Poor grades for the Bears would not be in the holiday spirit, and they really didn’t deserve many.

For the fifth straight time, their defense held an opponent to 16 points or less at Soldier Field. For the fourth straight time they won at home.

Their offense couldn’t even be criticized much when they lost DJ Moore for the majority of the game to an aggravated ankle injury and Cole Kmet for more than two quarters due to a knee injury.

Scoring 27 points without those two even against the Arizona Cardinals defense is like asking Justin Fields to make a Christmas Eve miracle. He had no help from Velus Jones Jr., Tyler Scott and 5 yards worth from Darnell Mooney, so Field’ deserves credit for finding a way to make plays using Khalil Herbert, his own legs, and 39-year-old “Big Dog” Marcedes Lewis.

The sixth straight game without 200 net passing yards is a downer but as said, but he couldn’t throw to Robert Tonyan Jr. and the Big Dog all game long. The game provided a real argument for why the Bears need to drastically improve their receiver corps if Fields is the quarterback again, or even if he isn’t.

Here are the grades from a Christmas Eve when the Bears found a way to make it work even when it looked for a while they might revisit their 2023 past of blowing huge leads.

Passing Game: C+
Moore managed to supply just enough on one good ankle, including a key 7-yarder to let the Bears lock up the win in the closing minutes. Fields’ numbers would have looked much better without the painful decision to put the ball at risk in the end zone when they had the game-clinching chip shot field goal staring them in the face. He wasn’t thinking situationally then and the interception ensued. They painted it afterward as Jalen Thompson making a good play by seeing the corner route coming but Fields is supposed to see what can happen at that point and simply throw it away in order to kick the field goal. The miss triggered Arizona’s comeback. The best pass blocking has been better only one other time this season with one sack allowed, and it was for no loss. Which shouldn’t even count as a sack but does. Fields’ poor passer rating of 71.5 stemmed entirely from the interception and only 6.3 yards per attempt. Bears yards per attempt have become a real problem lately with this offense, with both the design and execution. It has to be over 7.0 and preferably well over it.

Running Game: A+
Getting the speed back into the backfield with Khalil Herbert provided an extra boost, and 112 yards rushing by a running back hadn’t occurred for the Bears since Week 3 of last season when Herbert had a career-high 157 against Houston. Fields’ 97 came more out of his scrambles in the passing game, although he did make a few first downs on designed runs. This could have been guard Nate Davis’ best day run blocking and the combination of Davis, center Lucas Patrick and veteran reserve guard Cody Whitehair controlled the interior so the Bears could hurt the Cardinals where they are softest on defense.

Pass Defense: B+
What? No interceptions? People are getting spoiled after so many picks in a short period but Kyler Murray isn’t a passer who throws many of those. He isn’t throwing many TDs, either, and didn’t against the Bears pass defense. Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith are no longer looking like rookie cornerbacks and Kyler Gordon has ascended as slot cornerback over the last six games. Murray’s 97.5 passer rating was entirely checkdown Charlie at work against the Bears’ zone after the lead hit 21-0. They did give up the big 38-yard catch-and-run TD to Greg Dortch and were blitzing on the play, so they got caught with not enough people back to tackle at a time when the goal should have been to make Arizona drive all the way to the goal line and eat up clock. Linebackers and Jaquan Brisker did the job on tight end Trey McBride, the chief Cardinals receiving weapon, that they didn’t on tight end David Njoku the previous week as they gave up six receptions but held him to only 31 yards on those. Two sacks of Murray and four quarterback hits is a decent number considering his mobility and willingness to simply throw away the ball.

Run Defense: A-
Giving up less than 100 yards to a team that rolled for 243 against San Francisco is impressive. Limiting Murray to 32 as a scrambler or on options and Conner to 45 on 12 carries was as good as some of the games past when they’ve held teams to 50 yards rushing or less, because this was a Cardinals offense ranked in the top 10 in rushing and with no other real weapon working for them.

Special Teams: A
Trenton Gill had a career-long 76-yard punt to the end zone, a 56-yard net, and his 47.2-yard net was a season high, a credit to his placement and hang time but also the coverage units. He placed two down inside the 20 but more importantly, both were inside the 10. The normal thing for a kicker getting a $16 million contract extension a week earlier is to then come out and miss a big field goal try but Cairo Santos had a critical 49-yarder into the wind at the end of the third quarter to help counter Arizona’s comeback. He also had the chip shot game-clincher.

Coaching: A-
They could have done a better job of scheming open one of the rookie receivers after the injuries to Moore and Kmet but then again, why should they when Mooney is supposed to step up? Getsy also took the running game outside a bit too much after it was apparent the Cardinals had no answer inside. Arizona did make adjustments to protect against the run more but the Bears didn’t really strategically counter this as much as they just had Field run around outside. But they did finally go back to it when they needed to eat time. Zone coverage and mixing it up with disguises was the right route against a quarterback who can scramble as well as Murray, and he didn’t really hurt them with the arm or his legs.

Overall: A-
Only a few tense moments in the early fourth quarter prevented this from becoming the rout they looked like they might score by halftime. It didn’t do a great deal to increase confidence in Fields or coach Matt Eberflus going forward, but definitely prevented any more erosion of confidence in them. All will be revealed with two more games, especially the finale.