For a soft opening, that sure was a hard landing.
Chicago showed me what this year’s team looks like when it needs the quarterback to transcend. We’ve seen this in 2019 when they played the Rams and New Orleans, and those were Jimmy’s finest moments. We’re in this position now because the games that mattered most in 2019 and 2021 also demanded quarterback transcension, but Jimmy stayed Jimmy.
Those moments - where the defense is gassed, the skill players are making mistakes, the special teams is confused, and the other team’s star quarterback starts flipping the switch - those are the moments where the game can turn on itself, the mistakes compound into an avalanche, and it becomes an entirely new game.