Breaking: The Bears Mistake Was so Bad, it Would Make…
The Bears don’t seem to do well with special situations.
Give them a first-and-10, a second-and-5 near midfield, anything like that and they’re golden.
Put the ball at the goal line and any sort of sad comedy can occur. They can toss it sideways or backwards and end up with a 12-yard loss on fourth-and-goal from the 1, like at Indianapolis. Sunday they borrowed a page from the Mike Ditka era with a William Perry type of run by center Doug Kramer and it blew up in their faces.
It was like giving Wile E. Coyote a case of dynamite without the blaster. Somehow, you knew that was still all going up in an explosion and it did. The ball went from the arms of one former Illini player into the arms of another former Illini player as Kramer fumbled it to Johnny Newton. Imagine that.
In fact, Wile E. could never even have imagined something so ridiculous as the play Shane Waldron ordered up at that crucial point in the game.
Other teams execute the tush push when they need a yard. The Bears simply kick themselves in the tush.
But Sunday, their usually dependable defense showed it can also take a special situation, with the game on the line and only a prayer of a chance for the offense and can squander one of the most gritty comebacks since, well, at least their season opener.
So how was it that Elijah Hicks, Josh Blackwell, Jaylon Jones and Kevin Byard all converged on the ball on a Hail Mary pass at the 3-yard line, Jaylon Johnson and Tremaine Edmunds could take Terry McLaurin out near the 10, and Tyrique Stevenson could be doing, well, whatever was he doing?
He was taunting the fans when the play started and the receivers were already 25 yards downfield on their routes. It was caught on video by people at the game.
The Bears sure managed to mess this all up. No one was anywhere near Noah Brown when he caught the pass deflected out of the mosh pit in front of the goal line.
Kevin Byard was closest to him but it’s not entirely clear he was supposed to be the guy covering Brown.
It’s possible it should have been Edmunds. Eberflus initially said whoever was with McLaurin at about the 10 could have been the one who was supposed to take the tip guy in the end zone, but he wouldn’t name who it was.
“I got to take a look at it,” Eberflus told reporters.
Edmunds being a 6-foot-5 guy and with long arms makes sense to be back there but not on the 10-yard line. That’s where you let a guy catch it and then tackle the receiver. Game over.
Edmunds in the pit where everyone was leaping made sense too. A guy 6-5 and with long arms has a better chance at getting it or preventing someone taller from tipping it than do 5-11 DBs like Hicks, Jones, Blackwell and Byard are. And a 6-5 guy with long arms makes more sense at the back because there’s no way Brown is catching it with someone that big guarding him.
And what about the pass rush on the play? They could have taken out their bud nippers and nipped it all in the bud before this geek tragedy occurred. They had three defensive linemen trying to come after Jayden Houdini Daniels in slow motion and he escaped. Some teams blitz the passer on the last play and you can just forget getting off a Hail Mary.
“No question,” Eberflus said. “I’ve seen people do that. You know, we have that, but you know, again, we chose to do the three-man rush again. I think he had it for over 12 seconds.”
