Bears defensive end Akiem Hicks has been around long enough to know that no matter how good he is, no matter how good the Bears’ defense is, he is still at the whim of the NFL’s fickle finger of fate.
“The game of football is pretty wild, man,” Hicks said when asked about D’Andre Swift’s drop of a sure touchdown pass in the final seconds of a 27-23 victory over the Lions on Sunday at Ford Field.
“There are thing that happen, and you don’t have any control over and maybe you’re just in a bad situation or you lost a rep and stuff happens. It happens both ways throughout the course of the game. You never know when things are gonna be on your side, but we’re thankful that it was on our side in that scenario.”
Yes, the Bears’ defense caught a break on the Swift drop — the Lions’ rookie running back was facing the quarterback as he reached for the ball at the goal line and lost it as he turned into the end zone with six seconds left. But the defense put itself in position to benefit from that break by making plays that gave the Bears an opportunity to win.
Hicks’ sack of Stafford for a nine-yard loss with 4:56 to play stopped the Lions momentum after ageless Adrian Peterson had broken off a pair of 14-yard runs that had the Lions on the verge of sealing the victory with a 23-13 lead.
But Matt Prater missed a 55-yard field goal attempt that hit the right upright with 4:02 left. After Mitch Trubisky threw a one-yard touchdown pass to Javon Wims to cut the deficit to 23-20 with 2:58 left, the Lions aggressively tried to pass on third-and-five from their 30-yard line and it backfired. Cornerback Kyle Fuller picked off a pass intended for Marvin Jones over the middle that was deflected by safety Eddie Jackson with help from rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson — both of whom were converging on Jones.
That was all the Bears needed — and a little luck.
It was a big turnaround for the defense, which had allowed 278 yards on 38 carries (7.3 per play) early in the third quarter after allowing an eight-play 72-yard touchdown drive, capped by Stafford’s four-yard touchdown pass to tight end T.J. Hockenson that gave the Lions a 20-6 lead. After that, the Bears defense allowed 148 yards on 34 plays (4.4 per play), with Hicks’ sack and Fuller’s pick.
“During the course of the game, you have your ups and downs, and we hadn’t ben playing like ourselves to that point,” said Hicks, the only defensive player made available to the media. “We had a talk on the sideline and we were saying, ‘Hey, we’ve gotta play our type of football. And everybody came out there with that mindset.
“So even before the sack, the energy was up and we were trying to play defense the way we know how to play — and we got it rolling.”
It was almost the opposite of the 2018 season opener, when the Bears were dominant in the first half against the Packers at Lambeau Field, but wilted in the second half. Fuller had a chance to seal it late in the game, but dropped an interception that was even more of a sure thing than Swift’s drop. The Bears set themselves up to get beaten by Aaron Rodgers and indeed they were.
This time, Fuller made the catch to give the Bears a chance to win — and it was the Lions who dropped the ball. It’s still better to be good than lucky in the NFL. But teams like the Bears need to be both.
