Anthony Miller walked into the Bears’ locker room after catching five passes for a career-high 122 yards and noticed the pinkie finger on his right hand was pointed the wrong way.
“I guess it was so cold I really couldn’t tell,” he said.
The Bears’ rookie receiver first dislocated the pinkie over the summer. He wasn’t concerned it would affect his status Sunday against the Vikings. Good thing, too — Miller is becoming one of the Bears’ best weapons.
His chemistry with quarterback Mitch Trubisky produced the Bears’ two longest plays in Sunday’s 34-22 win a Soldier Field — a 55-yard pass in the third quarter and a 45-yard scoring pass in the second.
“It’s something we’ve both been waiting for, because we’ve missed a lot of connections over the past few weeks,” Miller said. “It’s finally all coming together. He’s throwing the ball great.”
Miller’s career game came with a dumbfounding fourth quarter. When the Lions attempted an onside kick with 8:30 to play, Miller smacked the ball out of bounds rather than catch it. He was flagged for illegal batting; he didn’t know it was illegal to hit the ball forward. The Lions got to kick again, recovered it and eventually scored.
Later in the fourth, Miller was flagged for spinning the ball on the ground after converting a third down.
“I say that’s a bad call,” he said. “I wasn’t taunting anyone. I still apologize to coach [Matt Nagy] for it, because it hurt the team in the end.”
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