Bears DBs Critical of Coaching Decisions That Led to Commanders Game-Winning Hail Mary

Before the Chicago Bears gave up an improbable game-winning Hail Mary to the Washington Commanders, they might have made a mistake just as critical toward their eventual 18-15 loss.

With just six seconds left on the clock, the Bears allowed Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels to complete a pass to wide receiver Terry McLaurin, who went out of bounds to stop the clock. The play stopped the clock with two seconds left, and gave the Commanders enough yards to reasonably set Daniels up in position to attempt a Hail Mary.

No Bears defender was within ten yards of McLaurin when he caught the pass, allowing him to easily make the catch and go out bounds. The Commanders had no timeouts left when McLaurin caught the pass.

Had the Bears had a defender on McLaurin, they could have potentially prevented the completion or at least kept him in bounds to stop the clock. Instead, the Bears gave up an easy completion that set up the Hail Mary.

Bears head coach Matt Eberflus defended the Bears’ coverage choice on that play, saying that they just needed to prevent a touchdown.

“You’re defending a touchdown there, and them throwing a ball for 13 yards or 10 yards, whatever it is, really doesn’t matter,” Eberflus said Sunday night, via Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “It’s always going to come down to that last play, and it came down to a two-second play to the last play, and we’ve got to execute on that one.”

Eberflus defended the decision once again on Monday.

“If you want to play sideline defense, what they’re gonna do is convert to the Hail Mary there and just run everybody off the sideline,” Eberflus said. “Then you’ve got to pick them up from the sideline and do the same job that you’re going to do in the Hail Mary. To me, we wanted to bring them up so we wouldn’t give them something that was too far down the field, which it was to the 48, and then we set up for the Hail Mary at the end.”

Multiple Bears players have disagreed with Eberflus on how the team handled the second-to-last play of the game, and noted that they could have approached the play differently.

“He has his feelings about it,” Bears All-Pro safety Kevin Byard said. “I think it’s a lot of different ways you can defend those plays. Me personally, I think that in that scenario possibly [we] could’ve had the corners pressed up there because they just ran two out cuts, and the play was called just to get a couple more yards to throw it down the field.

“If you had the guys pressed up,” Byard continued, “Maybe they convert to verticals and they actually run the Hail Mary [then], but even if they do that, our corners run with those guys — I’m not saying he doesn’t have the arm strength — but you think about the ball maybe landing 10 yards shorter and it may be a little different … Could we have sent pressure? Maybe. But he made the call and that’s what it was.”

Byard said he met with Eberflus to talk about the play, and that Eberflus was “receptive” to his thoughts, per 670 The Score.

Bears All-Pro cornerback Jaylon Johnson said the team could have taken a timeout after McLaurin went out of bounds to prepare for the Hail Mary better. Johnson also wished the defense could have covered McLaurin more closely, saying that Daniels likely could not have driven the ball to the end zone from that spot. “He didn’t get the ball to the goal line where they were at,” Johnson said, via Chicago’s 670 The Score.

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