DETROIT — Whether it was because the Lions handed it to them or the Bears finally woke up and took it, the unlikely ending to Sunday’s season opener remains the same.
Trailing by 17 with 14 minutes to play, the Bears scored three touchdowns in about 12 minutes. The last one, a 27-yard diving catch by receiver Anthony Miller at the front right pylon on the first play after the two-minute warning, gave them their first lead of the game.
One last stop by a beleaguered Bears defense sealed the 27-23 win at Ford Field.
The Lions scrambled to march down the field as time expired. With no timeouts left, quarterback Matthew Stafford completed a 27-yard pass over the middle to Danny Amendola on third-and-7. The clock ticked. After Stafford spiked the ball, the Lions had second-and-10 from the 16-yard line — with 11 seconds left.
On the next play, D’Andre Swift, the rookie running back, dropped a pass in the end zone after slipping behind Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan and slot corner Buster Skrine beyond the front right pylon.
The final play, snapped with 6 seconds to left, fell incomplete in the end zone.
Stafford’s mistake two minutes earlier gave the Bears life.
Ahead by three with 2:45 to play, he threw a pass that hit Bears safety Eddie Jackson in the back. It caromed into the air, landed in Kyle Fuller’s arms, and gave the Bears the ball at the Lions’ 38 with 2:35 to play. The Bears ran for five yards and coaxed the Lions to jump offside for another five. On first-and-10 from the 27, quarterback Mitch Trubisky lofted a ball that only Miller could catch, and he did.
The Bears and Lions traded chip-shot field goals in the first half — Matt Prater’s 27-yarder, followed by Cairo Santos’ 35, then Prater’s 32 and Santos’ 28. One reason: the Bears couldn’t convert a single third down on six attempts. Or a fourth down, either — rather than try a 52-yarder in the first quarter, Nagy had the Bears go for it on fourth-and-7 from the Lions’ 34. Trubisky threw a pass behind receiver Ted Ginn.
The two sides seemed destined to be tied at the half when the Bears took over possession at their own 11 with 1:05 to play in the second quarter. Rather than run the ball and dare the Lions to use their three timeouts, the Bears threw a swing pass to running back Tarik Cohen, who ran out of bounds, on first down. Trubisky threw incompletions on the next two plays, and the Bears gave the Lions the ball back — without them having to use a single timeout — with 40 seconds to play.
The Lions drove 48 yards in four plays, scoring a touchdown on D’Andre Swift’s 1-yard run with 19 seconds to go into the half up 13-6. They carried that momentum into the second half; after receiving to start it, they marched 72 yards on eight plays — helped by a Roy Robertson-Harris roughing the passer penalty — to go ahead 20-6 on T.J. Hockenson’s four-yard touchdown catch.
Prater’s 44-yard field goal about 3 ½ minutes left in the third quarter gave the Lions a 23-6 lead.
The Bears scored their first touchdown of the season on a 2-yard jump-ball to tight end Jimmy Graham, split wide, about 90 seconds into the fourth quarter. It marked Graham’s first catch with his new team after being targeted four times — all incompletions — earlier in the game. That pulled the Bears merely to within 11 points.
With 4:08 left and the ball at the Bears’ 37, the Lions decided to let Prater try a 55-yard field goal. He pushed it right.
The Bears went 55 yards on five plays. Graham caught a seven-yard pass, then Miller totaled 35 on two catches. Graham thought he had a 17-yard touchdown, but he was ruled down at the 1-yard line. The Bears scored on the next play on a 1-yard pass to Javon Wims.
With 2:58 to play, they were down three.
They wouldn’t be for long.
