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Even Wile E. Coyote couldn’t find a way to do what the Bears did

Posted on by Bobb
Even Wile E. Coyote couldn’t find a way to do what the Bears did

Bears don’t seem to handle special situations very well.

Give them a first and ten, a second and five in midfield, something like that and they’ll be golden.

Place the ball on the goal line and any sad comedy can happen. They can throw it to the side or back and end up losing 12 yards on fourth-and-goal from the first, like in Indianapolis. On Sunday, they borrowed a page from the Mike Ditka era with the William Perry type, led by center Doug Kramer, and it blew up in their faces.

It was like giving Wile E. Coyote a box of dynamite without a blaster. Somehow you knew it was all still happening in an explosion, and it did. The ball passed from the hands of one former Illini player to the hands of another former Illini player when Kramer handed it to Johnny Newton. Imagine this.

In fact, Wyle E. could never have imagined anything as ridiculous as the play Shane Waldron called at that crucial point in the game.

Other teams push when they need yardage. Bears are just kicking themselves in the ass.

But on Sunday their usually reliable defense showed it can also operate in a special situation with the game on the line and only a prayer for a chance on offense, and could squander one of the most dogged comebacks since at least their first season. .

So how come Elijah Hicks, Josh Blackwell, Jaylon Jones and Kevin Byard came together to catch the ball on a Hail Mary pass at the 3-yard line, Jaylon Johnson and Tremaine Edmunds were able to take out Terry McLaurin near the 10-yard line? y line, and Tyreek Stevenson could do, well, whatever he does?

He taunted the fans when the game started and the receivers were already 25 yards downfield. This was captured on video by people present at the game.

The Bears definitely managed to screw it up. No one was near Noah Brown when he caught a deflected pass from a hole in front of the goal line.

Kevin Byard was closest to him, but it is not entirely clear that he was supposed to cover Brown.

Perhaps it should have been Edmunds. Eberflus initially said whoever was with McLaurin around the 10th might have been the one who should have taken the tip in the end zone, but he did not say who it was.

“I have to take a look at this,” Eberflus told reporters.

For Edmunds, a 6-foot-5 guy with long arms, it makes sense to get back there, but not to the 10-yard line. That’s where you let the guy catch him and then you grab the receiver. Game over.

Edmunds in the pit where everyone was jumping made sense too. A guy who is 6-5 and has long arms has a better chance of getting it or preventing someone taller from tipping it over than a guy with a 5-11 DB like Hicks, Jones, Blackwell and Byard. And a 6-5 guy with long arms makes more sense at the back because Brown has no chance of catching the ball with such a big man guarding him.

What about the pass in the game? They could have gotten out the kidney cutters and nipped this whole thing in the bud before this computer tragedy happened. They had three defensive linemen try to chase Jaden Houdini Daniels in slow motion and he escaped. Some teams pick off the passer on the last play and you might just forget about playing the Hail Mary.

“No question,” said Eberflus. “I’ve seen people do it. You know, we have that, but you know, again, we decided to do a three-man push again. I think he had it for over 12 seconds.”

As for using a linebacker to hover near the line with the running back?

“You know, TJ adds a little bit to it (to the rush) because he has a running back,” Eberflus said.

But he was in no hurry, and Daniels had no intention of giving the ball to the running back. If he did, the game would have ended at some point when he was captured. So who cares about the running back? It would be nice to bring back an additional DB to help.

Even the preparation for the Hail Mary looked like a failure.

They all played wide receivers and deep in the field, and allowed Daniels to throw a 13-yard pass to McLaurin, and were far enough away from him that he ran out of bounds after 13 yards. If they had simply tackled it inbounds, the Commanders would have had no way to end another play because there were two seconds left. They had no timeouts because they used them after the previous play on Zach Ertz’s reception. They couldn’t get to the line and ground the ball before throwing it out of bounds. Line up the DB by covering the sides and prevent this from happening. Game over.

So all they had to do was just put the players on the sideline so they couldn’t stop the clock.

“You defend a touchdown and they throw the ball 13 or 10 yards, whatever it is, it doesn’t really matter,” Eberflus said.

It really made a difference because it allowed them to throw the Hail Mary on the next play, and allowed them to stop the clock to do it. If McLaurin caught the ball and headed forward, then when he was intercepted, the game was over.

If they don’t get the completion, it’s incomplete for McLaurin, it’s a 65-yard Hail Mary. He does not have such a hand unless someone rushes and he is allowed to throw it. Nobody does. They were alone at the 35 at the line of scrimmage, so his pass should have been about 68 yards from there with six seconds left.

What are the chances of winning then if the ball is in with 35 and six seconds remaining?

Behind all this nonsense is the zero points they got for going to the 1-yard line earlier in the fourth quarter. That’s when Wile E., er, Waldron, their offensive coordinator, decided to become a super genius and give it to center fielder Kramer.

Of course he fumbled. The odds of that happening were much better than the Commanders having the ball with 35 and six seconds remaining. In fact, they were probably close to even money.

“And I know there will be a lot of questions about Doug Kramer’s play,” Eberflus said.

Yes, do you think?

They play with an offensive line so beat up in the game that they were going to put Kramer on defense after it was carried into the end zone because they didn’t have enough defenders. Teven Jenkins got hurt, Bill Murray got hurt. Nate Davis was out of shape.

So behind that line they give the ball to their third center, who wasn’t really a fullback, and he’s going to become a fullback, but after he now becomes a running back? Wait, what?

Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo well

My head just exploded.

Thanks, Wyle E.

Thank you very much Bears.

Twitter: BearsOnSi