DETROIT — For all the excitement and promise preceding it, the Bears’ collapse at the end undercut whatever they thought they had accomplished against the Lions.
The end was all too familiar, with quarterback Justin Fields getting blindsided as he fumbled the ball out of the back of the end zone in the final phase of the Bears’ unraveling in a 31-26 loss at Ford Field on Sunday.
As Fields dropped back to his 15-yard line, Aidan Hutchinson bull-rushed through rookie right tackle Darnell Wright, chopped the ball out of Fields’ hand for a strip-sack, chased it into the end zone and punted it into a crowd that already had exploded in delight.
Fields otherwise played well after missing four games with a dislocated thumb — well enough, in fact, that the Bears took what should have been a prohibitive 26-14 lead with 4:15 left.
“If I’m keeping it real with all of you, we should’ve won that game,” Fields said.
That was a common sentiment in the Bears’ locker room, but they need actual wins, not almost-wins. They’re past pulling positives out of losses like this.
“We’ve gotta win,” tight end Cole Kmet said, fuming about falling apart when the Bears “kinda kicked their ass” by holding possession for 40:24.
ESPN analytics gave the Bears a 98.2% chance of winning once they went ahead 26-14.
“It hurts a lot,” Kmet added. “Third time we’ve handled these guys pretty well in the last three years [and lost]. . . . It’s tough. We’ve just gotta find a way. It’s hard, for sure.”
Regardless of the optimism generated during much of the game, it came down to which team — and which quarterback — was more capable in the final minutes.
The Lions’ Jared Goff was playing his worst game of the season by far until the fourth quarter, when he completed 11 of 14 passes for 120 yards and a touchdown. He led two touchdown drives, one taking only 1:16 and the other 2:04, to pull off the comeback.
Fields completed 16 of 22 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown through three quarters but was 0-for-1 in the fourth and took two sacks.
Between Lions touchdowns, when all they needed to do was run clock, the Bears did nothing. They ran Khalil Herbert through the line twice for a total of one yard, then Fields heaved a deep ball to rookie wide receiver Tyler Scott that fell incomplete as Scott admittedly misplayed it.
“It’s my chance to make an impact on this game and put a dagger in the game,” Scott said. “It hurts that you’re not able to execute in those moments.
“Justin threw a great ball — great ball. I misjudged it.”
Three plays. One yard. Fourteen seconds off the clock.
That’s a bad team finding a way to lose.
“It’s tough there with the two runs,” Kmet said. “They’re loading the box there, and you’re banking on maybe they miss a tackle, and we get one for five yards and then one for six, and you get a first down over those two runs. The pass, it’s just tough. We think we can execute that play.
‘‘The week before, we were able to seal the game on offense, and we’ve gotta be able to do more of that if we want to win these games.’’
That was some wishful thinking by the Bears to hope Herbert could gash a Lions defense that held him to 35 yards on 16 carries.
Fields ideally would’ve been the runner on the read-option offensive coordinator Luke Getsy called on second-and-10, but the Lions went wide to contain him, and Fields handed it to Herbert.
“He did a good job there,” coach Matt Eberflus said. “He read it correctly.”
Fields looked good until the end and finished with a 105.2 passer rating, the seventh-highest of his career. He also rushed for 104 yards on 18 carries — 14 of those were designed runs — for his fifth career 100-yard game.
But however efficient he was as a passer, 169 yards typically won’t be enough. That’s in line with his career average, which has fueled the conversation about whether the Bears need to draft his replacement. The teams atop the NFL have far more dynamic aerial attacks, and, in this case, it was better to be the Lions with Goff throwing them down the field at the end to win it.
“You always want major production, right?” Eberflus said.
And you want it when the game is on the line.
Frustrating fourth quarters are nothing new for Fields, who coughed up turnovers late in the Bears’ other epic collapse this season against the Broncos. He has a 60 passer rating in the fourth quarter this season.
Goff closed. Fields didn’t.
“Finishing and when it comes down to it, just making plays,” Fields said of what the Bears needed in crucial moments. “Can’t really explain it. You’ve just got to go out there and do it.”
The rest of this season is all about determining if the Bears can win, against legitimately good teams, with Fields. That requires complete and steady performances, and this wasn’t that.
This was another hologram. Look at it from one angle and see Fields putting up 273 total yards and looking sharp overall. Look at it from another and see all the limitations and wonder why there hasn’t been more progress.
He has to deliver something conclusive. And he has only six more games to do it.
