3 Takeaways from Bears' Week 10 Loss

The Chicago Bears fell to 5-5 on Monday night in a bitter loss to the rival Minnesota Vikings. Chicago lost quarterback Nick Foles to a hip injury in the fourth quarter, though the injury may not be as serious as it initially appeared.

According to NFL Network's Mike Garafolo, initial tests showed no fracture in Foles' hip. There should be at least some chance that Foles is able to return after the Week 11 bye. It's worth wondering, though, if Foles' health will really matter.

Chicago has now lost four straight and no longer looks like the playoff squad it appeared to be early in the season. With two games remaining against the Green Bay Packers and another date with Minnesota on the schedule, Monday's loss has put Chicago on thin ice in the wild card race.

Here's what else we learned during Chicago's Week 10 loss.

It hasn't matter who has been under center for the Bears this season, big offensive plays have been hard to come by. Quarterback play has been part of the issue, to be sure, as has the play-calling of head coach Matt Nagy. However, Nagy went out of his way to show that he isn't the main problem on Monday.

He turned play calling over to coordinator Bill Lazor for the game. The results stayed the same.

Chicago mustered just 10 first downs, 149 yards of offense and 13 points—against a Vikings defense ranked 24th overall and 23rd in scoring.

Now, it's worth noting that starting tailback David Montgomery was out for the game and that the Bears leaned on wideout Cordarelle Patterson as the team's leading ball-carrier. However, 108 net passing yards against the league's 27th-ranked pass defense isn't going to cut it. It's time to face the reality that regardless of who is playing quarterback, the Bears don't have the offensive talent to be relevant even if they do manage to slip into the postseason.

If the Bears had a truly elite defense, they might be able to survive games in which the offense underperforms. While Chicago's defense is solid, however, it isn't great enough to carry this team into the postseason.

Great defenses don't allow Kirk Cousins to throw for 292 yards and two touchdowns in a tight contest.

Now, the Bears did a good job of limiting Minnesota star running back Dalvin Cook. While Cook did have 96 rushing yards, it took him 30 carries to get there. When the Vikings needed plays in the passing game, though, Cousins and rookie wideout Justin Jefferson were largely able to make them.

Jefferson racked up 135 yards on eight receptions.

While the Vikings didn't exactly race up and down the field, they did concert eight of 15 third-down attempts. They sustained drives, kept Chicago's defense on the field and only exacerbated the Bears' struggles on the other side of the ball.

As previously mentioned, Nagy turned play-calling duties over to Lazor for this game—and he didn't do it for fun.

"I'd be lying if I said this was easy. It's not easy," Nagy told reporters. "It's one of my favorite parts of coaching. I love calling plays."

So why, then, did Nagy make the change? While Nagy may have actually expected the switch to yield different results, it's more likely that he made the change out of desperation, or perhaps simply to prove a point.

After failing to make the playoffs last year and collapsing over the past month this year, Nagy is probably coaching for his job. Either he was looking for a spark by turning to Lazor, or he was looking to show that he isn't the problem offensively.

Either way, the fact is that Nagy is at least part of the problem. It's his offense that Chicago is putting on the field and his quarterbacks who have failed to flourish over the past two years. If the Bears continue losing, it'll be his job that's up for grabs in the offseason.