The Bears’ 21-point lead had dwindled to seven Sunday when quarterback Justin Fields went under center at the Broncos’ 48 with about seven minutes to play inside a wary Soldier Field.
Wide receiver Velus Jones went in motion, and running back Khalil Herbert bluffed a handoff left, with the plan for Fields to slip out on a naked bootleg to the right. Fields faked the handoff with his back to the line of scrimmage. When he turned to his right to roll out, linebacker Nik Bonitto was waiting for him.
The first rule of a naked bootleg, Fields remembered, was not to take a sack. In the split second before Bonitto hit Fields, he tried to throw the ball away. It slipped out of his right hand, soared backward through the air and landed five yards behind him. Linebacker Jonathon Cooper picked it up on a bounce at the 35 and outran Fields to the end zone.
Tie game — and eventually a 31-28 Broncos victory.
How do the Bears lose their franchise-record 14th straight game despite totaling 471 yards, the 19th-most the franchise has picked up since the AFL-NFL merger? How do they tie a Bears record for the largest blown lead despite Fields having a career-best 132.7 passer rating and a perfect 158.3 rating in the first half? How do they remain just one of two winless NFL teams despite Fields throwing for 335 yards, his most since he played Clemson in the national championship semifinal?
Outside of a major coaching gaffe — with the score tied and about three minutes left, Matt Eberflus decided to go for it on fourth-and-one from the Broncos’ 18 rather than kick a field goal — it was the quarterback. It always is.
As sharp as Fields was, he committed two turnovers that absolutely crushed the Bears.
“It hurt,” Fields said. “Just the lead that we had, y’know, and I wasn’t able to finish it off.”
The first was the fumble, before which Fields had so little time to react.
“I don’t know if I could really do anything, to be honest with you,” he said. “I just tried to get the ball out and just kinda make it . . . an incomplete pass and move on to the next play.”
Eberflus said he needed to throw it away.
“He’s either got to ‘dirt’ the ball or get it to where he feels it’s the best way to get rid of it,” he said.
Instead, the Broncos were back in the game. Fields’ second turnover sealed Denver’s win. The Bears trailed by three and were out of timeouts with 38 seconds to play when Fields, on third-and-13 from the Bears’ 47, looked deep for tight end Cole Kmet, only to have safety Kareem Jackson pick it off and celebrate the Broncos’ first win of the year.
Against man coverage with a safety playing deep, Fields said he thought Kmet would sit down on his route in the middle of the field.
“Kinda freelance — boom, go up there, turn around, sit down and move onto the next play,” Fields said.
Instead, Kmet did what the Bears’ rules dictate — to try to sell an over route, then break toward the left sideline.
“All in all, it’s my fault,” Fields said. “Man coverage, he’s supposed to do what he did. But I kinda want him to just play football and kinda just sit down in space. That’s kinda why I threw it to a spot how I did. It was really just a miscommunication. . . .
“It comes down to being my fault . . . I gotta be better for the team in that situation.”
Fields took advantage of a historically inept Broncos defense — and maybe the one in the NFL that’s worse than the Bears’. Last week, the Broncos became the first team in the history of the league to give up 70 points and 700 yards in the same game.
In doing so, Fields provided the first glimpse all year of a functioning offense. But beware of false positives: Fields’ performance could echo Mitch Trubisky’s supposed breakout against the Buccaneers in 2018. Trubisky threw for six touchdowns and 354 yards against a defense that wound up allowing the second-most points in the NFL that year.
But at least Trubisky won the game.
Fields was posting video-game numbers against the Broncos — at halftime, his only incomplete pass was a Hail Mary at the gun — but couldn’t finish when the Bears needed to have points.
Through three quarters, the Bears had scored touchdowns on three drives, punted once and launched the Hail Mary.
In the fourth quarter, they failed to score on all four drives. They went three-and-out and punted, Fields fumbled, Herbert failed to gain a half-yard on fourth down and Fields threw the interception.
“We were in a rhythm, [offensive coordinator] Luke [Getsy] was dialing it up and guys were protecting up front,” Fields said. “Receivers were getting open. We were definitely in a rhythm. . . . We lost the game, so it really doesn’t matter.”
