Bears' rally falls short with botched clock management on final drive in 23-20 loss to Lions
DETROIT (CBS/AP) — This Thanksgiving Day brought more bad news for Bears fans—with another inexplicable loss that Head Coach Matt Eberflus and the players are left trying to explain.
This one felt a little different, as Eberflus let the final 32 seconds tick away without calling a timeout—and seemingly defended how the Bears handled the end of the game afterwards.
The Bears were down 16-0 after a disastrous first half.
Detroit opened the game with four straight scoring drives, going ahead to that score on Jared Goff's 3-yard touchdown pass to Sam LaPorta in the second quarter and Jake Bates' field goals.
After three quarters, the Bears were still down 23-7. But late in the game, it looked like the Bears were going to be Grinches and steal one from the first-place Detroit Lions.
No such thing happened.
In the fourth quarter, Caleb Williams hit DJ Moore on a 31-yard touchdown to get the Bears within a field goal with five and a half to play.
Then with the game almost over, the Bears had the ball in Lions territory late in the game with a chance to drive for a game-tying field goal or go-ahead touchdown—but they blew the opportunity.
Williams threw an incomplete pass in Rome Odunze's direction as time expired from the Detroit 41 after being sacked with about 30 seconds left, with Eberflus allowing time to run off the clock even though the Bears had one more timeout.
The Bears lost 23-20.
"I think we handled it the right way. I do believe that, you know, just re-rack the play, get it in bounds, and call timeout—and that's why we held it," Eberflus said. "It didn't work out the way we wanted to."
"Surprised? I'm not going to say surprised or not. My job is to go out there and make plays. My job is to get everybody lined up, and that's it—win games," said Williams, "so didn't do that today."
Moore's choice of words after the game likely matched that of many fans.
"You're just like, what the hell? I was like, what the bleep? But it is what it is. It's not it is what it is, but we've got to find a way to win," Moore said. "We keep coming back in these games, and we have time to actually win the game, and we just s**t the bed."
And when asked why the end-of-game situations keep going so badly for the Bears, cornerback Kyler Gordon said he didn't know.
This was as dejected a Bears locker room as has been seen anytime recently—and one really has to question how much faith the team still has in Eberflus going forward, despite Williams' outstanding performance in the second half of the game Thursday.
Williams, the No. 1 pick overall in the draft, was 20 of 39 for 256 yards with two touchdown passes to Keenan Allen and one to Moore.
But the Bears are now losers of six games in a row—the last three in division, in crushing fashion.
Injuries
Bears: RB Roschon Johnson left the game with a concussion. ... Bears G Ryan Bates (concussion) and DB Elijah Hicks (ankle) were inactive.ZH
