Bears vs. Dolphins: Notes from a pathetic 31-28 overtime loss

• The orange uniforms are back, for better or worse. I personally prefer the 1940’s throwback alternates, but I will always have a soft spot for the orange jerseys for their having played a memorable part in my childhood.
• Frank Gore is still in the league, which is impressive. He’s a Hall of Famer for sure, potentially a first-ballot player. His ability to maintain a high level of play for as long as he has is mind-boggling.
• The Bears got bailed out when Albert Wilson dropped a third-and-six pass from Brock Osweiler that, surprisingly enough, hit him right in the hands. Their defense wasn’t fantastic by any means, so to have the Dolphins botch a relatively simple play served as a sigh of relief.
• Mitchell Trubisky wasn’t incredibly sharp in his first drive of the game, as he made a bad read on his first throw to Allen Robinson, on top of overthrowing Anthony Miller on what would have been a huge gain.
• Kyle Fuller has been very disappointing to start the 2018 season, and that was made evident as he allowed a 25-yard gain to Jakeem Grant, despite getting called for holding. He has not lived up to his contract at all so far this year.
• Leonard Floyd straight up hit Danny Amendola with a nasty slam. For wrestling fans out there, it appeared to be a gutwrench suplex transitioned into a DDT. Lots of similarities to Pete Dunne’s Bitter End.
• A terrible defensive drive ended with a five-yard touchdown pass from Osweiler to Nick O’Leary on the flat route. The coverage was simply horrendous on the play, and the pass rush could have been much better, as well.
• Taylor Gabriel is a shifty gadget player who offers a lot of play calling versatility. He offers a lot of value on screens and jet sweeps with his blazing speed.
• Mitchell Trubisky’s athleticism is one of the most underrated aspects of his game. He was able to scramble his way to an eight-yard gain in the first quarter, and he followed it up a few plays later by rolling out to evade pressure and hit Tarik Cohen on the screen for a seven-yard gain.
• My heart always feels nice and warm when Matt Nagy calls a shovel pass to Trey Burton.
• Reshad Jones is one of the best safeties in the NFL, and he showed it when he brought Tarik Cohen down on a fourth-and-one pitch to stuff the Bears. A rough start for Chicago’s offense continued.
• Frank Gore, again, is still good. He broke two tackles and carried Kyle Fuller along for a few yards on an 18-yard shovel pass.
• Bryce Callahan did a great job of sniffing out the screen, aggressively running downhill to bring down Albert Wilson for a five-yard loss near the end of the first quarter. He has been one of the best nickelbacks in the league to start the 2018 season.
• Bobby Massie allowed Jonathan Woodard to get inside leverage, throwing him off balance and bring Trubisky down for a seven-yard sack. Massie admittedly hasn’t been terrible this year, but don’t expect him to be back in 2019.
• Nothing went right offensively for Chicago early on. The play calling was poor, the overall execution was lackluster, the blocking was shabby and Trubisky was unable to hit the side of a barn. Miami doesn’t have a bad defense by any means, but this isn’t an elite unit that the Bears were struggling against.
• Nice job by Bilal Nichols to chase down Brock Osweiler and bring him down at the second level. He has been a pleasant surprise so far this year.
• Roquan Smith is a stud. He showed off the athleticism to chase down Kenyan Drake on the slide and match him step for step, and he managed to break down to tackle him while keeping his hips squared to prevent Drake from juking him out.
• Taylor Gabriel tracked down a dime from Trubisky to grab a 48-yard gain in tight coverage. It was a great pass and a great catch that gave the Bears some much-needed offensive spark.
• Jordan Howard fumbled on the goal line. Power back extraordinaire Jordan Howard fumbled on the goal line. Pro Bowl running back who has two 1,000-yard seasons to his name Jordan Howard fumbled on the goal line.
• What a terrible first half. The run defense was horrible, the pass rush - against a terrible offensive line, no less - was nonexistent, the coverage was mediocre and the offense was simply dreadful. This was not the performance of a playoff team.
• Roughly 30 minutes after I trashed Kyle Fuller, he picked up his first interception off the season. It was a bad throw by Osweiler and a poor route by DeVante Parker, and Fuller took advantage of it, tracking the ball down very well.
• Talk about a hot start to the second half. Trubisky picked up 28-yard with his feet, climbing the pocket and using his speed to gain some yards. The Bears then got bailed out by a pass interference call by Minkah Fitzpatrick which brought them into the red zone.
• You know that thing I said about the shovel pass to Trey Burton? I felt that same feeling and more when Burton picked up a nine-yard touchdown.
• Three plays, 75 yards and a touchdown in just over a minute and a half. Not a bad start to the second half.
• Kyle Fuller did it again. He timed his jumping on the out route perfectly and picking up his second interception of the game. My take regarding his poor play is not aging well.
• One play later, Trubisky hit Allen Robinson in the end zone on a 12-yard deep slant to give the Bears a 14-7 lead. Just like that, the momentum changed entirely towards the Bears in just a four-minute span.
• Miami completed a lot of passes on flat routes throughout the game. Those could convert into turnovers if the Bears ran man-to-man coverage more often.
• Bryce Callahan continued his very good game with a nickel blitz off the edge to force an incomplete pass and a failed third-down conversion. Jason Sanders followed that up with a 50-yard field goal, cutting down Chicago’s lead to four points. Nonetheless, Callahan’s speed off the edge helped stop the Dolphins from tying the game up.
• Have a day, Taylor Gabriel! Trubisky hit him deep on a go route that was placed perfectly en route to a 54-yard gain.
• Tarik Cohen is so fun to watch. He ran the misdirection through an absolutely massive hole and ran around Miami’s defense on his way to a 21-yard touchdown.
• Three plays. 75 yards. Touchdown. One minute. There’s the fast-paced, high-octane offense that we hoped to see when the season began.
• Roughing the passer penalties have been horrendous this year, so it was only a matter of time that the Bears got hit by one. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that Leonard Floyd’s quarterback hit - if you can call it that - in the third quarter should not have been a penalty.
• Jordan Howard is a poor man’s Frank Gore.
• Roquan Smith did a good job of abandoning his assignment in zone coverage to rush Brock Osweiler. His pressure forced Osweiler to panic and throw the ball away, resulting in another failed third-down conversion.
• Cohen is unreal! He ran an angle route and caught the ball with space around him, outrunning defenders and picking up a 51-yard gain. He is the best running back on Chicago’s roster, and part of that is because of how versatile he is. He is so valuable to this offense.
• Allen Robinson showed off incredible body control when he caught a back-shoulder fade along the sideline for a 21-yard gain.
• One play after a poorly-called Trey Burton pass interference penalty cancelled out a Tarik Cohen touchdown on the flat, Trubisky threw an interception to T.J. McDonald in the end zone. He still has issues with forcing throws and staring down one target.
• Albert Wilson was wide open on an in route, and Osweiler hit him for a 28-yard gain. A few plays later, he caught a screen for a 43-yard touchdown. Poor tackling attempts by Kyle Fuller, Eddie Jackson and Adrian Amos allowed the speedy target to take it home.
• The Bears got bailed out on third down in the fourth quarter when Minkah Fitzpatrick got called for his second pass interference call of the day.
• Speaking of bailed out, Reshad Jones nearly picked off a terrible pass on the run in double coverage by Trubisky. Again, he has to get better at making more than one read on a consistent basis.
• Anthony Miller picked up his second touchdown catch of the year on a 29-yard catch in which he had acres of space around him to make the grab. Trubisky’s three touchdowns marks the second-highest total of his career.
• Just as the Bears grabbed total control of the game with a long and drawn out offensive drive, the Dolphins struck back with a 75-yard curl to - guess who - Albert Wilson. He broke two tackles and evaded several other defenders to tie up the game for Miami.
• The Bears’ defense was incredibly tired in this game. Their tackling effort was poor, and their pass rush was way worse than it should have been. If they had played as well as they normally do, then this game would have been a relatively simple win.
• Tarik Cohen, who was fantastic all game, fumbled the ball on Chicago’s side of the field and gave the Dolphins the ball with less than two minutes left in regulation. What a heartbreaker.
• The Bears did a great job of shutting down Miami’s offense on the late fourth-quarter drive. They knew that the Dolphins would target the red hot Albert Wilson, and they did everything in their power to stop him.
• What a terrible turn of bad luck for the Bears. Adrian Amos deflected a pass intended for Danny Amendola, and Kenny Stills caught the tipped ball. Because why not?
• Old man Frank Gore ran right over the Bears’ defense for a 32-yard gain to put the Dolphins inside of Chicago’s own 10-yard line. What a pathetic lack of effort by a seemingly dominant Bears defense.
• Akiem Hicks stripped the ball out of Kenyan Drake’s hands on the ONE-YARD LINE, and Eddie Goldman jumped on the ball to give the Bears one last chance to win the game. Wow.
• Jordan Howard, who was quiet all game, broke free up the middle for a 19-yard gain. That’s the Howard that we all know and love.
• And right after that, Howard picked up a gain of 15 yards right up the middle. He showed up when it mattered most.
• The Bears relied on Cody Parkey to make a 53-yard field goal to win the game, and it didn’t work. Obviously. The Bears should have been way more aggressive in trying to get better field position, and it predictably backfired.
• What a pathetic game. A Bears defense with Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks and Roquan Smith on it was destroyed by an offense with Brock Osweiler, an ancient Frank Gore and Albert Wilson as its stars. And with that, the Bears have lost their division lead in a game that should have been an easy win. This is not the performance of a playoff team.

The Bears take on the New England Patriots next week at home at noon CT. Stay tuned for what figures to be a mauling.

Jacob Infante is a Chicago Bears writer at SB Nation’s Windy City Gridiron. He is also the lead NFL Draft analyst for The Blitz Network, and he additionally covers the NFL Draft for USA Today’s Draft Wire. He can be reached through Twitter @jacobinfante24 or e-mailed at jacobinfante1208@gmail.com.