The Hail Mary that went down as one of the most shocking plays of the weekend may not have been the worst play for the Bears in Sunday's loss, according to former coach Dave Wannstedt.
An earlier moment in the fourth quarter drew Wannstedt's ire just as much Jayden Daniels' 52-yard game-winning touchdown to Noah Brown.
The fumbled handoff to offensive lineman Doug Kramer broke what Wannstedt referred to as "a golden rule when you're in a critical situation."
The Bears were at Washington's 1-yard line facing third-and-goal when quarterback Caleb Williams handed the ball to Kramer, who fumbled it and committed a game-changing turnover.
"This bothered me as much as the Hail Mary," Wannstedt said. "There's kind of a golden rule when you're in a critical situation: Give the ball to your best player. And we give the ball to an offensive lineman to carry the ball? I mean ... in all honesty, and you know, I'm a big Matt Eberflus fan, but he had three time outs. If I'm the head coach and my offensive coordinator calls that play...I'm doing, time out, you know? I'm saying, 'Are you out of your mind? What? What are we thinking here?"
This CANNOT be how the Bears envisioned this play going pic.twitter.com/MGqjJQZiZM
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) October 27, 2024
Bears receiver DJ Moore said even he was surprised by the call.
Chicago Bears
"I don't know the reason behind the play call. It's been up for a few weeks, but I didn't think we were actually going to get it called in a game like this," he said on the Mully & Haugh Show Monday.
Still, head coach Matt Eberflus defended the decision after the game, saying "we've practiced it a lot."
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"We've worked that play since [Kramer has] been in there," Eberflus said. "We've worked the mechanics of it, the hand-off to him. We've just got to do it better."
Add to it the Hail Mary moment as time ran out and what could have been a remarkable turnaround for the Bears turned into a shocking loss.
"That play, the Hail Mary play, is, in defense of Matt Eberflus, that's something that you work on once a week, from minicamp all the way through training camp. It's not a new play," Wannstedt said on NBC Chicago Monday morning.
He called the moment, "a complete bust right across the board."
With 0:00 left on the clock, Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels connected with Noah Brown on a 52-yard Hail Mary to give them an 18-15 victory over the Bears.
Daniels scrambled for several seconds before heaving the ball from the Commanders 35-yard line. It was deflected about 3 yards short of the goal line and fell into the arms of Brown, who was standing alone in the end zone.
“It comes down to that last play and we’ve practiced that play a hundred times since we’ve been here,” Eberflus said. “I’ll have to look at what the execution was on that, but we have a body on a body, boxing guys out like basketball at the very end. We have one guy at the rim that knocks the ball down. We’ve got a tip guy that goes behind the pile. I’ve got to look at it and detail it out and make sure we’re better next time.”
The unlikely TD was Daniels’ 21st completion on 38 attempts while playing through a rib injury that left his status uncertain until hours before kickoff. In the NFL’s sixth matchup of rookie quarterbacks taken with the top two picks in the draft, Daniels threw for 326 yards and ran for 52.
The unexpected ending ruined a turnaround for No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams, the Washington-area native who engineered a late 62-yard scoring drive after starting the game completing just four of his first 16 passes. Williams finished 10 of 24 for 131 yards, and D’Andre Swift ran for a TD as part of his 129-yard performance.
A;FK;JD;KJF;LAKEJFLKJVAL;KEJL;JF;EFJ;LFAKJ
— NFL (@NFL) October 27, 2024
JAYDEN DANIELS HAIL MARY! @COMMANDERS WIN! pic.twitter.com/BsQ0Z84Rko
Wannstedt said there were a number of errors that led to the disappointing Bears loss.
One of the biggest, he argued, was how Brown was left alone in the end zone at all.
"Here's the real mystery," Wannstedt said. "The Bears rush three. So, they have eight guys back to defend, and there's always three guys - three, not one, three guys - and their job is you stay as deep as the deepest. So, if there's a guy standing at the five yard line, you get in the goal line. If he's at the goal line, you get at the back of the end zone. And I have no idea what happened on that play. It was a complete bust right across the board. So it was so, so disappointing."
Wannstedt said the amount of time Daniels had to throw only added to the frustration on the last play.
"You should make the quarterback throw the ball on time ... Jayden Daniels, the Washington quarterback, held the ball and scrambled around for 13 seconds ... From the defensive line to the secondary, it was just a total bust across the board. Disheartening," Wannstedt said.
"You should have had underneath defenders on the guys that are going out for the pass. You got three guys rushing to squeeze the quarterback, and then you should have had three guys, as I said, at the final line of defense. I'm always going to be behind the receiver so I can make a play. You never let him get behind you. I have no idea how that happened," he added.
