Well, that happened. The Cowboys walked into the Windy City and got absolutely blown over by a winless Bears team. They looked hapless in nearly every facet of the game, but these fives plays were especially impactful in burying the team.
Javonte Williams’ inexplicable fumble on opening drive
Things started off perfectly for the Cowboys. Their defense forced a three-and-out, and then the offense started rumbling forward. Javonte Williams ripped off a seven-yard run to start, and then plowed forward for 22 yards on the next play.
However, as Williams started to go out of bounds, Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson came up with the ball, ripping it right from Williams’ arms.
It was one of the more bizarre fumble recoveries in recent history, and initially seemed impossible to have actually happened. Still, this early turnover represented a massive shift in confidence for the Bears.
CeeDee Lamb gets injured
The Bears took advantage of the takeaway, scoring a touchdown on a busted coverage from Trevon Diggs. The Cowboys were hoping to respond, and they went into their bag of tricks early, running the ball with CeeDee Lamb lined up as a running back.
The play – a loss of one yard – ended up not even counting thanks to offsetting penalties. The bigger problem is that Lamb came up hobbled with an ankle injury. He left for the remainder of the drive, came back on the next drive for one play, and then took himself out with continued pain.
Fans have since become upset with the seemingly needless exposure of Lamb on this play, but of course that’s just hindsight. Lamb could’ve hurt his ankle just as easily on an open tackle after a catch as on that run, and the Cowboys certainly target him enough that he’s exposed no matter what. Still, Lamb’s absence was a huge black cloud hanging over this game.
Flea flicker breaks game wide open
The Cowboys eventually went down the field and kicked a field goal, making it a 7-3 game. The hope was that their defense could recapture the magic from their first drive and get the ball right back into Dak Prescott’s hands, ideally with Lamb out there, too.
That hope was extinguished real fast. Ben Johnson dialed up his first trick play as the Bears head coach, a flea flicker that turned into a 65-yard touchdown bomb, and it fired up the home crowd in a big way.
This play was the first real sign of trouble for the Cowboys, signaling early on that this defense was powerless to stop Chicago and, with Lamb hurt, the offense wouldn’t be able to keep up.
Caleb Williams finds Rome Odunze on third down
Credit where it’s due – though not much is due this week – the Cowboys battled their way back into this game. Prescott hit George Pickens for a touchdown and then found Jalen Tolbert on the two-point try, tying things up. The Bears added a field goal, and the Cowboys punted down 17-14 as halftime approached.
Faced with a third and short on their own 48-yard line, Chicago needed to convert to avoid giving the Cowboys the ball back before the break. Caleb Williams dropped back and hesitated as his initial reads were taken away. Then he surveyed the field and found Rome Odunze come wide open on the corner, and hit him for an easy first down.
If Dallas gets a stop there, they have the ball back with roughly 40 seconds and one timeout, enough to get in range for a game-tying field goal. Instead, the Bears moved the chains and scored a touchdown two plays later.
D.J. Moore gets wide open in the endzone on fourth and goal
The Cowboys started with the ball in the third quarter, but ultimately wound up punting. That sent out their defense, who felt like they had addressed the issues that plagued them in the first half. What followed was a 19-play drive – featuring 11 straight runs – that ate up nearly 10 whole minutes of game time.
Even still, the Cowboys nearly rendered it meaningless. Chicago went for it on fourth and goal from the four after being stopped short on third down. Williams had nowhere to go, and was flushed out of the pocket, but then he found D.J. Moore standing at the back of the endzone, not a single soul within even five yards of him.
It was the stake-through-the-heart moment for the Cowboys. They had a chance to escape that hellish drive with zero points surrendered, but giving up a wide open touchdown like that was both crushing as far as the deficit it created and for the soul of the team. From then on, it was just a matter of padding stats (which the Cowboys didn’t actually do anyway) before the clock ran out.
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