The Chicago Bears had a miserable showing in New York against the Giants. Despite getting inside the 30-yard-line four times during the game, they only came away with 12 points. Three of those drives ended in the red zone. Failure to execute in that part of the field doomed them. Everybody was surprised by how easily the Giants stonewalled them. Not Darnell Mooney. He saw that entire fiasco coming days before it happened.
Chicago has a systematic approach to its practices every week. Fridays are reserved for working on red zone drills. According to Mooney, the offense had a miserable session last week against a Bears defense that wasn’t even at full strength. The wide receiver wasn’t happy about it.
“We had a terrible Friday practice. I don’t think anybody else thought anything about it, but as me, my perspective was I don’t think it was the best Friday.
It kind of resulted in that game. So I think we’ve got to have a better Friday practice. Good thing is we haven’t hit Friday yet. We’ve still got Friday tomorrow. I’ll try to make sure everyone is locked in, telling them before we get the play done, ‘Hey, lock in. Let’s get this play done. Execute this play so everybody’s comfortable.’”
One has to hand it to Mooney. The wide receiver isn’t afraid to speak his mind. He’s a perfectionist as a player, so it likely comes as an insult to him when practices go poorly. His calling out the offense might be him looking to assert a greater leadership role.
Darnell Mooney saw problems like this last year.
The offensive had miserable practices during the season. It felt like an infection the team couldn’t cure. Perhaps it is a byproduct of the unit’s inability to do anything on Sundays. Yes, they can run the ball well, but they can’t throw it and can’t score points, either. That gets discouraging over an extended period of time. The Bears need good leadership to guide them out of this funk.
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It appears Darnell Mooney is starting to take on that challenge. He was the best player on the field against New York. Now he’s hoping to bring more of that juice on Sunday in Minnesota. The Bears desperately need their offense to perform in such a pivotal game. Will they respond to Mooney’s challenge? They better. Another loss could threaten to snowball their season before it’s even half over.
