Caleb Williams and Geno Smith are at very different stages in their careers. The crossroads they and their teams face this offseason also reflect this.

But anyone watching Thursday night’s game knows that neither team can be happy with what they saw from their quarterback. The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Chicago Bears 6-3 in an ugly, miserable game between two flawed teams. Every quarterback had a tough time and everyone wondered what the future held for both of them. However, only one of those teams has to decide whether their quarterback will return.

There had been no points in the second half when the Bears finally put together a drive in the final minutes and trailed by three points. Williams made a few great plays to keep the drive alive, the first time Williams ever produced much. But the drive stalled and with 20 seconds left, the Bears missed a 57-yard field goal attempt to score on fourth-and-10. Williams intercepted a desperation pass, a fitting end to a terrible night for both offenses.

For Smith, there will be further debate about whether he is the right player for the Seahawks (9-7), especially since he will soon turn 35 next season, or whether there is a better option. Thursday evening’s performance will not appease his critics.

The Williams conversation will be more complicated. He was the No. 1 pick in this year’s NFL Draft; There is no risk of it being replaced. But the Bears (4-12) need to figure out how to bring in a new coaching staff that will get more out of him than we saw in his rookie season, and then get an idea of ​​how much of a team Williams is this season has let us down or like Williams, the team has been very disappointed.

The offseason will be full of teams asking themselves serious questions about their current quarterback situation and what they can do to fix the problem. The Bears and Seahawks have probably already started discussing it. If not, then they should check what everyone watched on Thursday.

Both teams have a terrible first half

The Bears have been terrible in the first half of games this season. Not that they were much better in the second half, but they got off to a startlingly bad start.

The Bears didn’t score in the first quarter on Thursday night, which is nothing new. They haven’t scored a goal in the first quarter in 12 of their 16 games this season. They scored a total of 20 points in the first quarter this season. Chicago had 25 yards and a first down in the first quarter.

The only thing that kept the Bears afloat Thursday night and avoided a fourth straight loss was that the Seahawks weren’t much better. Both quarterbacks failed to reach 100 yards passing in the first half. The Seahawks scored first with a field goal, the Bears’ only good drive in the first half tied the game with a field goal, and then Seattle took another field goal to take a 6-3 lead into halftime.

At the end of a miserable, discouraging season that began promisingly, Bears fans sat in the rain and cold and watched two teams with first-half errors commit incompletions and trade field goals.

And the second half might have been even worse than the first.

An even slower second half

The score remained 6-3 until the fourth quarter. Chicago appeared to have a crucial fumble recovery at the 38-yard line, but on the ensuing drive, the Bears’ offense gained a yard and hit a punt. The Bears punted on each of their first four drives of the second half.

Williams continued to take sacks, increasing his total to 67 over the course of the season, the fourth-highest percentage of any quarterback in a season in NFL history. The Bears’ offensive line isn’t good, but one project of the team’s new head coach is to break Williams out of the habit of holding the ball too long and trying to do too much. It made it difficult for the Bears to maintain momentum.

The Bears had a chance to at least tie the game in the final minutes. Williams started running a few yards. Just before the two-minute warning, the Bears had a false start penalty in the quarter, the kind of sloppy mistake bad teams make all the time. But Williams made his best performance of the night, a desperation dive that DJ Moore did for the first time. That’s the kind of highlight-reel Williams sometimes produces and gives the Bears hope that he can develop into a star. Williams had another big throw to Rome Odunze for another first down to keep the Bears alive. Chicago wasted a lot of time after that, bringing back memories of the clock management debacle on Thanksgiving, then called a timeout after Williams threw incomplete and the clock was stopped. Williams threw a few more incomplete passes after that, the Bears went for it on fourth-and-10, and Williams threw one under pressure that was intercepted to seal the Seahawks’ win.

This was the final Thursday night game of the season and a reminder that we often don’t get the best out of either team when they’ve only had a few days off. Smith was better than Williams, but that’s not saying too much.

Smith has periods where he plays well, but also negative plays that are surprising for an 11-year veteran. At this point, the book is written on what Smith is as a quarterback. The Seahawks need to decide whether they want to continue on this path and whether something like an offensive line overhaul could help Smith more.

Williams also needs an offensive line. Before that, the Bears will hire a new coach and staff. They fired Matt Eberflus after a Thanksgiving loss in part because Williams had struggled so much this season. The most important interview questions must be what each candidate plans to do to get more out of Williams. It’s just hard to trust the Bears’ executives to make the right hire considering they haven’t made many right decisions over the last few decades.

For most fans, Thursday night was the last glimpse of the Seahawks and Bears. They could all look very different next season.