The Bears found a team worse than themselves and treated them as such —eventually — in a 19-14 win against the woeful Giants at Soldier Field.
This time, the Bears benefited from terrible field goal kicking, watching Aldrick Rosas push one first-half try left and the other right — sound familiar? — to trail only 7-3 at halftime.
The Bears started the third quarter with a touchdown — amazingly, the fifth-straight game in which they’ve scored on their first possession after halftime — and got the ball back when star outside linebacker Khalil Mack logged a strip-sack of quarterback Daniel Jones. Three plays later, quarterback Mitch Trubisky ran a sweep right for a touchdown.
The game, though, will be best remembered by what went wrong along the way. And by what happened after Trubisky’s touchdown run.
Up 19-7, the Bears went for a two-point conversion — but not until they took a timeout with the play clock running down. Trubisky completed a pass to Taylor Gabriel. Fellow receiver Allen Robinson was flagged for offensive pass interference, though — ostensibly for setting a pick.
The Bears lined up to kick a 43-yard extra point instead — and were flagged for illegal substitution when Brent Urban ran on the field before the snap. That set up a 48-yard extra point try, which Eddy Pineiro missed wide left.
The Bears’ first half was a comedy of errors.
On their second drive of the game, the Bears thought they had a 29-yard touchdown pass to Ben Braunecker, whose defender fell down. Trubisky hit him in the hands, setting up a surefire catch and run into the end zone, but Braunecker dropped the pass. Four plays later, Trubisky threw a brutal interception in the end zone, caught by linebacker Alec Ogletree.
In the second quarter, they thought they had a season-long 60-yard pass play — a catch-and-run by Robinson on third down — only for it to be wiped out by center Cody Whitehair’s illegal use of hands penalty.
That set up an incomplete pass on third-and-18, which led to a line-drive punt by Pat O’Donnell.
The Giants marched 42 yards, scoring on a three-yard touchdown pass to third-string tight end Kaden Smith.
Sunday’s showing was sloppy on both sides — when was the last time you saw each team start a half by kicking the ball off out of bounds? The Giants, though, have a rookie quarterback. They traded receiver Odell Beckham in the offseason, used three first-round draft picks and were seemingly content to spend the year rebuilding.
The Bears, of course, thought they were Super Bowl contenders — and now sit at 5-6 with a Thanksgiving contest in Detroit four days away.
Trubisky moved well after he practiced in full all week following a hip pointer suffered against the Rams. He made a few head-scratching decisions, though — none more blatant than the lob wedge pass he threw down the middle of the field to Giants safety Julian Love on the first play of fourth quarter.
Trubisky went 25-for-41 for a season-high 278 passing yards, one passing touchdown — to Robinson — and two interceptions. He finished with a passer rating of 69.0.
The Bears defense, which had been stout all game, allowed the Giants to drive 97 yards in the middle of the fourth quarter. They seemed ready to seal the victory when they forced the Giants, down 12, into fourth-and-18 from the Bears’ 23. Jones, though, lofted a 23-yard touchdown pass to Golden Tate with 4:10 to play to go down by five.
The Bears went three-and-out and punted to the Giants’ 5, where they began their possession, devoid of timeouts, down five with 3:36 to play. They converted fourth-and-4 from the Bears’ 12 but couldn’t do it again, throwing an incomplete pass four plays later on fourth-and-4 with 1:43 to play.
