The Chicago Bears’ loss to the Detroit Lions on a national stage last Thursday hurt in more ways than one for the Bears.
After narrowly getting in position to win, late game decision-making resulted in a sixth consecutive loss and head coach Matt Eberflus losing his job.
The game was a chippy one with a total of 14 penalties getting called and multiple players on both sides going down due to injury.
The Bears did avoid one major scare however after rookie quarterback Caleb Williams was hit low on a scramble near the sidelines by Lions linebacker Jack Campbell. Williams came back on the field on the following play and delivered a strike to wide receiver Keenan Allen for a touchdown before briefly going into the medical tent.
Williams was still able to finish the game and even led two more scoring drives to put his team in position to win on the final drive. After the game, Williams addressed the hit that could have nearly caused a major injury.
“I didn’t really appreciate the play,” Williams said. “He just kind of dove straight at my knee. Definitely kind of frustrated about that one. But, knee’s good, nothing wrong with it. I think I just got a bruise. But, the play was funky.”
The Bears’ fanbase definitely had a sigh of relief after seeing Williams come back on the next play, and being able to finish the game, after the hit.
However, Bears’ fans won’t appreciate what Lions’ wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown had to say when talking about the play on his podcast this week.
“The craziest part is, before the game in our team meeting, [head coach Dan Campbell] was showing clips of Caleb going out of bounds and then back in and he was like ‘no you don’t.’ [Campbell] goes ‘if he does this, we’re going to hit his a**,” St. Brown explained.
“[Campbell] said ‘I already warned the refs, the refs know,’ so in the game, I already know there’s no flag because he was running out of bounds and came back in and Jack hit his a**. Everyone on the Bears’ side was like ‘that’s a flag’ and we’re like bro he went out and literally came back in and then took it.”
In hindsight, that’s smart by Campbell picking up a trend on tape and letting the refs know ahead of time before the game to watch out for something like that. On the flip side, you’re coaching your players to take a cheap, and frankly dirty, shot at a young quarterback.
The Bears’ sideline and staff had every reason to be upset at the call, but Williams should learn from that play and slide or go out of bounds going forward, because clearly he’s not going to draw a flag by taking hits like that at this point in his career.