LANDOVER, Md. — One play in the NFL can change the conversation. It can dictate narratives until the next game is played. A Hail Mary touchdown turned a how-did-they-pull-it-off Bears victory into a heartbreaking 18-15 defeat on Sunday.
The NFL flexed this game to the late afternoon and gave it CBS’ top broadcast team, only for the Bears to spend three quarters doing their “same old Bears” routine. Even if they had won and stolen one from the Commanders, we’d have a lot of questions about the coaching.
Why did the biggest play of the game, at the time, call for the ball to go into offensive lineman Doug Kramer’s hands?
After the Bears spent the bye week self-scouting their slow starts, how could the offense have such a dismal first half?
How did the team — again, off a bye — get penalized eight times for 60 yards?
As stout as the defense was in the red zone, how did it give up nearly 500 yards of offense?
We could’ve analyzed all of that after a win. It might’ve taken a back seat, but the loss brings it all to the forefront, and now you can throw in a huge gaffe on the Hail Mary.
Why not bring extra pressure?
Why not call a timeout to get the defense set?
What was the plan on the penultimate play, when the Commanders gained 13 yards?
How did the defense leave a receiver open behind the pile?
NO WORDS. NONE. pic.twitter.com/pRPNSG3CgW
— NFL (@NFL) October 27, 2024
“When you don’t win the game, certainly going to look at it, and if we won the game, we’d go back and look at it to see if we could’ve done a better job,” coach Matt Eberflus said specifically about the containing Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, but it could apply to anything that went wrong.
The three-game winning streak had the Bears experiencing 2018 vibes. The heat was off offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, whose offense had put up huge numbers. Eberflus had a strong coaching performance against the Rams, and the lopsided wins over the Panthers and Jaguars had everything pointed in the right direction.
But if there was one concern about the ability to sustain it, fair or not, it was going to be the coaching staff. There simply isn’t enough proof of concept yet. And a loss like this one puts every doubt about Eberflus and Waldron back under the microscope.
Washington entered Sunday allowing 5.8 yards per play, 27th in the league. The Bears averaged 3.2 in the first half. Their defense ranked 23rd on third down. The Bears went 2-for-12 on third down. Five quarterbacks had posted at least a 100 passer rating against the Commanders this season. Caleb Williams had a 59.5, and at one point was 4-for-16 passing.
The Bears got shut out in the first half and punted on their opening drive for the fourth game in a row.
All of that is a reflection of an offense that got beat up by a below-average defense.
“Sometimes when you have those days, you’ve just got to keep finding answers,” Eberflus said. “Some of the answers have been getting the ball to our tight ends or running backs. I know we were trying to do that. They did pressure with their linebackers. Those were effective for them, so we’ve got to do a better job handling those. It’s always working to the next series and finding answers and we’ve got to do a better job of that.”
In the fourth quarter, following D’Andre Swift’s 56-yard touchdown run, the offense finally had some life. An impressive sidearm pass from Williams to receiver DeAndre Carter set them up for third-and-goal from the 1-yard line.
Ever since Kramer got put in the goal-line package, we knew he’d get the ball at some point. Chicago would go crazy when the Hinsdale Central and University of Illinois lineman got a touchdown. But at this moment, with the game seemingly on the line, this was when Waldron dialed it up and wanted the ball in the hands of someone who’s never had the ball in his hands in a game.
“Obviously you’re excited. I appreciate Shane for having the trust in me to call it. But, yeah, made a mistake,” Kramer said. “Dropped the ball on the 1-yard line.”
we’ll take that
📺 #CHIvsWAS CBS pic.twitter.com/CgWMfZeCOS
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) October 27, 2024
Kramer said they’ve been repping it for a few weeks. He said he felt comfortable and that Williams did, too.
Eberflus said it’s one of the team’s 1-yard plays.
“We’ve worked that play since he’s been in there,” Eberflus said. “We’ve worked it, worked the mechanics of it. The handoff to him, and we’ve just got do it better. Wedge blocking, you’re at the 1-yard line, big guy getting the ball. We’ve practiced it a lot.
“It’s a 1-yard play. We felt that a big guy like that taking a dive could do that.”
It’s a fun call if it works. But it didn’t, and even if Kramer had held on to the football, the Commanders didn’t seem fooled.
Eberflus commended the team for its resilience. The Bears got another shot. This time, running back Roschon Johnson got the ball at the 1-yard line and scored what should have been the winning touchdown.
With six seconds left, the Bears did not run the defense we saw late in the first half when they defended the boundaries. They let Daniels complete a 13-yard pass to Terry McLaurin, who got out of bounds with two seconds left.
“You’re defending touchdown there,” Eberflus said. “Them throwing a ball for 13 yards or 10 yards, whatever it is, doesn’t really matter. It’s always going to come down to that last play. It came down to the two-second play, the last play, and we’ve got to execute on that one.”
The Bears had all three timeouts left. Eberflus didn’t call one. Meanwhile, cornerback Tyrique Stevenson was taunting fans as the Commanders began running their play.
The Hail Mary defense called for only three players to rush Daniels, with linebacker T.J. Edwards keying the running back.
“That is an option,” Eberflus said about bringing extra pressure. “No doubt. I’ve seen people do that. We have that. But again, we chose to do the three-man rush. I think he had it for over 12 seconds. I’m not sure what happened back there in terms of blocking and getting after the quarterback.”
Daniels wouldn’t have had 12 seconds had the Bears rushed four or five.
Eberflus likens the Hail Mary to a basketball play. He asks his players to box out. There’s a “rim guy” who is supposed to tip the ball, and then they have a “back tip” player to defend against the exact thing that happened.
“Again, I’ve got to look at it and detail it out and make sure we’re better next time,” Eberflus said. “That’s a hard way to lose. But again, I was proud of the way the guys battled all the way through.”
Who was supposed to be that player?
“I have to take a look at it,” he said.
The way the game ended was confounding when considering how much this coaching staff prides itself on the details and how to handle specific situations.
It’s one game. The Bears lost to the leaders in the NFC East. They’re still 4-3 and have yet to play a division game. Tight end Cole Kmet wanted to focus on the way the offense took a lead after being down two scores late in the third quarter, an unheard-of thing for the Bears to do.
“Look, a Hail Mary is a Hail Mary,” Kmet said. “It’s a prayer. You’re just tossing up a prayer. To get obsessed with that with where we’re at right now is probably a little bit immature. It’s gonna be important that we come back tomorrow and throughout next week and look at the positives, look at the negatives — us offensively, how we started out slow — and get those things corrected. To obsess over the result of what happened is a little immature. It’s understandable at the moment, but there’s a lot that we can better at.”
If that Hail Mary lands on the turf and the Bears celebrate, we’d leave the nation’s capital wondering if this team is truly ready for a playoff push, if it can really compete with the best division in football.
The Bears were losing this game for 59 minutes and 37 seconds for myriad reasons. The way they lost only magnified them.
(Photo: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)
