[ad_1]
Coming off an upset of the New England Patriots on “Monday Night Football,” the 3-4 Chicago Bears have another road test on a short week, facing the 5-2 Dallas Cowboys on Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Halftime: Bears trail Cowboys 28-17
The Bears defense had a lot of trouble stopping quarterback Dak Prescott and the Cowboys offense in the first half.
Prescott completed 16 of 20 passes for 180 yards and two touchdowns on the way to a 28-17 Cowboys halftime lead.
Bears safety Eddie Jackson intercepted Prescott in the final minute of the half, and Bears kicker Cairo Santos made a 36-yard field goal to cut into the Cowboys’ lead. It was the only drive the Bears stopped.
Prescott returned last week from a five-game absence because of a thumb injury. He looked at full strength from the start Sunday. He completed 10 of 11 passes for 107 yards, including a 21-yard touchdown pass to CeeDee Lamb, on the Cowboys’ first two drives of the game for a 14-0 lead.
The Cowboys easily marched 75 yards to score on their opening drive, capped by Prescott’s 7-yard touchdown run. Cowboys running back Tony Pollard rushed for 26 yards and had a 16-yard catch on the drive.
After the Cowboys went up 14-0, the Bears responded with a 75-yard touchdown drive, capped by Justin Fields’ 3-yard touchdown run to cut the Cowboys’ lead to 14-7. Fields had carries of 15 and 14 yards on the drive.
But the Cowboys hit back. On third-and-1 at the Bears 43-yard line, Prescott burst outside for a 25-yard run, and Pollard followed with an 18-yard TD run for a 21-7 Cowboys lead. Prescott’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Jake Ferguson made it 28-7.
Fields briefly went into the medical tent in the second quarter but emerged to lead a 75-yard touchdown drive in the final minutes of the second quarter. His 17-yard touchdown pass to N’Keal Harry cut the Cowboys’ lead to 28-14.
Fields threw an interception to Trevon Diggs on the drive, but it was negated by a roughing-the-passer call on Chauncey Golston.
Fields completed 8 of 11 passes for 46 yards and a touchdown and ran for 42 yards and a touchdown on six carries.
Inactives announced
Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott will not play against the Bears as he deals with a knee injury. Elliott is the Cowboys leading rusher with 443 rushing yards and four touchdowns, but the Cowboys can lean on Tony Pollard, who has 375 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
Wide receiver Noah Brown, defensive end Sam Williams, safety Malik Hooker, defensive tackle Tysten Hill, linebacker Jabril Cox and quarterback Will Grier are also inactive for the Cowboys.
Brown is second among Cowboys receivers with 25 catches for 339 yards.
For the Bears, right tackle Larry Borom is inactive as he deals with a concussion. The Bears declared Borom out Friday after he missed the entire week of practice.
Cornerback Lamar Jackson, tight end Jake Tonges and wide receiver Isaiah Coulter are also inactive for the Bears.
The Bears are where they should be
When Tom Brady said at the beginning of the month that there’s a lot of “bad football from what I watch,” he probably wasn’t envisioning his Tampa Bay Buccaneers being square in the middle of that discussion near the midpoint of the season.
The Buccaneers, who lost to the Baltimore Ravens 27-22 at home Thursday night, were one of 15 teams entering Week 8 at or within one game of .500, a large grouping of mediocrity that includes the Chicago Bears (3-4), Green Bay Packers (3-4) and both participants in Super Bowl LVI — the Los Angeles Rams (3-3) and Cincinnati Bengals (4-3).
It’s not an unusually high number of teams huddled around .500 after seven weeks. The average at this juncture over the last decade is 13.2 teams with a high of 18 in 2017 and low of five in 2020.
Why trading Robert Quinn ‘made too much sense’
General manager Ryan Poles made another major move in the Bears rebuild Wednesday, trading defensive end Robert Quinn to the Eagles. The Bears will receive a fourth-round draft pick in return, while the 6-0 Eagles acquire a veteran pass rusher with 102 sacks during a 12-year NFL career. That includes a Bears-record 18½ sacks last season.
From a business standpoint the deal, in Poles’ words, “made too much sense.”
“This is going to allow us to continue to build a highly competitive roster,” he said.
Latest news from Arlington Heights
At least one school district that serves the area where the Arlington International Racecourse is located in Arlington Heights has warned village leadership that creating a tax-incentive district to facilitate the redevelopment plans the Chicago Bears team is proposing for the site — including building a new NFL stadium — “would be a real concern,” public records show.
The football team inked a $197 million purchase agreement for the former Arlington Park International Racecourse site last year. In September, the Bears unveiled plans for a mixed-use commercial and residential development alongside the new, domed stadium it plans to build on the former racecourse, though leadership emphasized the still-tentative nature of the plans.
Given the $5 billion estimated cost of the Bears’ project, Palatine School District 15 Superintendent Laurie Heinz said the team or the village should chip in to help the school district respond to the increased student population and its needs anticipated as a result of the redevelopment.
()
[ad_2]
Source link