Howard scores 3 TDs, Bears hand 49ers 11th loss in row 26

And yet, the 49ers couldn’t stop the Bears and Jordan Howard. Seriously, dude? Like the offense doesn’t stink enough, and now the punt returner can’t let the ball perhaps bounce into the end zone for a touchback?

The 49ers defense offers little resistance for the second drive, allowing Chicago’s offense, led by Barkley, to go 59 yards on just four plays. If accounting for 54 plays of the offense isn’t pressure, I don’t know what is. The 49ers entered the game with one win, the injury-riddled Bears with two.

Matt Barkley completed 4 of 5 passes for 64 yards to set up Howard’s 1-yard TD run, which gave the Bears a 7-6 lead with:31 left in the half.

Connor Barth’s 45-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter extended Chicago’s lead to 24-6. “We needed to get something going”.

With Cleveland, San Francisco and Jacksonville picking ahead of them, there is a real chance Cleveland and the 49ers will take quarterbacks unworthy of their choices, and that would leave legitimate potential franchise-type players such as Jonathan Allen, Myles Garrett and Jabril Peppers there for the taking.

This was the 49ers’ best chance for another win this season.

The fifth-round draft pick out of IN has five 100-yard games and his three rushing TDs tied for the second most by a Bears rookie IN a game.

The 49ers’ run defense looked better in recent weeks, but it regressed back to it’s awful levels against the Bears.

The important takeaways from this game offensively is that Howard continues to shine, Barkley (11-of-18 for 192 yards) is looking like a respectable quarterback and Meredith and Bellamy are tough players. The 49ers are an absolute dumpster fire, and for every step they seem to take forward, they follow it with several steps back.

Carlos Hyde ran for 92 yards, but the 49ers’ slide continued. That was the lesson that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick learned on Sunday in Week 13 against the Chicago Bears. Critics say while they respect Kaepernick’s right to freedom of speech, they feel this is not the place to express his views. Gabbert went 4-of-10 passing for 35 yards to close the game. Over at Bay Area Sports guy, Steve Berman wrote a piece titled, “The 49ers don’t care, so why should you?” “But we just had breakdowns here and there all day long and it definitely showed”.

Another game, another impressive showing by the rookie fifth-round running back. Colin Kaepernick: one of two for four yards, while running for 20 yards on six carries. WR Quinton Patton was active Sunday a week after sustaining a concussion against the Dolphins. Floyd added a safety of Gabbert late in fourth quarter. Did he think the 10 opportunities he had to throw – Kaepernick took five sacks – were ample to show he could recover after the bad start?

Bears QB Matt Barkley passed for a career-high 316 yards and three TDs last week. WR Eddie Royal (toe), S Adrian Amos (foot) and DL Jonathan Bullard were also inactive for the Bears.