ending injured reserve and had as many as 17 players on IR before getting a few players back. Meanwhile, Chicago has only four on IR, including two offensive linemen (Germain Ifedi, rookie Teven Jenkins). The roster also includes lineman Tyrone Wheatley, Jr., son of the New York Giants running back who currently is the Morgan State head coach. Chicago’s IR list is thinning out, even more, this week, as Jenkins has returned to practice; the second-rounder from Oklahoma State had been out since August with back surgery.
—Even though the Bears’ offense has been anemic at best this year, it is rather well-balanced with 266 rushing attempts and 270 pass plays (including 33 sacks allowed). But the Bears’ opponents have 252 runs and 305 passes (including 25 sacks allowed), a still-respectable ratio. The Bears have scored only 16 total touchdowns, the league’s second-lowest total and the same number they have allowed on pass defense alone (25 total allowed). Chicago has been outscored in each of the four quarters this year, including in the fourth quarter by a decisive 84-53.
—As one would expect from a team with a losing record, the Bears currently sport a minus-4 turnover ratio, which is still better than Baltimore’s minus-5. Chicago has only intercepted four passes and recovered five of their opponents’ seven fumbles on defense, while throwing nine interceptions on offense and, quite frankly, getting away with losing only four of their own fumbles, of which there have been a staggering 14.
—The Bears have committed 58 accepted penalties through their first nine pre-bye games, ranking around the middle of the league pack; the total is six more than Baltimore’s. The offensive line has been called for ten false starts and six holds, but the real problems have come on defense, with five pass interference calls, four roughing-the-passer flags, and five unnecessary roughness penalties. Individually, guard James Daniels has six penalties while three other Bears have four each (injured tackle Germain Ifedi, linebacker Roquan Smith, defensive end Mario Edwards).
—At the season’s halfway point, the Bears rank 31st (next-to-last) in total offense (fifth rushing, 32nd, and last passing at 144 yards per game, tied for 29th scoring at 16.7 points per game). Chicago ranks 24th in red-zone touchdown rate and 28th in third-down conversions, leading to a 29:41 possession-time average that is 19th, just below the middle of the pack. Chicago averages 18.3 first downs per game, the league’s third-lowest figure.
—On defense, Chicago currently stands ranked tied for 12th overall (tied for 23rd vs. rush, tenth vs. pass, 23rd scoring, allowing 24.9 points per game). The Bears are stuck at or near the middle in most major defensive categories, ranking 14th in red-zone touchdown percentage allowed, 14th in third-down conversion percentage allowed, and 16th in first downs allowed per game. But the team’s 25 quarterback sacks (from ten different players) is tied with Arizona for the league’s third-most, four behind the league leader, the Los Angeles Rams.
—Matt Nagy, the Bears’ 43-year-old head coach who replaced the fired John Fox, is in his fourth season at the Chicago helm; he is the 16th leader the team has had in its franchise history. He has taken the Bears to playoff appearances in his 2018 debut season and in 2020 as well; the ’18 berth was Chicago’s first in the previous eight years. He is currently 31-28 (including playoffs) as the Bears’ head coach. No Bears head coach has posted a winning record since Lovie Smith (84-66 from 2004-2012), who took the team to Super Bowl 41. This will be Nagy’s first head-coaching game against Baltimore.
—Nagy had coached on staffs in Kansas City and Philadelphia previously; in 2016, he was a co-offensive coordinator in Kansas City with former Minnesota head coach Brad Childress. The following season, he was the sole coordinator in Chicago before ascending to the top job upon the dismissal of Fox, who had gone 14-34 over the previous three seasons. A former college quarterback at Delaware, Nagy also played for several Arena Football League teams. Notable assistants on Nagy’s staff include offensive line coach Juan Castillo (Ravens, 2013-16), senior defensive assistant Mike Pettine (Ravens 2002-08), and secondary coach Deshea Townsend, a former Alabama corner who also played in the NFL with Pittsburgh for 12 years and Indianapolis for one season, retiring after the 2010 season.
–-The Bears were rather decisive in acquiring Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields, trading up nine spots with the New York Giants to select him with the 11th overall pick. But it took the team quite a while to award him the starting job; now that he has hit, Fields is experiencing the usual rookie growing pains, completing 59.4 percent of his passes with four touchdowns, eight interceptions, an NFL-high 29 sacks, and a below-average 69.4 passer rating. However, he did have a career-high 291 yards at Pittsburgh before the bye and has a touchdown pass in four of his last five games. Fields is backed up by longtime NFL veteran Andy Dalton, who has previous stops in Cincinnati and Dallas, filling in as the Cowboys’ starter last year in the wake of Dak Prescott’s season-ending leg injury.
—The Bears have been banged up on the ground, with former Super Bowl champion (Kansas City) Damien Williams’ knee injury forcing him to miss two of the last four games before the bye and starter David Montgomery’s knee injury keeping him out of recent games. Montgomery returned in the final game before the bye at Pittsburgh, gaining 63 yards on 13 carries in a narrow loss; he is averaging 4.5 yards-per-carry with three of the team’s nine rushing scores, but he leads the team with only one 372 rushing yards. Rookie Khalil Herbert has 364 yards and one score, while Williams and Fields have two rushing touchdowns each.
—Even though Chicago veteran receiver Allen Robinson is the name most brought up as far as trade rumors or possible free-agent defections, it is 2020 fifth-round pick Darnell Mooney (173rd overall) who currently leads the team in receptions with 36, a 12-yard average, and two of the team’s paltry total of five receiving touchdowns. Robinson is next with 30 catches, an 11-yard average, and one score; in his last game against the Ravens while with Jacksonville, Robinson had seven catches and two touchdowns. Marquise Goodwin is next with a dozen catches, but he has eight career touchdowns of 40 or more yards, so he could be targeted against a slumping Ravens secondary. Former Carolina, Arizona, and New England receiver Damiere Byrd has a mere four receptions.
—While the Bears’ tight end room features the likes of former Pittsburgh Steelers starter Jesse James and multiple Pro Bowl pick Jimmy Graham, late of New Orleans and Seattle, the starter at that position is Cole Kmet, taken 43rd overall in the second round of the 2020 draft. Kmet had six grabs in his last game for a career-high 87 yards. He played in all 16 games with nine starts as a rookie and he currently has 28 receptions, the team’s third-most, for a ten-yard average. Graham and James have one touchdown and eight catches between them, but in two career games against the Ravens, Graham has four touchdowns, two in each game.
—Even though the Bears’ offensive line isn’t usually regarded as one of the league’s best – the running game is ranked in the league’s bottom third and it has allowed 33 sacks – it has a quintet that has proven to be reliable. Left tackle Jason Peters (213 career games) is in his 18th season and first in Chicago after five years with Buffalo and 12 in Philadelphia; he has been to nine Pro Bowls, seven as an Eagle, the second-most in franchise history behind linebacker Chuck Bednarik. His partner at right tackle is Larry Borom, a rookie from Missouri taken with the 151st overall pick in the fifth round.
—The interior offensive line features guards Cody Whitehair and James Daniels, along with center Sam Mustipher. Whitehair is in his sixth year from Kansas State and can play all three interior positions; he was a Pro Bowl pick in 2018 and once played in 71 straight games. Daniels (Iowa) made the All-Rookie team in 2018 and Mustipher has spent a year and a half as the starting center after coming out of Notre Dame and spending the entire 2019 campaign on the practice squad.
—Bilal Nichols, a defensive lineman with two sacks and a fumble recovery who is working his way through an ankle injury, has apparently lost his starting job with the Bears, due to the injury and also for a suspension last month incurred when he punched an opposing player. Filling in for him is Mario Edwards, a seven-year NFL veteran with previous stops in Oakland, with the New York Giants and New Orleans. In his second year in Chicago, Edwards has 1.5 sacks and four quarterback hits.
—The remainder of the defensive line consists of defensive tackle Akiem Hicks and nose tackle Eddie Goldman, who has spent all of his NFL seasons with the Bears and, like Nichols, was a member of the league’s All-Rookie team in 2015. Hicks spent his first four seasons in New Orleans, followed by one year in New England, and is now in his sixth year with the Bears. Hicks currently has 1.5 quarterback sacks and six quarterback hits.
—Khalil Mack, a six-time Pro Bowl pick and 2016 NFL Defensive Player of the Year, incurred a foot injury in Week Three, but played four games on a fracture before missing the last two games. He could return after the bye and play against the Ravens. Mack is in his fourth season in Chicago after playing four seasons with the then-Oakland Raiders. His six sacks are one-half behind the team leader, and he has seven quarterback hits and a fumble recovery. Christian Jones, an eight-year vet in his first season in Chicago since coming over from Detroit, has been filling in for Mack.
—The other outside linebacker is 11-year league veteran Robert Quinn, in his second year with the Bears after seven years with the Rams and a season each in Miami and Dallas. Quinn has 26 tackles, a team-high 6.5 sacks, seven tackles for losses, eight quarterback hits, and a forced fumble.
—By far, the heart of the Bears’ defense is inside linebacker Roquan Smith, in his fourth season after being taken eighth overall in the 2018 draft. He is the team’s tackle leader with 93; Smith also has three sacks, six tackles for losses and interception and three pass deflections. He has ten or more tackles in six of his last seven games; he had 12 tackles and a sack In his last game before the bye. Smith was a second-team All-Pro last season and is the first Bears defender to have three straight seasons of 100 or more tackles since Lance Briggs (2004-09). Smith is currently partnered on the inside by journeyman Danny Trevathan, who famously intercepted Joe Flacco in a 2013 game in Denver, then carelessly threw the ball away before crossing the goal line in a premature celebration. Trevathan could be in again for Alec Ogletree, the former first-round pick from Georgia who missed last week’s game with an ankle injury; he is tied for second on the team with 40 tackles.
—Jaylon Johnson, a 2020 second-round pick from Utah (50th overall), and Kindle Vildor, who was drafted in the fifth round that same year (163rd overall) and played every game, are the Bears’ starting cornerbacks. They are backed up by former Pittsburgh first-round pick Artie Burns. Vildor has 29 tackles, tied for fifth-most on the team, and four pass breakups. Johnson is right behind his teammate with 27 total stops, an interception, and seven deflections. Nickel corner Duke Shelley has 29 tackles and three breakups.
—Veteran safety Eddie Jackson, tied for second on the team in tackles with 40, has been sidelined with a hamstring injury, leaving the deep middle of the field to former Cleveland starter Tashaun Gipson and six-year veteran DeAndre Houston-Carson, a career Bears special-teams coverage man. Houston-Carson has 31 tackles, the team’s fourth-most, three pass breakups, and a fumble recovery. Gipson has 23 tackles, a sack, and a fumble recovery.
—The Bears’ kick and punt coverage teams are a mixed bag, not the best formula to go up against the Ravens’ Devin Duvernay, one of the league’s most dangerous returners. Duvernay averages about 17 yards per punt return, the league-high, but the Bears allow nearly 13 yards per attempt in such a situation, the league’s worst figuTheythey are doing a little be on kick returnstter, allowing nearly 21 yards per return (14th-ranked). Return specialist Jakeem Grant is averaging 10.3 on punt returns and 24.6 on kickoffs, both respectable figures. Khalil Herbert has run back nine kicks for a 26-yard average.
—Chicago is one of the few teams that has had stability at the punting position, featuring eight-year veteran Pat O’Donnell, who has been with the team since signing as an undrafted rookie from Miami (Fla.). Last year, he was tied for third in the league with 28 coffin-corner kicks, and he has 11 such kicks this season in 35 punts. Due to poor coverage, his net average is a mere 37.8 yards, canceling out a fine 46.7 gross average. He has had just two touchbacks.
—The Bears have had some well-documented field-goal kicking problems in recent years, and they brought back eight-year NFL veteran Cairo Santos in 2020 to help fix them. Santos kicked for four years in Kansas City, followed by stints in Chicago, with the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay, the New York Jets, and Tennessee. He has converted on a respectable 83 percent of his field-goal tries and 13 of 14 this year. Santos has missed one extra point and, at 54 points, he has scored more than one-third of the team’s total tally.
—Long snapper Patrick Scales has been with the Bears since 2015. He originally signed with Baltimore in 2012 but was cut in training camp, and he came back two years later as an injury fill-in and played in the Ravens’ two postseason games.
Prediction
The Ravens are running into a situation where they have to confront their own tendencies, both historical and recent. Historically, they flourish against rookie quarterbacks (like the one they are facing this week) via a variety of blitzes and disguised schemes that take away anything an opposing offense wants to do. But recently, a leaky offensive line, a moribund pass rush, and an otherwise-experienced secondary has had problems covering and tackling, allowing yardage in numbers that has the unit ranked in the league’s bottom third. It’s a bad habit that even bad teams like Miami and Detroit have used to their advantage, and it’s led to games that are either closer than they should be, or, as was the case last week in Miami, outright defeats. The Ravens need to get back on track, but that’s much easier said than done in today’s NFL. That’s why I predict this will be a close game.
Baltimore 27, Chicago 24
