Staked to their only lead of the game, the Bears needed their once-vaunted defense to make a stop on the Steelers’ last possession.
Instead, on Nov. 8, they let the Steelers, who were down by one, travel 51 yards before they ever faced a third down. When the Bears finally got a stop, Chris Boswell kicked an easy 40-yarder to go ahead with :26 to play.
“We played a good defensive game for three-and-a-half quarters, but this is a 60-minute game ... ” safety Tashaun Gipson said. “Obviously, two plays in that last drive, simple mistakes that probably won’t ever happen again. It happened, and it happened at the worst time and they were able to capitalize on it ...
“That’s tough, though. That win would’ve been huge for us.”
And for the Bears defense. Even though it was operating without outside linebacker Khalil Mack and safety Eddie Jackson — and with a hampered defensive lineman Akiem Hicks, who hurt his ankle during the game — keeping an offense that was averaging 4.2 yards per play from marching down the field shouldn’t have been a tough ask.
Instead, the defense failed the Bears when they needed it the most.
That’s a disturbing development for a team that, entering Sunday’s home game against the Ravens, has a slim margin for error. The Bears’ defense ranks No. 23 in points per game allowed. They’ve had so few defensive takeaways — four against the Bengals, and then four the rest of the season combined — that Gipson was asked this week whether the “Takeaway Bucket” was even still on the sideline.
“It’s always easy to look at the most immediate thing that happens in a game and the last thing that happened,” defensive coordinator Sean Desai said Thursday. “It’s a collection of a lot of things that happened in a game, and the way a game goes.”
Contrary to the popular belief of some Bears fans, the game did not end the second outside linebacker Cassius Marsh stared down the opposing bench with 3:40 to play. Thirteen more points were scored.
Three plays after Marsh received the taunting penalty, in fact, the Bears defense seemed poised to make one of the biggest stops of the season.
A Najee Harris run for three yards and a Bilal Nichols sack for a loss of nine put the Steelers out of field goal range. Up by three, they faced third-and-16 from the Bears’ 45.
Ben Roethlisberger took a shotgun snap and threw an out route to Diontae Johnson, who was lined up in the left slot. He caught the pass at the 44 and planted his left foot. When Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson slipped, Johnson cut inside and gained 11 yards.
On fourth down, the Steelers kicked a 52-yard field goal to go up six.
“We were a little bit softer in the coverage and lost the leverage fast and he got some yards after he caught the ball … ” Desai said. “The yards after catch are important, especially when you’ve got a really good kicker on that side whose range is really long. …
“We gotta make ‘em 60-yarder — or even out of that range.”
Boswell made three kicks — two from 50 or more yards — in the fourth quarter. The Bears needed to play defense accordingly — as they will Sunday when Justin Tucker, one of the league’s great kickers, takes the field.
“It wasn’t nothing that Pittsburgh did,” Gipson said. “And it’s no shade to those guys, it was solely based on us on the defensive end.”
That’s the concerning part.
“We can’t dwell on it,” Gipson said. “I thought about it long enough over the bye week, man.”
