Trailing 14-13 and facing a 4th-and-10 late in Sunday’s game against the Broncos, Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky connected with a wide receiver who was tackled as time expired. Game over, right?
Wrong.
Officials ruled that Chicago called a timeout with 0:01 on the game clock and Chicago went on to convert a field goal, winning 16-14. Broncos coach Vic Fangio did not agree with the decision.
“I don’t think there was [one second left],” Fangio said Monday. “They’re assuming a lot there and they [officials] will tell you that there has to be lag time. You know, he went down at 0:01. Nothing in life — in the world — happens simultaneously. There is lag time there and they didn’t deem there was lag time there.”
Denver outside linebacker Bradley Chubb noted that the team shouldn’t have let Chicago got into that situation in the first place.
“It looked like the clock had run out,” Chubb said Sunday afternoon. “You just can’t put the game in their hands. You’ve got to handle it earlier. We didn’t do that. We let it come down to them, and they won.”
After the loss, outside linebacker Von Miller lamented not getting a sack before Trubkisy threw the ball.
“I feel like if I could do my job and get him on the ground, it wouldn’t have even been there,” Miller said. “It’s a double loss for me. Tough day.”
Broncos defensive end Derek Wolfe suggested that the team can’t put themselves in situations of having small leads at the end of games.
“All I know is that we just have to move on from this,” Wolfe said Sunday. “We can’t let this define us. I think we showed how good of a team we can be and we’ve got to just keep on trucking, keep moving, keep pushing, keep grinding, and try not to be in that situation where we have to count on the refs to look at the clock and see that it’s actually at zero. I guess we’ve got to be up by a touchdown for that to happen.”
While Wolfe mentioned the team moving on, he still didn’t seem quite ready to move on Sunday afternoon.
“At the end of the day, the clock is at zero, where does that one second come from?” he asked.
