Chicago Bears Week 15 storylines: Justin Fields’ well-timed test, DJ Moore’s ‘Slim Shady’ magic and some ‘In the hunt’ perspective

Positive vibes are pulsating through Halas Hall this week with the Chicago Bears having won three of their last four games and, more importantly, playing a much more competitive brand of football.

Last week’s 28-13 romp over the Detroit Lions added momentum and confidence to the tank as the Bears prepare to go back on the road for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns.

They have justifiable reason to believe they can keep their late-season surge going. But they also understand the challenge that awaits, particularly from a stingy — albeit beat-up — Browns defense that has the potency to provide a reality check.

As Sunday’s game approaches, here’s the inside slant on three notable storylines.

Right place — right time?

It was less than an hour after his biggest victory as an NFL starter, less than an hour after the locker-room dance party began to celebrate the Bears’ 28-13 trouncing of the first-place Lions, and still Justin Fields was seeking improvement.

Mentally, Fields ran back through his Sunday afternoon, and while satisfied with the Bears’ six scoring drives and zero turnovers, he was certain the offense had left points on the table.

“We probably could have put up 40 if we could have executed better,” he said.

Specifically, Fields rewound to a fourth-quarter, third-and-2 play inside the red zone. With less than 10 minutes remaining, the Bears had a chance to slam the door on the Lions. Yet they wound up settling for a field goal after Fields’ pass to Darnell Mooney in the right flat sailed high and wide.

“That was a great play call,” Fields said. “Got exactly what we thought we were going to get.”

Yet the Bears didn’t get the completion or the first down or an ensuing kill-shot touchdown.

Fields also singled out a potential 25- or 30-yard gain to DJ Moore on a dagger route that didn’t connect after he airmailed his best receiver.

“Still sick about that one,” Fields said.

And so it goes for a third-year quarterback still grinding through his developmental climb. Even on the positive days that include more good contributions than bad, the room for improvement remains evident.

“In the end, we won the game,” Fields said. “And there’s still room to get better. So that’s just hope for the future.”

Ah, yes. That feel-good intersection of progress and optimism, an always-sunny place with energizing vibes. That’s why winning matters — and always will — especially for a young quarterback such as Fields, who can acknowledge the blemishes within last week’s performance while also enjoying the encouraging momentum the victory provided.

In this case, Fields put his fingerprints on the victory with timely scrambles and five completions of at least 15 yards, including a free-play, 38-yard touchdown bomb to Moore late in the third quarter. The win also propelled the Bears — at 5-8 and suddenly stalking into the playoff picture — toward their massive Week 15 test against the NFL’s top defense.

In Cleveland.

Oh, right, Cleveland. Cue the obligatory mention.

Cleveland was the site of Fields’ first career start in 2021, a 26-6 Bears loss.

“(I remember) just being back in Ohio. First start. Everybody excited,” Fields said. “And then, of course, getting sacked too.”

Nine times, if you forgot. The Bears managed 1 net passing yard in that brutal offensive performance. While that might be a notable nugget — one the Fox broadcast team of Kevin Kugler and Mark Sanchez is certain to illuminate Sunday — it’s also the distant past. And the Browns defense of the present, still led by Myles Garrett, may be just as scary for Fields to watch.

He spent a minute Wednesday running through everything that caught his eye in his studies of the Browns this week.

“Of course their D-line is a talented group,” Fields said. “Shoot, their linebackers are very athletic and very fast. They have very good instincts in zone coverage. On the back end, their safeties and corners of course are at the top of the league.

“It’ll be a great test for us.”

No team in the league has been better defending the pass than the Browns, who are allowing 159.7 passing yards per game and just 105.1 in seven home games. They lead the league in third-down defense (29%) and rank fourth in interception rate (3.2%).

Garrett and Za’Darius Smith provide plenty of firepower up front. And while the Browns are significantly dinged up — with Week 1 starting safeties Grant Delpit (groin) and Rodney McLeod Jr. (biceps) on injured reserve, defensive end Ogbo Okoronkwo (pectoral) potentially out for the season and Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward (shoulder) trying to return from a three-game absence — the Bears shouldn’t exhale too heavily.

Coach Matt Eberflus sees a defense that has ideal cohesion within its pass rush and back-end coverage. Eberflus specifically lauded the Browns’ ability to disguise coverages.

“That creates some indecision on the quarterback’s part,” he said.

But Eberflus also sees the growth Fields has made since early in the season and specifically highlighted his improved pocket presence and ability to keep his eyes downfield when extending plays.

Oh, and ball security. That’s getting better too. Fields hasn’t thrown an interception since returning in Week 11 from a dislocated right thumb.

“A perfect game for a quarterback, like I’ve said, is zero turnovers,” Eberflus said. “That gives us a chance to win the game.”

Fields has thrown 93 passes since his last interception, a career-best streak. Asked about that Wednesday, he alertly knocked on the wooden lectern he was standing behind.

“I’m just trying to make the best decisions I can,” he said.

Added Eberflus: “It’s just him being mindful of it. And us visiting about it before the game. We visit on Saturdays when the game plan is all in and we talk about that. He knows how important it is to the success of the football team.”

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy weighed in this week on the continued improvement in Fields’ pocket presence.

“The biggest thing behind all that is just the awareness of what’s going on around you,” Getsy said. “When you know what you’re doing and you know what the people around you are doing, that gives you comfort to go play a little more free. The more he plays, the more that’s going to continue to grow.

“Pocket presence is one of the hardest things that position has to (handle). You’ve got these crazy beasts all over, running around all over the place. So how do you avoid (pressure)? When is it time to escape? When is it time to slide (through the pocket) and throw? Justin and I will both stand here and say we’re not where we want to be with that. But the improvement continues to grow each and every week.”

Fields now gets a chance to further validate all the improvements he has made, to stamp legitimacy on the emergence Chicago has been anticipating all the way back to his first start.

In Cleveland.

This next test is no joke: on the road, against a nasty defense, needing a win to keep the Bears’ slim playoff hopes from disintegrating.

It seems like an ideal setup, well-timed to test Fields’ growth.

Fun and games

As Justin Fields commanded the huddle and announced the two most important words of his call — “Slim Shady” — Braxton Jones’ ears perked up.

Perfect play, Jones thought. “I knew right away we were going to score. Honestly. I knew how we had practiced that play. I knew why we had put it in. And it was just like, ‘Oh. This is literally the vision.’ All of a sudden you just get that energy. Here we go.”

The Bears were inside the red zone on their opening drive Sunday — second-and-7 at the Detroit Lions 16-yard line. And a gadget play the offense had put in only five days earlier was ready to come to life.

Fields was as excited as Jones in that moment but for slightly different reasons. On the previous two snaps, Fields had turned a zone-read keeper into an 11-yard run, then taken a hit as he scrambled for 2 more yards.

“I was tired,” Fields said. “That’s the only reason I was excited.”

So here it came. “Slim Shady.”

From an empty backfield in shotgun formation, Fields motioned himself out to the left of the formation while signaling Moore to slide in from the right behind center Lucas Patrick.

Ideal opportunity for the Bears. With the Lions still needing to account for Fields, Moore had a golden opportunity to showcase his playmaking ability.

Direct snap. Fake give to Fields and a decisive turn up the left sideline.

Sixteen yards later, Moore was in the end zone, then leaping into the first row of Sec. 120 at Soldier Field as the Bears celebrated an opening-drive touchdown, a 6-0 lead and a detonation of excitement at their home stadium.

“It’s what we have been talking about for the past four or five weeks,” receiver Trent Taylor said. “Making those plays that matter. It’s something we’ve harped on and focused on during the week. And it feels amazing when you can finish your first drive off like that.

“Right after that, the energy was up. And you just try to ride that energy the rest of the game.”

That was the return of fun to Soldier Field, a marriage of imagination and execution that helped the Bears get off to a fast and exciting start on their way to a convincing 28-13 upset of the first-place Lions.

Credit the innovation of the coaching staff with Getsy noting that the general design of “Slim Shady” was lifted from another NFL game this season, pitched in a brainstorming meeting by one of the other coaches and modified to fit the Bears offense.

Every week, the coaching staff is looking to sprinkle a little creativity into the game plan with some tricks and gadgets that can energize players.

“I promise you,” Getsy said, “we practice a lot of those types of things each week. Those are the plays that get everybody in the room excited. Then when you’re able to go out and execute those, it’s fun to see the guys respond.”

Respond the Bears did. None of the Lions’ 11 defenders laid a finger on Moore.

“The first time he was touched,” receivers coach Tyke Tolbert said, “was when Lucas Patrick grabbed him off the wall behind the end zone.”

Five Lions defenders seemed temporarily frozen toward the middle of the field as Moore and Fields passed each other in the backfield right after the snap with the quarterback faking that he had the ball.

The blocking in the open field, meanwhile, was textbook. Jones, for example, fired off the snap and saw every lineman’s dream ahead — 8 yards of runway and a 203-pound defensive back (Jerry Jacobs).

“I’ve handled those types of plays quite a bit the past two years,” Jones said. “It’s just about speed and gaining ground and taking up as much ground as I can so the ball carrier can make his decision off my block. I just wanted that pathway to look as clear as possible for DJ.”

Jones plowed Jacobs across the sideline and opened a lane. Easy enough.

From the left slot, Taylor, all 181 pounds of him, had the responsibility of sealing linebacker Alex Anzalone. Done and done.

“I had to convince the coaches I am capable of blocking like that,” Taylor cracked. “I annoyed them long enough to finally put me in there.”

Near the line of scrimmage, rookie running back Roschon Johnson had a brief but critical wrestling match against Aidan Hutchinson. “It was just a matter of getting good leverage and sustaining my block long enough for DJ to get by,” Johnson said. “I strained as long as I could for him to get around the edge.”

With a full head of steam, Patrick had cleanup duty and needed only one last nudge on Anzalone at the 5-yard line to finish the play.

Moore cashed in with the first rushing touchdown of his career and a welcome adrenaline rush.

“I was tunnel vision on it,” he said. “I saw everybody hit their right blocks. I was like, ‘This is an automatic touchdown right here.’ ”

That’s what offensive line coach Chris Morgan had been predicting all week too.

“Every time we ran it (in practice), he’d call that out,” Jones said. “He did say that DJ would score. And he did.”

Added Morgan: “Any time the ball is in DJ’s hands, good things happen. We were fired up about that play. Everybody executed it well and we ripped it. … DJ made it come to life.”

The hope, of course, is that the Bears offense is coming to life, more capable of being consistently productive and then mixing in the fun when the situation allows.

“Any time you see the guys score and you see them doing their job and doing it well and doing it together, you get really excited as a coach,” Morgan said. “There has just been more and more of that. And there’s going to be more in the future. It’s an exciting time.”

Hunting season

With their first winning streak since late in the 2021 season, the Bears find themselves in line — albeit toward the back — for the NFC playoffs, having joined the “In the hunt” section of almost every postseason graphic for Week 15.

At 5-8, the Bears sit just one game behind the current owner of the conference’s No. 7 seed, the 6-7 Green Bay Packers.

For the purposes of this exercise, we’re entertaining the possibility that the same Bears who lost 14 consecutive games between Week 8 of last season and Week 4 of this year could run off a six-game winning streak to end the regular season.

If they finish 9-8, maybe, perhaps, potentially the Bears could steal a wild-card berth and write the ultimate twist ending to their wild season.

It remains a long shot even for the Bears to take care of what they can control. They’re 3.5-point underdogs Sunday against the Browns. The look-ahead lines have them favored in Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve home games against the Arizona Cardinals and Atlanta Falcons. And they’re two-point underdogs for the Week 18 trip to Lambeau Field.

Put all of that together and the Bears face 13-1 odds against staying hot and winning out.

Likely? No. But that door remains ajar.

Of course, the “In the hunt” queue is always crowded this time of year. Playoff possibilities also are being discussed by fans of the Minnesota Vikings (7-6), Packers, Los Angeles Rams (6-7), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-7), Falcons (6-7), New Orleans Saints (6-7), Seattle Seahawks (6-7) and New York Giants (5-8).

With the San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions near locks for the postseason, only three of those other nine teams will make the playoffs: the NFC South champ plus two wild-card entries.

So how would tiebreaking procedures unfold if “the hunt” remains crowded?

In the case of two-team ties, head-to-head competition is considered first, with winning percentage in conference games the second tiebreaker. The third is winning percentage against common opponents, followed by strength of victory and then strength of schedule.

The formula is similar, while slightly more complex, for ties among three or more teams.

The Bears have beaten only one team currently “in the hunt,” and that was the Vikings, with whom they split. They have lost to the Packers, Buccaneers and Saints, and they’re 4-5 in NFC games.

Their strength of victory — the total victories by the opponents they have beaten — is 26, which ranks behind the Vikings (39), Packers (39), Rams (33), Falcons (31), Buccaneers (30) and Seahawks (30) and ahead of the Saints (22) and Giants (20). And the Bears’ strength of schedule is tied for sixth among the nine-team pack.

All of those calculations are a headache-causing exercise at this stage, with so much still so fluid in the final month of the season. Wait a few weeks and the picture should be clearer.

It’s up to the Bears to stay inside that picture as long as they can. And that requires a win Sunday over a quality but injury-riddled Browns team. So who knows? Dare to dream. And the Bears should make no apologies for chasing that carrot, particularly after rising from an abysmal 0-4 start.

Believe. Focus. Hunt.

It’s also important to distinguish the goal of stealing a playoff berth from the more meaningful accomplishments the organization hopes to compete for in future seasons. Division championships. Extended playoff runs. A lengthy stretch of success that produces a series of playoff appearances.

In 2020, when the Bears overcame a six-game skid to sneak through the back door of the NFC playoffs as the conference’s first No. 7 seed, we illuminated the dangers of “the seventh-seed seduction,” specifically the deceptive feeling of achievement that can arise from clearing a lowered bar. That still applies.

It’s also worth noting that since the NFL expanded the playoffs to 14 teams in 2020, the No. 7 seeds in the AFC and NFC have gone winless in six postseason games with an average loss of 33-21.

The Bears’ 2020 playoff appearance went about as expected. They lost 21-9 in New Orleans in a game that was far more one-sided than the final score.

And for those curious what this year’s No. 7 seed would get them? It likely would produce a trip to play the 49ers, Cowboys or Eagles on wild-card weekend.