Revisiting how the 'Fail Mary' broke the 2024 Bears and any carryover

The Bears never recovered from those frantic few  seconds. It was the perfect confluence of Eberflus failing to manage the last few plays and the clock properly before the last heave, and then Stevenson botched the execution of something they practice every week after he had been busy interacting with fans.

The Bears just finished a game a little over a week ago decided on the last play when the opponent couldn't do something as simple as block for a field goal.

It's the NFL. Things like this happen and the result must be resilience. It wasn't for the 2024 Bears.

They face the Commanders again on Monday Night Football Oct. 13 and the importance of looking back at it is simply how they can't let something like this happen again, even though there has been a cleansing at Halas Hall since then with a coaching purge.

How it happened

After the Bears went ahead 15-12 on Roschon Johnson's 1-yard TD plunge and the conversion pass to Cole Kmet was incomplete, the Commanders took over at their own 24 following Austin Ekeler's 24-yard kick return. They had 19 seconds remaining and one timeout left. Daniels' first pass deep down the middle of the field to tight end Zach Ertz was incomplete.

Then Daniels threw a short pass to Ertz for an 11-yard gain but he couldn't get o ut of bounds and they used their last timeout with only six seconds remaining.

The obvious move here was to keep everyone in-bounds on a catch and the game would end. A Hail Mary from 65 yards and beyond isn't really likely to reach the end zone but could.

Eberflus did not call a timeout here and tell everyone to line up somewhere to the  outside to keep the clock from being stopped after a catch. He had all of his timeouts left.

Instead, they lined up back deep, allowed Daniels to complete a short pass to Terry McLaurin that went for 13 yards to the Washington 48 and McLaurin was able to run out of bounds all in a matter of four seconds.

That set the stage for the Hail Mary because a 52-yard pass is much easier to throw.

Again, Eberflus took no timeout to set up the Hail Mary defense strategy. Nor did he let Washington get to the line of scrimmage, look at how the offense lined up, and then call timeout so he at least had an inkling of what was coming.

They just went to the next and final play.

Stevenson's blunder

Stevenson was busy hollering at Washington fans. Later he denied he was taunting them and was instead yelling and cheering with some Bears fans in attendance.

The play began and Stevenson suddenly realized receivers were coming at them downfield and then turned his attention to the play.

At the snap, Eberflus' errors continued as the Bears had linebacker T.J. Edwards playing in a position where he wasn't rushing the passer but was actually just spying on Daniels if he scrambled. Eberflus described his role later as guarding a running back, who definitely wasn't going to run 52 yards with a short pass.

Extra pressure and sending Edwards at Daniels couldn't have hurt and definitely would have been a problem for a quarterback who was playing that week with a rib injury that very nearly kept him sidelined for the game. Fear of being hit to exposed ribs makes a longer heave a difficult one to accomplish. This was also a reason why they couldn't have expected Daniels to try to take off on a 52-yard scramble, besides the fact that running past 11 defenders for 52 yards doesn't seem possible even for the best running back let alone quarterback.

Beyond that, taking Edwards out for an extra defensive back would have  made sense, as well, if they sought to bolster the secondary.

Daniels was getting some pressure and moved to his right with DeMarcus Walker in pursuit. Jake Martin, who now is with Washington, was there waiting to clean up as Walker flushed him but slipped wen Daniels then cut back the opposite direction and left behind bot Bears. No one else got really close to Daniels but just before the throw Gervon Dexter was closer but was blocked by Washington's Nick Allegretti.

Later it was calculated Daniels held  the ball 12.79 seconds and ran around 40.7 yards against the three-man rush before threw. Next Gen Stats said it was the most yards a player ever moved before throwing a TD pass in five seasons.

With the ball thrown from the 35, it carried about 63  yards to the 2 to a clump of defensive backs and receivers. Stevenson then committed his second big mistake on the play. Either because he panicked after the play started while he was hollering with or against fans, he ran full speed to the clump of players and leaped and deflected the ball up and back.

Stevenson’s job on the play was to take the back receiver in case of a tip. So no one was preventing Noah Brown from going behind the pile and catching a tip. Stevenson's rush in and tip went right back to the unchecked player he was supposed to guard and the touchdown beat the Bears.

"It still hurts just to see people try to define who I am on one  play, one game out of the other 30 starts I done had," Stevenson said while talking to safety Kevin Byard on Dave Kaplan's the ReKap podcast. "But at the end of the day I've got to take it."

The Cascade

The aftermath might have been worse than the actual play and loss.

Stevenson's only punishment was not starting against the Cardinals the next week. Then, when he found out he wasn't starting, it was reported by ESPN and Fox Sports that he left Bears practice because he was upset. He did return to practice later, according to ESPN.

He actually played against the Cardinals even though he didn't start. 

The lack of accountability issue then festered. It was the spark that started a fire. The Bears seemed to recover after two more defeats and the subsequent firing of offensive coordinator Shane Waldron when they played the Packers and were a rather routine field goal away from a huge win. It got blocked, and when they lost in overtime the next week to the Vikings the freefall set up the Thanksgiving Day timeout snafu by Eberflus and another loss, then his firing.

Carryover

The team itself should have no carryover effect from it. They have new coaches, new systems and numerous new players facing a new schedule under different circumstances.

People have memories, though.

Johnson addressed this regarding Stevenson back in OTAs.

"I think he learned his lesson from that," Johnson said. "His peers have certainly talked to him about it. It wasn't really any reason for me or the staff to piggyback on that because he's learned from it, he's grown from it, and what's in the past is in the past and we're moving forward."

Then Stevenson had a poor start to this season but has since recovered  with strong games against the Raiders and Cowboys as the team won twice.

Will there be more long-term aftereffects?

There really can't be for Stevenson or this year's Bears. Johnson won't put up with it.

He's not the kind of coach to let things linger or let lack of accountability build.