Late Cutler-Jeffery Connection Was 'Huge Play'
(CBS) In a game full of breaks early for the Bears, there was no play bigger late in a 27-19 win against the Jets on Monday night than a connection between quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Alshon Jeffery that came in the face of intense pressure.
With Chicago holding a 24-19 lead and facing a third-and-9 from its own 42-yard line with just less than eight minutes left, New York brought a zero blitz, meaning it covered the receivers one-on-one and sent everyone else at Cutler. With pressure approaching, Cutler moved back and a bit right, then lofted a high-but-smart ball over the middle to a spot that only the 6-foot-3 Jeffery could catch against the 6-foot-2 Antonio Allen.
Jeffery climbed the ladder for a 13-yard reception that kept the chains moving, the ball out of the Jets' hands and eventually contributed to a field goal by Robbie Gould that gave the Bears more breathing room and left their foe with little time for a comeback.
"We were losing the clock so we didn't have any time to get out of it," Cutler said of seeing the pressure coming. "We didn't want to burn a timeout (because we wanted) to keep the clock running because we were kind of in that mode. We felt decent about what we had to the right with Alshon and Marty (Bennett). We just had to buy enough time to let Alshon work a little bit. He sensed it too. He knew it was zero and the ball was going to come quick.
"(Big receivers are) nice. It makes my job a lot easier. They're all 6'4-plus. They've got huge range and catch radius. If you put it in the area you know they're going to catch it or its going to be incomplete which makes it easy."
The completion came on a switched verticals route in which Jeffery started on the outside of the formation on the right, then worked up and over the middle of the field as the slot receiver ran an outside vertical.
"Huge play," Bears coach Marc Trestman said. "Jay knew that they were coming, and he really didn't know where the free guy was coming from at times. A very difficult defense, as I said, and that was a huge play in the game. It got us a first down, it got us to continue the drive, and there were a number of those plays where Jay had to move around and make a play, and guys made some very good catches along the way. It was just a tough game – tough to move the football, tough to protect. We knew it was going to be this kind of game and it was."