Winners and losers from the Chicago Bears’ Week 8 OT loss, including an unimpressed Troy Aikman, a distracting ‘breaking news’ banner and too much SkyCam

Fox’s Troy Aikman validated the thoughts of a lot of Chicago Bears fans late in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s overtime loss to the New Orleans Saints.

Matt Nagy’s crew was advancing the ball to set up a game-tying field goal in the closing seconds of regulation play.

Yet Aikman was as perplexed as anyone by the lack of urgency from Nick Foles and the Bears offense, both in execution and seemingly by design.

“I don’t get two-yard completions that keep the clock running and you’ve got to burn a timeout,” Aikman said after a two-yard completion to Jimmy Graham set up fourth-and-two at the Saints' 47 with 38 seconds left. "I mean, get down the field.

"Watching the Bears … getting ready for this game, to me the first thing I would try to get this team to do is play faster. They’ve got to come off the ball 100 mph. Run. Everybody. The offensive line, get to the line of scrimmage. Quarterback, get the ball out of your hands. Receivers, run off the line of scrimmage.

“It’s too lackadaisical, and even watching this, when you’re in a hurry-up situation, I don’t know. A little frustrated watching it.”

Who wasn’t? Except those rooting for Drew Brees and the Saints, of course.

And this was when Foles was actually leading a successful scoring drive.

When the Bears were struggling, Aikman — and play-by-play man Joe Buck — couldn’t help but note Foles’ unfortunate tendency to throw off his back foot.

When Foles was called for a delay of game penalty, Aikman was unsparing: “It befuddles me when a quarterback doesn’t know how much time is on the play clock.”

There were even times the Bears were so unimpressive on offense that Aikman suggested the Bears might want to sub out Foles in favor of demoted quarterback Mitch Trubisky.

Hard to know how much Aikman actually believed that, but the Hall of Famer did say it more than once.

Trubisky got in for a play and picked up three yards on a run, so he had that going for him.

As for other winners and losers from the Bears' 26-23 loss on Fox-32, let’s take a look.

Winner: David Montgomery

Running back David Montgomery had 21 carries for 89 yards, but 38 of those yards came on a run that helped set up the field goal that gave the Bears a 13-3 second-quarter lead. Montgomery seemed as surprised as anyone when he broke into the open.

“You see how much grass there is out in front of David Montgomery,” Aikman said over the replay. “He doesn’t even know what to do. He hasn’t seen a hole like that since he got to Chicago.”

Winner: Sheldon Rankins

Part of the reason Montgomery broke free was Saints defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins got injured. He’ll be out a few weeks with a medial collateral ligament in his left knee.

This isn’t typically something anyone would write off as a win. But Fox’s Joe Buck said the replay of Rankins’ injury was too gruesome to share with viewers, which is saying something when one considers all the horrific NFL injuries viewers have been shown over the years.

Loser: Terry Bradshaw

First, during an in-game promo, Fox studio mainstay Terry Bradshaw had a cackle that Aikman deemed “the most frightening laugh I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Then, during halftime, Bradshaw lost his train of thought, which was truly scary.

Said Bradshaw: “I’ll tell you what. These Los Angeles Chargers remind me so much of the Los Angeles Chargers.”

Everyone on the set seemed to laugh it off, but it was unsettling.

Winner: Cairo Santos

Speaking of scary, imagine the Bears offense without kicker Cairo Santos’ reliability.

Loser: Javon Wims

Bears wide receiver Javon Wims showed neither brains nor brawn in punching the Saints’ C.J. Gardner-Johnson in the helmet. So weak and so very, very stupid.

But as if to prove there’s always another prism through which to view things, a media outlet that covers Georgia Bulldogs football tied it to a school rivalry, tweeting the headline: “Georgia-Florida week: Former UGA WR ejected for punching former Gator.”

Winner: Tarik Cohen

Despite being out for the season with a knee injury, Bears running back Tarik Cohen seems to be having at least a little bit of fun, tweeting support for his teammates.

He also showed up on a Soldier Field video board among other Bears fans.

Loser: ‘Breaking News’

Fox used a distracting red “Breaking News” alert in its ticker at the bottom of the screen in a way that suggested it has no idea what constitutes “breaking” or “news.”

Late in the game, it kept pulling eyeballs to the bottom of the screen where it then told viewers: “Saints QB Drew Brees breaks league record for career passing TD (560), surpassing Buccaneers QB Tom Brady.”

Problems with this include:

Brees threw the touchdown pass in the very same Saints-Bears game viewers were watching, so it’s safe to say they already knew.

Brees will continue to jockey with Brady for this record all season.

There is enough real news currently that a responsible media outlet might wish to rethink how it uses “breaking news” in a sports telecast.

Loser: Fake fans

An audio artist is out of control because the supposed background noise at Soldier Field refused to stay in the background, creating an enigmatic storyline of its own.

The laugh-track worthy highlight may have been when the faux Fox “crowd” could be heard cheering after the Bears lost yardage. Our best guess is the fake Saints fans bought a lot of fake tickets from fake Bears fans on the fake secondary market.

Winner: Non-political ads

Fans had no idea how much they appreciated the usual commercials for alcohol, insurance, SUVs and gambling apps, with too many plugs for “The Masked Singer,” until they got crowded out by candidates and special interest groups. Imagine how much political ad spending was wasted on viewers who already cast their ballots.

Loser: SkyCam

When a network strings up a SkyCam, there’s always the temptation to overuse the floating overhead camera. Fox couldn’t seem to help itself — and it definitely didn’t help viewers.

Too often on kick and punt returns, Fox stayed with the novelty angle far too long, failing to cut away so fans could see clearly how much ground the return man was picking up. Sometimes the old-fashioned sideline shot is exactly what’s needed.

———

©2020 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.