I still can't believe the last Bears game was already four days ago. I have been walking around in a sports fog since their improbable and incredibly exciting win. When the game started, I think I was still on my Baseball high from the previous night's game seven extravaganza.
When I sat down to watch the Bears, I never imagined I'd be seeing 89 combined points being hung on the scoreboard. And if you told me that a team would score 42 points and lose, I would have bet my house that the losing team would be the Bears. That score sounds more like a 1982 San Diego Chargers vs Cincinnati Bengals score than Chicago Bears one. I still remember the Chargers being beat on a regular basis even when they scored more than 35 points. But I digress... back to this insane game.
Going into halftime, everything seemed pretty normal. The Bears looked pretty good but were actually trailing 20-17 thanks to the Bengals were returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown and then scoring late in the first half by completing a 44 yard bomb down the sidelines. Although they were down, I wasn't that worried. I figured the Bears would outscore the Bengals 14 to 6 for a win. Then the second half started.
The Bears scored a touchdown to take the lead... then the Bengals did the same. Then the Bears rattled off 17 points in a row to take a commanding lead... well it seemed commanding at the time. With 5 minutes left in the game, the Bears were up 41 to 24. Then the Bears Tremaine Edmunds intercepted his fourth pass of the season and rumbled 95 yards for a touchdown... ummm until the replay showed he was barely touched while intercepting the ball. Even without the touchdown, the Bears had stopped a Bengals drive and were in a great position to win when they punted the ball back to the Bengals with just over 2 minutes left in the game.
There was no way the Bears could lose! And then the Bengals quickly scored after stringing together a few 15 to 20 yard pass plays. On each of these plays, the Bears seemed to want to give the Bengals these yards. they stopped rushing the passer (which had worked all day) played a safe zone and let the Bengals have big gain after big gain. Of course the Bengals scored a touchdown, went for the two-point conversion and made it. But the Bears were still up 6 points with a 1:43 left and the Bengals had no timeouts. The only thing that could save the Bengals was a very unlikely onside kick recovery. How unlikely was it? Well only 1 of 21 onside kick attempts has been recovered. That is only 4.7% chance. So clearly the Bears would recover the onside kick.
And then they didn't. Not only did the Bengals recover the onside kick, it only took them 49 seconds to score the go ahead touchdown. they kicked off and the Bears took over with about 50 seconds left to play and only 1 timeout. After a Caleb Williams run which caused me to scream at the TV "Go out of bounds you idiot!" the Bears lined up with less than 30 seconds left to play. they decided to throw deep down the middle so they could spike the ball, bring on their kicker and attempt a long field goal to win the game. But this plan did not work. instead rookie TE Colston Loveland caught the ball, broke a tackle and rumbled 58 yards for the winning touchdown.
It was the craziest Bears game I have ever seen. If they had lost the game after blowing a 14 point lead with 2 minutes to go, it would have ruined my entire week. Instead, I have been in a fog of disbelief. I never thought as a Bears fan I'd get to see a game like this. Hopefully there will be less drama for their next win... my heart can't take another one like this.