ARLINGTON, Texas — Smiling and swearing that he wasn’t frustrated, Willie Young spoke with urgency after the Bears’ third loss in as many tries Sunday.
“You guys just about heard it all — from, ‘We gotta do better’ to ‘We gotta do this, do that,’” he said after the Bears’ 31-17 loss to the Cowboys. “We gotta win now. Outside everything else. We gotta win. That’s the only thing that’s going to avoid us answering the same questions.”
The Bears, of course, started last year 0-3, too.
“I hadn’t even thought about last year,” the outside linebacker said. “But right now, we better figure something out, quick, fast and in a hurry.”
Young was amazed when told the Cowboys ran 41 times for 199 yards. Rookie Ezekiel Elliott had 30 carries for 140.
“We gotta stop the run,” Young said. “We’ll say it next week and the next week and the next week — if we don’t stop the run, we’re gonna say it the week after that and the week after that.
“I don’t care what else is going on, when you look at it, we gotta stop the run, as a team, as a defense. From what I know now, at this moment, we’re not out there to lose the game. We put too much hard work and dedication in to it to come out here and lay down. We play with too much pride on defense. We gotta figure that out. start with stopping the run.”
He gave the Cowboys credit, calling their offensive line, running back and rookie quarterback Dak Prescott Pro Bowlers. Prescott was the second-straight rookie to beat the Bears, joining the Eagles’ Carson Wentz.
“Teams have been doing a really good job with the young quarterbacks in simplifying the game plans for them, the last two weeks for us in particular,” he said. “Getting the ball out fairly quick. in some cases, some situations, we gotta get the rush working with the coverage and vice versa.
“They rushed for 200 (yards) — we gotta control the run game first before we can have fun in the pass game, getting after the quarterback.”
