Bears News: Brown explains changing his mind on late fourth-down play |
CHICAGO - How many times do you see a team allow six points and lose? That is precisely what the Chicago Bears did against the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday night when they lost 6-3 to get their tenth straight loss.
Special teams and the defense played very well in some of their strongest performances of the year, the offensive production was dismal. “I thought special teams played extremely well. I thought defense played their butts off the entire night and the offense was not good enough, which starts with me as far as the game plan that I had coming into this game, having those guys ready to go,” head coach Thomas Brown said. “We had plenty of opportunities to win it, had an unfortunate call that took away one of the touchdowns. But, (we) still had plenty of chances to take at bats and that’s extremely frustrating (and) disappointing, which is 100 percent on me. So, we’ll have a couple days off, have a chance to regroup and then have one more crack at it.” When Brown became the offensive coordinator, rookie quarterback Caleb Williams and the rest of the offense improved dramatically despite not being able to win a game. However, when Brown became head coach, the offense regressed back again. Williams finished the game with 122 passing yards, his third-lowest total of the year. The Bears once again failed to score in the first quarter for the fifth straight game in a row. Their lone scoring drive came on a 13-play, 67-yard field goal. Earlier on that drive, Chicago scored a touchdown that was nullified by a holding penalty on offensive lineman Jake Curhan. In a drive reminiscent of Chicago’s first game against the Detroit Lions, the Bears reached the Seattle 40-yard line. They needed to get in field goal range to potentially send the game into overtime. However, poor play calling and clock management doomed Chicago. On second and third down, the play calls dictated taking deep shots despite the Bears only needing three to six yards to get into field goal range. Fourth down was also a disaster as Williams threw his first interception in 354 passing attempts, a rookie record, on a desperate attempt to get the first down. “At the end of the game, (we) had a chance to try to go protected by some time and have a shot down the middle of the field to (wide receiver) DJ (Moore). Ball kind of got tipped, I believe, or Caleb got hit, arm got hit releasing it,” Brown said. “So, that didn’t work out. But, like I said, overall wasn’t good enough as far as the game plan I had for these guys and also didn’t have (the) offense ready to go.” In addition to that debacle, there was a debacle earlier in the drive. Following a Seahawks timeout on fourth and inches, Williams tried to draw Seattle offsides, but ended up making Curhan flinch. That made the attempt fourth and five and Brown elected to send the punt unit out with a little over two minutes and all three timeouts left. However, Brown said he changed his mind. Thus, he decided to call a timeout and bring the offense back out on the field. On a poor play call where the line immediately gave way, Williams threw a perfect pass with three defenders in his face to get the ball to Moore for a gain of 14 yards. “Wasn’t confused at all, I just changed my mind. I think being able to (use) Tory as a weapon and we still had, I think it was, 2:16 on the clock, still out of three timeouts plus the two-minute warning. So, the way our defense have been playing all day, possibly have a chance to go flip the field and force a three and out, get a shorter field and have a last in the game drive. So, that was my thought process and then, over the course of that, I changed my mind and said, ‘Let’s go for it now’ and so, send the offense back on the grass,” Brown said. “Just being able to have cleaner communication, get out the huddle, snap the ball faster. So, didn’t want to waste play as you have a timeout from a delay of game standpoint. So, that was the whole reason for burning the timeout.” Chicago will conclude their season in Lambeau Field against the Green Bay Packers on Sun. Jan. 5. The Bears will attempt to end their season on a win instead of an 11-game losing streak.
