Bears find their ‘own energy,’ rally to beat Lions 27-23

DETROIT – At some point during the first game in the strangest season in NFL history, it hit Bears coach Matt Nagy. Playing in front of no fans — save the cardboard ones behind one end zone at Ford Field — and with no crowd noise felt a few rungs down on the sports ladder.

It was, well, a high school basketball game. The only way to create energy, he figured, was to have his players do what fans do there — jump up and down and get loud.

So when quarterback Mitch Trubisky rallied for three fourth-quarter touchdowns to stun the Lions 27-23 on Sunday, the Bears sideline acted like kids trying to force a missed free throw. They did the same when Matthew Stafford tried to march the Lions to a game-winning touchdown, only to have rookie running back D’Andre Swift drop a pass in the end zonewith 6 seconds left. He then threw an incompletion on the final play.

“We started noticing was the only way the energy was going to jump up,” Nagy said, ”was if we created our own.”

For the first three quarters, all the Bears created was depressing, downward spiral that threatened to smother hopes of any improvement this season. In the first half, Trubisky looked as bad as he did for most of last season. Nagy’s decision to name him starter seemed like the wrong one before halftime began.

The empty stadium didn’t help.

“I don’t know if eerie is the right word,” Trubisky said.

Then the rally began. Trailing by 17 with 14 minutes to play, the Bears scored three touchdowns in about 12 minutes. The last one, a 27-yard diving catch by receiver Anthony Miller at the front right pylon on the first play after the two-minute warning, gave them their first lead of the game.

Will the rally change the course of the season? The Bears will never know. But it marked the franchise’s first season-opening win since 2013.

“If you don’t get this win, what do we all do?” Nagy said. “We dwell on what happened in the first quarter, the second quarter and really part of the third.

“Instead, this win shows us a couple of things. It shows we can handle adversity as a team. It shows we stick together, which we’ve already checked that one off. We did that last year, but it also shows there are some things we need to get better at.”

It starts, as it always does, with Trubisky. But there’s no ignoring what he accomplished in the fourth quarter Sunday, even though he had some help from the hapless Lions. He went 8-for-10 for 89 yards, three touchdown passes and a 143.3 passer rating.

The Bears overcame a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit for the first time since they beat the Chiefs in 2015. They scored their most fourth quarter points since the Cowboys game in 2014.

The Bears trailed by 17 when the Lions’ Matt Prater made a 44-yard field goal with about three minutes to play in the third quarter. By the time the Bears scored their first touchdown — a 2-yard jump-ball to tight end Jimmy Graham, split wide right, 11 plays later — there was 13:39 to play in the game.

The two sides traded punts — the Bears actually faced fourth-and-41 after Trubisky ran backwards and fumbled — before the Lions, up 10 with 4:08 to play, let Prater try a 55-yard field goal. He pushed it right.

Five plays and 55 yards later, the Bears were back in the end zone. After Graham caught a 16-yard pass to get to the 1, Javon Wims caught a pass to put them down three.

They were down three with 2:45 to play when, on third down, Stafford threw a pass that caromed off safety Eddie Jackson’s back and landed in cornerback Kyle Fuller’s arms, giving the Bears the ball at the Lions’ 38 with 2:35 to play.

On first-and-10 from the 27, Trubisky lofted a ball that only Miller could catch, and he did.

“We always have confidence in Mitch,” Miller said. “We had a slow start in the first half and we know we were only down because of us, not because they were that good.”

They weren’t. And the Bears were even worse — until the fourth quarter.

“If we want to be a great team, we’ve gotta learn from that, and we gotta start faster,” said Trubisky, who went 20-for-36 for 242 yards, three scores and a 104.2 passer rating. “That’s on me and the rest of the guys on offense to fix that, come out rolling.”

Otherwise, next week will feel just as flat.

“You gotta create your own energy,” Trubisky said. “For your team and your offense.”