These 4 Bears deserve game balls despite Chicago’s Week 15 loss to Philadelphia

The Chicago Bears fought hard on Sunday and gave the NFC-leading Philadelphia Eagles more fits than probably anyone expected, but in the end, they lost 25-20.

While you could call this a moral victory, the bad news is that multiple Bears have been added to the injury list. Teven Jenkins, Equanimeous St. Brown, Jack Sanborn, and Jaylon Johnson all left the game at some point with varying degrees of injury.

Justin Fields left the game briefly, too, but it appeared to be cramps.

Plenty of healthy Bears managed to play all four quarters and warrant recognition for their effort. Here are our four game balls from the Chicago Bears’ loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

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Kyler Gordon

After missing the last two games due to a concussion, Gordon showed up in a big way on Sunday. He hauled in his second interception of the season, recovered a fumble late in the game, had some great open-field tackles, and was overall good in coverage.

One of the most maligned rookies in Chicago due to a terrible start to the season, Gordon has played much better of late and is starting to show why he was the 39th overall pick in the 2022 draft.

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Jaylon Johnson

Johnson had a couple of bad games this year while he was playing hurt, but he came back against one of the best wide receivers in the league and reminded us all that he’s one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL.

All afternoon, Johnson was in tight coverage on AJ Brown, breaking up passes. During the only big play he gave up, Johnson still had lockdown coverage, but the pass from Jalen Hurts was perfect and just an inch out of reach. Overall, a terrific game from the veteran and a message to GM Ryan Poles that he’s got some talent on the roster that will need extensions in a few months.

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David Montgomery

Montgomery has had more ups than downs lately in what has been a mostly up-and-down season. On Sunday, he had a nice game with two touchdowns (one receiving, one running) and 91 yards on fifteen touches (twelve carries, three receptions).

Like Johnson, Montgomery is up for a contract extension after this season, and a couple more games like this will make it hard for Poles to let him leave.

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Justin Fields

You knew this was coming. Fields completed 67% of his passes for 7.2 yards per attempt, threw two touchdowns, zero interceptions, and finished with a 119.5 passer rating. Reminder, this was against the number one passing defense with the most sacks and interceptions in the NFL.

Did I mention Fields was missing his top four wide receivers? At one point, Fields was throwing to a guy (no disrespect intended for Nsimba Webster) that had zero career receptions. He now has two.

Once again, his total yards won’t set any stat sheets on fire, but everyone who has watched Justin Fields this season can’t deny that he’s transforming into a legitimate superstar. He is now the third quarterback in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards in a season, joining Michael Vick and 2019 MVP Lamar Jackson. He has 18 touchdowns in the last seven games with just five interceptions. The last time he completed less than 60% of his passes was way back in Week 6.

Honorable Mentions: the coaching staff for making a game between Super Bowl contenders and a rebuilding squad competitive to the end, Joe Thomas and Nicholas Morrow for some great open-field tackles, and DeAndre Houston-Carson for his interception.