LANDOVER, Md. — As much pride as Matt Eberflus takes in pointing out how the Chicago Bears devote practice time, often at the end of the day, to special situations, Sunday’s loss is going to be the kind that challenges the coach’s 24-hour rule where the previous game becomes ancient history and full attention and focus moves to the next one.
In the most special of situations — a Hail Mary on the final play of the game — the Bears (4-3) were caught out of position in an 18-15 loss to the Washington Commanders on Sunday at Northwest Stadium. It ended their three-game winning streak and, considering how rugged the NFC North is, it could be the kind of setback that haunts them in January.
10 thoughts after a loss that cornerback Jaylon Johnson summed up as “heartbreaking.”
1. Tyrique Stevenson twice declined to speak to reporters after the game.
There’s not much Stevenson could have said that would have accounted for his error in judgment — a nice way of putting it — on the game’s final play. It was clear as day from the press box. Even though the view was from the opposite end zone, I had a straight sightline to Stevenson — with his back turned to the field — facing the stands pointing, waving, posing and generally taunting Commanders fans.
The ball was snapped at the Washington 48-yard line and Stevenson was oblivious to the play underway. You may have seen it on social media by now. By the time Stevenson turned around there were three Commanders receivers on his side of the field going full speed toward the goal line. They had reached about the Bears’ 25-yard line before Stevenson realized there was a play happening and he was on the field, one of 11 players charged with trying to stop it.
Preposterous, right?
A thoughtless violation of Matt Eberflus’ HITS principle, right?
Yes and yes. Stevenson had time to recover as quarterback Jayden Daniels held on to the ball for 12.79 seconds, according to NextGen Stats, rolling right, coming back left and finally launching the ball from his own 35-yard line.
Jayden Daniels held onto the ball for 12.79 seconds on his game-winning 52-yard Hail Mary touchdown to Noah Brown, the first TD pass with a time to throw over 10 seconds in the Next Gen Stats era (since 2016).#CHIvsWAS | #RaiseHail pic.twitter.com/I2mj2wn1hg
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) October 27, 2024
If Stevenson’s responsibility was the wide receiver on the outside — Noah Brown, the ninth-year veteran from Ohio State — or he was supposed to be the “savior,” what some coaches call the deepest player on the field in the situation, then he really blew this play. Stevenson didn’t answer questions.
It’s a Hail Mary and crazy things can happen in a large crowd of players. But the Bears played this about as poorly as you can imagine. Brown was all alone behind the mass and when the ball emerged from the scrum — the Bears had seven defenders near the goal line — it was an easy catch for the only player in the end zone.
Game over.
“To Chicago and teammates my apologies for lack of awareness and focus,” Stevenson wrote in a social media post more than 2 1/2 hours after the game ended. “The game ain’t over until zeros hit the clock. Can’t take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen.”
To Chicago and teammates my apologies for lack of awareness and focus …. The game ain’t over until zeros hit the clock. Can’t take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen. #Beardown
— Tyrique Stevenson (@dreamchaserTy10) October 28, 2024
That doesn’t tell us a whole lot, only that he promises this was a learning experience. Will Stevenson start this coming Sunday at Arizona or will he be replaced in the starting lineup by Terell Smith? If Eberflus doesn’t come down on Stevenson, are there any teeth behind the whole HITS thing or is it just a nifty coaching acronym that doesn’t mean a whole lot?
Safeties Kevin Byard and Elijah Hicks and cornerbacks Josh Blackwell, Jaylon Jones and Stevenson were all just in front of the goal line when the ball came down. Stevenson came flying in from the side to the front of the pile and appeared to just tip the ball.
Every team goes through end-of-half and end-of-game scenarios. That’s playing the Hail Mary, defending from the 25-yard line and in, etc. How are you going to defend the goal line? It’s hard to simulate the Hail Mary in practice because coaches get worried about turned ankles or knees when it’s just players jumping up in a pile. That’s why most of the time it’s done in a walk-through when the assignments are clearly spelled out for the players.
When it’s done in a walk-through, typically the offense doesn’t even try. They stand there and the defense bats the ball down and celebrates as if it just won. The issue is when you have someone coming from distance, like Stevenson was, that’s fine if that is his assignment. There’s got to be a guy in front, a guy coming downhill behind him and guy behind him to play the tip in the event there is someone leaking out behind. That’s where you saw Brown. Stevenson came flying in from the side of the play and there is no way Eberflus coached the defensive backs to say, “It’s recess, fellas. Ball is in the air. Go get it.”
So, what the hell happened?
“I’m supposed to be the jumper to try to jump and tip the ball down,” Byard said. “Everybody was kind of piling up. It was hard to get an angle, get a running start. By the time the ball is in the air you’re trying to fight to get position and stuff like that. The ball got tipped up in the air and their back guy ended up just making a play.
“Guys are supposed to box out. Every team in the league, if they’re talking about the Hail Mary play, they’re going to do the same thing. They’re going to build a triangle. They’re going to have a guy that is supposed to jump up and catch the ball. We’re supposed to have a jumper, which I was. Then we’re supposed to have guys build a triangle around. I haven’t seen it. I just know it was a scrum in there and obviously they executed better than we did.”
Said Hicks: “Right now it’s kind of a blur. I’m gonna need to watch it.”
Offered Blackwell: “It makes it difficult when everybody is scrambling around. It just kind of gets into backyard football at that point, you know what I mean.”
If there was an aiming point for Daniels, it was 6-foot-5 tight end Zach Ertz, who is the player Washington designated as its jumper in this situation. The Commanders had wide receiver Terry McLaurin in front of him and Brown was to be the guy in the back.
“I don’t know if I got a hand on the ball but it was almost a hockey assist,” Ertz told me as he walked out of the locker room. “I went up for the ball and (Stevenson) maybe tipped it up and it fell right to Noah. By the time I jumped it felt like I had two hands on my shoulder pads kind of holding me down so I really just stuck out a hand and kind of just gave someone a shot.
“Noah was there in the right place. Floated right into his hands.”
Was he stunned to see Brown all alone in the end zone?
“I think a lot of defensive guys, they see the ball go in the air on that play and they all converge on the ball just to try to knock it down,” Ertz said. “We just got the tip to go to Noah. Crazy. Never had a play like that.”
Jaylon Johnson gave the most realistic answer regarding the situation. He was working to box out McLaurin, who the Bears wanted to prevent from making the play.
“There should never be somebody wide open in the back of the end zone,” Johnson said. “I can’t say who was supposed to be there, I don’t know. But at the end of the day there should never be anyone wide open in the back of the end zone. We all gotta find a way to execute better down the stretch.
“We can all go back and say there were plenty of times we could’ve won the game. At the end of the day, no other play had more intensity, more on the line on that play and we gotta find a way to come out on top.”
Johnson said he was “pissed off.”
“It’s a Hail Mary,” he said. “They’re not going to call the holding. They’re not going to call pass interference. It’s a f−−−−−− free play to beat you. For me, my focus, my energy was on not letting my guy get into the end zone. Hitting him. Being physical. Trying to do what I can to not let my guy catch the ball.”
McLaurin didn’t catch the ball but Brown was left all alone and Eberflus will have to answer questions for some time. Why not bring more of a pass rush? The Bears used three linemen and had linebacker T.J. Edwards as a spy of sorts on Daniels while also keeping an eye on running back Austin Ekeler, who stayed in to block.
“That’s an option,” Eberflus said. “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 the ball for over 12 seconds, and I’m not sure what happened back there in terms of blocking and getting after the quarterback.
“We’ve practiced that play a hundred times since we’ve been here. I’ll have to look at the execution of that but we have a body on a body, boxing guys out like basketball at the very end. We have one guy that is at the rim who knocks the ball down, we have a back tip guy that goes behind the pile. I’ve got to look at it and detail it out and make sure we’re better next time. It’s a hard way to lose.”
The last time the Bears lost because of a Hail Mary was in Week 13 of the 2011 season. The Kansas City Chiefs executed a Hail Mary on the final play of the first half as Tyler Palko connected with running back Dexter McCluster on a 38-yard touchdown, the difference in a 10-3 victory for Kansas City.
Chiefs coach Todd Haley, the former Bears wide receivers coach, designed the play based on the Hail Mary the Bears stunned the Cleveland Browns with in 2001 when running back James Allen caught a Hail Mary from Shane Matthews on the final play of regulation. Of course, the Bears went on to win that game over the Browns on a Mike Brown interception return.
2. I think the Bears win if they defend the penultimate play of the game differently.
And you’ve seen Matt Eberflus turn to this strategy multiple times, including at the end of the second quarter when the Bears were trying to prevent the Commanders from reaching field-goal range.
There were six seconds remaining after Washington had used its final timeout and the Commanders were on their own 35-yard line. Jayden Daniels wasn’t 100% after a rib injury knocked him out the week before. And I’m not sure if there is a quarterback around who can sling the ball far enough to run a Hail Mary from 65 yards away knowing he’s going to have to drop back a good distance to allow receivers to run that far.
The Bears gave up the sideline, though, and allowed a free completion. The Commanders took it with Daniels throwing to Terry McLaurin, who gained 13 yards before getting out of bounds to stop the clock with two seconds remaining.
“That was a huge part of that,” Commanders tight end Zach Ertz said. “If we’re 10 yards further behind, we’re not able to throw a Hail Mary. There are just little plays that continually add up in a football game.”
The Bears defended the sideline late in the second quarter to prevent the Commanders from doing this very thing. If memory serves, it was defensive end DeMarcus Walker standing within a few yards of the Washington sideline when the ball was snapped.
Eberflus chose to defend the end zone.
“You’re defending touchdown there,” he 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.”
He’s not wrong. But Daniels’ heave from his own 35-yard line — that’s where he cut the ball loose from after it was snapped at the 48 — didn’t quite reach the end zone before it was tipped. He was at his outer range and the Bears allowed him to get there with the free 13 yards.
Eberflus could have pressured on the Hail Mary. He didn’t and the biggest failure was the lack of execution by players. Fair to wonder about the strategy to let the Commanders even get in Hail Mary range, in my opinion.
3. The right scenario to run a dive with a 300-pound fullback from the 1-yard line with a little more than six minutes to play in the game is when you’re ahead by 10 or more points or trailing by about 20.
The Bears were down 12-7 with just more than six minutes left when offensive coordinator Shane Waldron dialed up the call for reserve center Doug Kramer Jr., who was lined up in the I-formation ahead of tailback Roschon Johnson. The Bears had been mostly a mess on offense all game and this was a chance to take the lead.
Kramer never secured the handoff. Commanders defensive tackle Johnny Newton, the rookie out of Illinois, recovered and the Bears were stunned. They had finally gotten moving. D’Andre Swift had busted off a 22-yard run with a nifty hurdle move. Caleb Williams dropped a dime to DJ Moore down the sideline for 27 yards and you can’t overlook the sidearm throw he made to DeAndre Carter to get them to the 1-yard line.
“I made a mistake,” Kramer said. “It’s tough. We were excited and I appreciate Shane for having the trust in me to call it. But, yeah, made a mistake. Dropped the ball on the 1-yard line.”
Kramer didn’t try to blame anyone else or even talk about the exchange. “Fumbled it,” was all he said.
“We’ve been repping it for a couple weeks,” he said. “I felt comfortable in the situation. I think Caleb did and obviously Shane was comfortable enough to call it. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the play.”
The Bears have been really proficient with that package and Kramer on the field for goal line and short-yardage situations. Johnson has been effective in getting the ball in the end zone. Might as well stick with that while it’s working. The jumbo guy scoring is fun. It would be a social media hit. A fumble on that play, in a game where the offense fizzled, that’s a rough look for everyone involved.
“It’s a play we’ve worked on numerous times since he’s been in there,” Matt Eberflus said. “And we’ve worked the play and the mechanics and handed it off to him numerous times, and we just have to do it better.
“It’s a 1-yard play and we felt that a big guy like that taking a dive could do that.”
Fortunately, the defense held quickly, forcing the Commanders to punt after only three plays. It sure looked like Washington coach Dan Quinn thought for a second about going for it on fourth-and-inches from his own 12-yard line with 2:11 remaining. It really did.
Of course, the Bears handed the ball to Johnson on the 1-yard line on the ensuing possession, giving them the lead with 25 seconds remaining in the game, a lead that would be short-lived.
4. Matt Eberflus and his staff will get to the bottom of who screwed up on the Hail Mary.
Who knows if the results of their findings will be shared publicly. I expect they knew before their charter plane touched down late at night.
But without the effort by the defense, the Commanders win this game by 20 points, maybe more.
This game had blowout written all over it but the Bears were able to limit Washington to four field goals (a fifth was missed after a bad snap) and nine points came on three chip shots that were from 30 yards or closer.
The defense was terrific in the red zone. Jayden Daniels made some really nice throws but he wasn’t elite and he got shut down in scoring position. If you give up 12 points, you should win nearly every week in the NFL.
The Bears did bend. They wound up giving up 481 yards, a season-high, but that number is skewed by the 52-yard Hail Mary and a 29-yard run by Austin Ekeler on the final play of the first half when he was never a threat to score. The Bears gave up some yards but they didn’t give up the end zone until the Hail Mary. What they didn’t do was create any takeaways.
“It was a frustrating game because there were plays to be made,” Commanders coach Dan Quinn said. “And so a penalty might have knocked us out or maybe a drop here and there. So I thought the execution felt off from what we’re accustomed to. But I would say also some of that we have to give credit to Chicago’s defense, they’re a tough and rugged group.”
There was a 61-yard shot to Terry McLaurin when he got behind Tyrique Stevenson that set Washington up. But it didn’t lead to a touchdown. The Commanders got inside the 10-yard line on three possessions in the first half but led only 9-0 at halftime.
What was disappointing is that coming out of the bye week, the offense got off to a really poor start against what I think is an average defense. Defensive tackle Daron Payne is really good in the middle. Linebacker Bobby Wagner is in his 13th season and the secondary is filled with guys I’m willing to bet the Commanders would like to upgrade in the near future. This is a defense Quinn is getting the most out of. No question.
Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron has to go back and ask what they did wrong coming off the bye week. Caleb Williams was 4-of-13 passing for 36 yards entering the fourth quarter against a secondary that can be picked on.
But the Bears had troubles at times protecting upfront, something that has been systemic during road games and was made worse with some injuries. I don’t know how well they separated from man coverage in this game. It’s as if Waldron was short on answers today, especially on third down where the Bears were 2-for-12.
“Wasn’t good,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “I will tell you that. They were covering well and we weren’t being efficient enough on first and second down and a few penalties set us back there.
“I still thought the response at the end of the game was really good and that’s the NFL. We scored a lot of points the last couple weeks, 30-plus or whatever it was. I don’t think that is the reality of the NFL week to week and you’re going to have to have games like this where you’re going against good teams. To see us battle back down a couple scores and take the lead with 20 seconds left or whatever I think was a big positive.”
Kmet believes some perspective is a good idea too.
“Looking at where you are down two scores and come back and we take the lead,” he said. “I think that’s a huge step for us and look, a Hail Mary is a Hail Mary. It’s a prayer, you’re just tossing up a prayer. To get obsessed with that with where we are at right now is probably a little immature and it’s important that we come back tomorrow and throughout next week and look at the positives, look at the negatives for us offensively. How we started slow and getting those things corrected.
“It is a results-based league and that is matter of fact. We gotta be process-driven in here and that’s important.”
He’s correct in that regard. As poorly as the Bears played, they should have won this ballgame and you’d like to think that in the excitement of victory, some of the offensive issues would not be overlooked.
5. Imagine a world in the future in which Caleb Williams has become a bona fide NFL star.
The days of his four-year, $39.49 million rookie contract are dwindling, and the Bears need to sign him to a massive contract that would be the largest in franchise history by leaps and bounds.
Yes, we’re getting ahead of ourselves for a player who’s seven games into his rookie season. But follow along as we explain why all the talk of aggressive midseason trades that general manager Ryan Poles could make before the Nov. 5 deadline has been mostly hot air.
Williams’ salary-cap hit is a modest $7.2 million this season and climbs gradually each year to a little more than $12.5 million in 2027, the fourth year of the contract. He would be eligible for an extension after Year 3 in 2026, and if that happens, the scenario I’m laying out would be even more noteworthy.
The sooner Williams’ contract explodes and his cap hit spikes with it, the sooner the roster construction puzzle will be more challenging to put together. Yes, we’re making an assumption that this is where Williams is headed, but — guess what? — the Bears are thinking about that potential future too.
Dak Prescott’s new contract with the Dallas Cowboys averages a league-high $60 million per year, and his $43 million cap hit this season bumps to $89 million in 2025 and $68 million in 2026. It makes it a lot more challenging to consider what to do around the quarterback when his piece of the salary-cap pie becomes so large.
In order to accomplish that, the Bears have to hit in the draft and slowly become less of a player in free agency and other means of acquiring front-line talent, including big trades. Does it mean they have to sit out free agency? No. They can dabble and even splurge on occasion for the right player.
Tracking Caleb Williams: How the Chicago Bears QB is performing in his rookie season
But if you look at what the Kansas City Chiefs have done — and they’ve been paying Patrick Mahomes at a high level for a while now — they’ve hit in the draft. Look at what’s regarded as one of the best defenses in the league and it’s almost entirely homegrown. Nine of the 11 starters were drafted by the Chiefs, the exceptions being safety Justin Reid, in the final year of a three-year, $31.5 million contract, and linebacker Drue Tranquill, in the first year of a three-year, $19 million contract.
Yes, the Chiefs are paying a ton of money to defensive tackle Chris Jones, but he was drafted and developed in Kansas City and there weren’t any unknowns when they extended him like there are for players you have to buy on the open market or trade for.
That’s why the draft capital the Bears are sitting on for 2025 — their own first- and second-round picks and the Carolina Panthers’ Round 2 selection — has so much value. It’s a chance for Poles to continue building around Williams with players on cost-controlled contracts.
Holding on to those picks always has made the most sense to me unless the Bears encounter some type of critical need between now and the deadline. Even then, it would take some real consideration before making a deal and I’m not sure any stars would be available.
“I would say the counter to that would be every contract you are trading for is different,” said an assistant general manager with another team when I floated the scenario to him. “I don’t see them trading for a guy like San Francisco or Kansas City where it’s, ‘Hey, let’s just get an eight-game rental.’
“If the Bears are going to do it, it’s something like Montez Sweat and what they did last year. Trade for a guy and extend him. But I see them standing pat too. They need the draft capital.
“The counter, if they do something, they’ve still got three, four years where they could pay a player to help the quarterback if it’s a receiver, if it’s a marquee pass rusher, a marquee position. I don’t know if there are a lot of guys like that available.”
Wide receiver is one position where the Bears don’t need help. Poles used that very logic — paying a player to help the quarterback — when he traded for Keenan Allen in March.
The Bears got their marquee pass rusher in Sweat last year, and it’s somewhat rare for teams to double up on huge contracts for defensive ends. It also doesn’t sound like a player anywhere near Sweat’s ability is available in a trade this year.
“My point is they’re in Year 1 of (Williams’) rookie contract and they’ve got (Years) 2, 3 for sure, and maybe Year 4 is the extension,” the assistant GM said. “You don’t want to get into the fifth-year option (in 2028). You’ll pick it up as a fail-safe but you don’t want to get into that because that number is going to be high.
“Let’s say they have him play three years and then really use all of their leash, have him play Year 4 on the rookie deal, and the extension comes along before Year 5 starts. It’s got huge cash and you prorate it out so that cap number in Year 5 is still going to be relatively low to what you see for these veteran quarterbacks, and that’s 2028 then.
“When you look at it that way, I don’t think that would disqualify them from making a trade now.”
He then asked me what the Bears might be in the market for in a scenario in which Poles would consider a splash move at the deadline, as he made the last two years with Sweat — a hit — and wide receiver Chase Claypool, a miss.
Offensive line, I said.
“O-line?” he replied. “There’s no depth there. You don’t have teams that are looking at their starter and saying, ‘Ah, we’ve got a guy behind him we can just plug and play.’ I don’t think that guy is out there.”
The conversation turned back to the draft picks the Bears own, including the plum choice coming from the Panthers that should be one of the top picks in Round 2. Odds are the Bears have a chance of hitting on maybe two of their top three picks.
“If I am the Bears, there’s your answer right there,” he said. “I am building this team for 2025, maybe more like 2026, and those draft picks are huge in that equation and I am not giving those away unless it is unique.
“It’s a 25-year-old pass rusher that wants to get a deal done. It’s somebody like (wide receiver) Tee Higgins — Cincinnati isn’t trading Tee Higgins — but it’s something like that where it falls in your lap. You’re not going to trade for a runner.
“There is just a limited number of positions you would walk away from those picks for. And the Bears don’t need a receiver, and I’m with you, I tend to doubt they’re feeling the need to trade for that pass rusher if there is even one out there.”
Poles has been aggressive at times, and that track record fuels discussion. This doesn’t seem like the time or place for such a calculated move.
6. One of the things the Bears had going for them on the offensive line was guys were starting to settle in a bit.
Things could be shuffled here soon after three linemen left the game with injuries.
Left tackle Braxton Jones walked to the locker room late in the second quarter with a knee injury and did not return. Left guard Teven Jenkins left the game with a knee injury, returned briefly and then departed for good. Jenkins’ replacement Bill Murray left the game with a pectoral muscle injury which led Doug Kramer to close out the game at left guard.
Matt Eberflus didn’t have any more injury information after the game but the Bears will be taking a close look at this, especially with some moving parts. Guard/tackle Larry Borom, who suffered a high ankle sprain in the preseason finale at Kansas City, returned to practice last week. With another solid week of practice, he could be restored to the 53-man roster by the end of this coming week. The hunch here is Ryan Bates has a chance to begin practicing this week as he returns from a shoulder/elbow injury. That likely leaves him a little further off from being game-ready.
I’ve thought Nate Davis would be a candidate to be released when the Bears get back to full strength on the line. Depending on what happens with the injured players, he could very well be needed.
We’ll see what the situation is for Jones, who I think has been the team’s most consistent performer. Rookie third-round pick Kiran Amegadjie replaced him and had some struggles. That’s not surprising. He missed training camp and preseason and hasn’t really played football in 12 months, since he was in the Ivy League. The Commanders matched up some smaller guys like linebacker Frankie Luvu on him and that was a challenge.
Borom has played left tackle before. Right guard Matt Pryor looked like he’d be the swing tackle at the start of the season. There are some options, especially as the team gets a little healthier.
“Would feel better with a win,” Amegadjie said of his experience. “But it was fun to play football again. Fun to play NFL football. It was a good challenge.”
He said the speed wasn’t an issue because he’s been practicing for two months. He did showcase his athleticism on a pin-and-pull play that sprang D’Andre Swift for a 56-yard touchdown.
“Just kind of saw a lot of green grass and I had to just get that one guy (safety Quan Martin) and there was nobody left,” said Amegadjie, who was the puller.
Tight end Gerald Everett and Jenkins blocked down and Amegadjie got out and on the move. He inadvertently wiped out safety Jeremy Chinn after blocking Martin. The Bears had numbers on the edge and one-for-one blocking. It’s a play that takes a long time to develop so you really have to win on the edge, which they did, and then you saw Swift’s ability.
I am curious to learn how they evaluate Amegadjie. They probably could have done some more to help him. That’s a tough spot for a third-round rookie. He was drafted because of his upside but I don’t think anyone was really counting on that upside in 2024. He’s gotten limited reps in practice and that’s his first exposure to playing on an island in a real game.
There could be several moving parts here and although it looked like Davis, who was a healthy inactive, might not be around much longer, he could legitimately be needed.
7. Running back Khalil Herbert was a healthy inactive for the first time this season.
The Bears did grant his agent permission to shop a trade, multiple league sources said. I do not believe Herbert will be traded.
The Bears are probably going to need Herbert this season. There are 10 games remaining and it would be pretty foolish to think D’Andre Swift, who missed 11 games over the first four years of his career, and Roschon Johnson will not be dinged up the rest of the way and make Herbert a regular in the backfield again.
Herbert’s probably not too happy. He shouldn’t be. He’s been a productive player for the Bears and he hasn’t touched the ball on offense since Week 3. Can you rule a trade out? No. But I think a team would have to call the Bears and offer a fifth-round pick for Herbert. He’s in the final year of his contract so he’d be a rental at a position where teams legitimately looking for help generally aren’t going to pay a whole lot.
The Bears had six defensive ends active for the game with Darrell Taylor, Austin Booker, Daniel Hardy and Jacob Martin, just activated from injured reserve, behind starters Montez Sweat (who suffered a shin injury in the game) and DeMarcus Walker. That is a high number and probably why Herbert was down. My guess here is they wanted extra bodies to help try to contain Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and the reserves can all play special teams.
GM Ryan Poles probably owed it to Herbert to allow his agent permission to talk to other teams because Herbert has been a good guy in the locker room and a solid player. If there’s something that makes sense for all parties, that could happen. But as I have written in the last month, Herbert has way more value for the Bears on their roster right now than he does helping them achieve some kind of pick swap or something. It might not look that way with how he’s being used but I bet his time comes. If he takes advantage of it, that ought to help him as a free agent.
8. There have been three kickoff returns for touchdowns going into the Monday night game (New York Giants at Pittsburgh) and fireworks on the reimagined special teams play could be coming soon.
There were only four kickoff returns for touchdowns last season, six in 2022 and nine in 2021. The feeling is the league could see a handful more for the rest of the season.
“In the next few weeks, especially for the teams in the north where it’s starting to get colder, we could start seeing some bigger returns because the kickoffs are not going to travel as far,” predicted one special teams coordinator I chatted with this week. “We’re still having some weather where you can get some nice days but I think we might start seeing some things pop. Keep your eyes open for that.”
Entering Week 8, the average starting field position on kickoffs around the league is the 29.5-yard line. There have been enough games to establish a data point and that tells head coaches — the guys who ultimately decide what the strategy is on the kickoff — there’s not a lot of harm in booting the ball deep in the end zone and allowing the opponent to begin the drive at the 30-yard line on a touchback. If the average starting point was close to the 25, that 5-yard difference (essentially half of a first down) might make it tempting to try to kick and cover more.
As the fall season takes hold and temperatures drop — it was 60 degrees on Sunday afternoon here — kickers without powerful legs won’t be able to drive the ball as consistently deep. That is going to create opportunities for more big plays.
It sure sounds like we will see a tweak to the rules in 2025. Commissioner Roger Goodell talked about the kickoff rule at a fan fest in London before the Bears played the Jaguars.
“With that increase in returns, it’s giving us more data to determine whether we can do it more safely,” Goodell said. “It actually is incredibly promising. We’re seeing lower impacts that have led to less severe injuries and less number of injuries. So I think it’s working.”
Ten teams have had touchbacks on 75% or more of their kickoffs and only nine are below 60% so the league hasn’t quite achieved the uptick in returns that it anticipated with the rule change. Those numbers could dip a little as the weather turns.
“I think what we’ll see ultimately is a change in the offseason,” Goodell said. “Once we know it’s a safer play, it will encourage more kickoffs. That could happen in a couple of ways. You could move the kickoff line back, so that they can’t kick it out as easily. You could also say the penalty for kicking it out is going to go to the 35 instead of where we’re at, the 30.”
Remember, the original proposal for the rule change called for the touchback line to be at the 35, not the 30. That would have led to a lot more situations where coaches would choose to kick and cover. Moving the kickoff line back 5 yards probably would not achieve the same result as there are enough kickers who can power the ball well through the end zone right now.
9. I give credit to Velus Jones Jr.
He kept the kind of positive attitude a player has to maintain in order to have a chance to succeed. He didn’t duck questions when he made a mistake. He stood at his locker postgame and took wave after wave of questions. He was a stand-up guy.
None of that matters when ball security is a recurring obstacle. Saying he’s got to do a better job doesn’t solve anything but there are plenty of players who will duck that and leave teammates to answer questions for their own miscues.
The Bears tried with Jones and they tried longer and harder than I thought they would. In my 53-man roster projection before cuts, I had Jones on the outside looking in. I didn’t think he had a position on an offense that for the first time in a long time had a wealth of skill position options. But the Bears held out hope he could be a real spark with the new kickoff rules. That was short-lived with his miscue in the opener against Tennessee and credit to the coaching staff, he wasn’t put in a situation where he could make another costly mistake.
If I had one area where I would second-guess what the team did with Jones, why not see if he could work through punt return issues late in the 2022 season or again at the end of last year when chances at an unlikely playoff run were minuscule? The Bears were going nowhere in 2022 but they shelved Jones as a punt returner after Week 6 and as that season wound down, they were playing for draft position only. Why not run Jones back out there? If the answer was he was making the same mistakes in practice, OK. But the team never used that as an explanation.
Where does Jones go from here? The team placed him on waivers Saturday, which means there wasn’t a team out there willing to trade a conditional pick or make some kind of pick swap to acquire the 2022 third-round selection.
“He’s had so many drops, that’s a tough one,” the special teams coordinator I chatted about kickoff returns with said. “But you liked him coming out in the draft. He is a bigger guy, a strong athlete, a guy that everybody thinks they can do something better with, something the other team couldn’t (with the player). You know what I mean? Sometimes guys need a change of scenery, that might help the kid. But he hasn’t been that good of a cover player.
“I don’t know that he gets claimed. If you really want him, maybe he clears claims and you get him on the practice squad. If I’m a bottom-feeder team, I would go in and say, ‘If he clears, let’s call his agent and let’s try to get him on the practice squad.’ Then from there, if he’s showing promise, maybe you use a roster elevation. Use your three elevations and then you make a decision from there.”
General manager Ryan Poles was drawn to Jones’ top-flight athleticism. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.31 seconds at the Scouting Combine and wasn’t just a burner. He’s got strength and power too. Poles acknowledged it was a miss by waiving Jones. Poles was also in Kansas City on a staff that consistently stocked special teams with dynamic options for Dave Toub, the former Bears special teams coordinator. We’ll see what he can do with his next swing at the position in the draft.
10. One of the first moves the Bears made when they returned from London two weeks ago was to call long snapper Jake McQuaide.
They didn’t know the status of Scott Daly, who injured the MCL in his left knee against the Jaguars, leading to Cole Kmet’s long-snapping heroics. And they wanted to be covered.
It was the call McQuaide, 36, had been waiting for: a chance to continue his career. The Bears signed him to the practice squad and carried him through this past week as insurance in the event Daly — who played against the Commanders — would not be available.
Barring something unexpected, McQuaide’s stint with the Bears likely will be over soon, and it probably wasn’t very memorable. But he had the opportunity to show them in practice that he’s ready if a need arises again. He collected two small checks for his efforts.
The question I had for McQuaide, who according to Over The Cap has earned roughly $11.7 million in his career, was why a two-time Pro Bowl selection keeps chasing one of 32 jobs in the league. He has played in 190 regular-season games over 13 seasons.
What motivates him to head every other day to the garage at his home, where he has turf and a net set up to practice his trade? McQuaide aims for a small piece of tape attached to the net and videos his practice reps to critique himself. It’s not just snapping either. He has to lift and do cardio so that if he needs to pack a bag at a moment’s notice for a tryout, he’s physically prepared.
“I love doing this,” McQuaide said. “I love doing it and it’s kind of a balance of being there physically for my kids but also having them see their dad try to live his dream. So my wife (Abby) is a rock star.”
The McQuaides have four kids — ages 9, 7, 5 and 4 — so when he’s away playing football, it’s hard on everyone. That’s why, after he suffered a torn left triceps during the 2022 season with the Dallas Cowboys, he tried to find a job closer to his home in Cincinnati.
McQuaide competed with Daly in 2023 with the Detroit Lions, who ultimately chose the younger Daly. But Daly tore the MCL in his left knee at midseason, and the Lions had McQuaide finish the season. That was after about 10 tryouts.
This past offseason he hoped to land something not far from home. He had workouts in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Nothing materialized. He kept snapping in the garage, waiting for a phone call. Unless something changes, he’ll probably be back going through the same routine soon.
“It’s still my dream,” McQuaide said.
10a. Poor optics for the Bears on Friday, a day after Durk Banks, a Chicago rapper who goes by Lil Durk, was arrested in Florida as he attempted to flee the country. In a federal complaint, Banks has been accused of contracting five Chicago associates in a murder-for-hire plot to kill Tyquian Terrel Bowman, a rapper known as Quando Rondo.
Charges in the complaint, which was unsealed Friday in Los Angeles, include conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, committing murder-for-hire involving a death and use of a machine gun in a violent crime resulting in death.
The Bears obviously didn’t know federal authorities were pursuing a case against Banks for the August 2022 shooting that resulted in the death of one of Bowman’s cousins. Banks had become a regular guest of the team at Halas Hall and Soldier Field in the last couple of years. He appeared in an episode of “Hard Knocks,” and the team had full control of the show’s content.
He was on the field at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London just two weeks ago before the Bears game against the Jaguars, appearing on the Fox-32 pregame show and even posing for a photo with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
.@lildurk with the Bears CEO Kevin Warren & the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pic.twitter.com/Dft3gLhKaJ
— Lil Durk Crave (@LilDurkCrave) October 13, 2024
10b. Not enough props for running back D’Andre Swift, who had 129 yards on 18 carries. He has 386 yards over the last four games, a total that ranks fourth in the league in that span. We’re seeing precisely why the Bears added him in free agency.
10c. Punter Tory Taylor landed four punts inside the 10-yard line as the Bears won the field position game. He’s got eight punts inside the 10 for the season, second in the league behind Cleveland’s Corey Bojorquez.
10d. The CBS crew of Ian Eagle, Charles Davis and Evan Washburn will call the Bears game against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.
10e. The Cardinals opened as a 1 1/2-point favorite over the Bears for Sunday’s game in Glendale, Ariz., at Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas.
