Bears' crucial twominute warning error comes back to bite them in Ben Johnson's debut Chris CwikSeptember 9, 2025 at 10:19 PM 0 The NFL world met the 2025 Chicago Bears on Monday and ... they looked awfully similar to the 2024 version of the team.
- - Bears' crucial two-minute warning error comes back to bite them in Ben Johnson's debut
Chris CwikSeptember 9, 2025 at 10:19 PM
0
The NFL world met the 2025 Chicago Bears on Monday and ... they looked awfully similar to the 2024 version of the team. The Bears blew yet another late lead, falling 27-24 to the Minnesota Vikings.
After giving up three fourth-quarter touchdowns to the Vikings, the Bears still had a chance to mount a comeback. With 2:02 to play, the team cashed in a touchdown to cut the Vikings' lead to just three points. If the Bears' defense could force a three-and-out, the team could have a little under a minute to pull off a miracle drive.
The Bears' defense forced that three-and-out, but a crucial mistake resulted in the Bears getting the ball back with just nine seconds left on the clock. The team had time for just one more play, and couldn't lateral its way to victory.
But it didn't have to be that way. The Bears could have gotten the ball back with roughly 50 seconds left on the clock had they kicked the ball out of bounds or through the end zone on the kickoff following their late touchdown. That didn't happen, and the Vikings were smart enough to take advantage of the error.
Since there was 2:02 on the game clock when the Bears scored their touchdown, the team still had a shot at using the two-minute warning as a de-facto timeout to save clock at the end of the game. In order to do that, Chicago would need to prevent any time from running off the clock on the kickoff. If the game clock reached under two minutes during the kickoff, Chicago would lose the two-minute warning as a way to stop the clock.
But instead of kicking the ball out of bounds or through the end zone to ensure the game clock remained at 2:02, Cairo Santos' kick landed in Minnesota return man Ty Chandler's arm in the middle of the end zone. After catching the ball, Chandler looked to his sideline where Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell encouraged him to take the ball out so the clock would run on the kickoff.
KOC telling Ty Chandler to take the ball out, so that the #Bears didn't have the 2 minute warning on their side. There's a reason why he was the coach of the year. pic.twitter.com/SWy97MHP0U
— VikingzFanPage (@vikingzfanpage) September 9, 2025
It was a game-clinching play for Minnesota, and one that ended any hopes of a comeback for the Bears.
Following the contest, new Bears head coach Ben Johnson said the kickoff was not meant to be returnable.
Bears head coach Ben Johnson said the intent was for the kickoff to go out of the end zone after the TD to make it 27-24. He estimated a three-and-out would've given them 56 seconds, but they lost the two-minute warning and got it back with 9 seconds left.
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) September 9, 2025
If Bears fans are experiencing deja vu, that seems more than fair. The team was sunk last season by poor coaching by Matt Eberflus, particularly in late-game situations. It took just one game for those woes to show up during the Johnson era.
None of this suggests the Bears are doomed under Johnson moving forward. He's a first-time head coach taking over an organization desperately in need of an overhaul. It wasn't exactly encouraging to see the team experience a late-game collapse in Johnson's head-coaching debut, but turning around an organization as hapless as the Bears was always going to take time.
Source: "AOL Sports"
Source: Astro Blog
Read More >> Full Article on Source: Astro Blog
#LALifestyle #USCelebrities