In one of the most anticipated matchups of the year, the Chicago Bears took on the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football in Week 7. Two franchises that flipped their trajectory in the 2024 NFL Draft were set to battle, with Caleb Williams and Drake Maye as the superstar quarterbacks.
A back-and-forth first half lived up to the billing. But a touchdown in the final minute seemed like it would give the Bears a commanding lead heading into the second half. Then, in a brutal display by their defensive unit, they allowed the Patriots to respond in under 15 seconds.
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The Bears had done a surprisingly adept job defensively for most of the period, for a team that ranked 18th on PFN’s Defense Impact Metric coming into the game.
Holding the Patriots to under 175 yards and just seven points, they’d even generated an interception on Maye. But with just 14 seconds on the clock, they allowed two plays that combined for 66 yards, including a 48-yard catch-and-run from Rhamondre Stevenson that resulted in a touchdown with no time remaining on the clock.
Rather than a comfortable two-score lead, the Bears were in for a fight with the scoreboard reading 20-14. Understandably, social media was stunned by the development and immediately blasted them for one of the worst blunders of the entire season.
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“As a defender, that last play by Chicago broke my heart lol,”former Super Bowl champion Jason McCourty exclaimed. “No way you let them score on that play.”
Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated took issue with the defensive unit as well, albeit for him it was the playcall altogether, as he questioned, “Um, why did the Bears blitz?”
JP Acosta called out the Bears, writing, “That’s so nasty by the Bears defense,” but on a rewatch, his vitriol further increased as he added, “Like this is pathetic, one person touches Rhamondre, and it’s barely even an arm tackle.”
One fan went to the extreme, jokingly arguing, “The Bears should be folded as a franchise for allowing this to happen.”
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Dave Helman, though, went for the history books as he called out, “I think the Bears just replaced ‘Dallas vs. Tyreek in 2017’ as the most embarrassing end-of-half moment I’ve ever seen.”
James Palmer, too, evoked Tyreek Hill to complete the thought, writing, “You don’t ever see that unless Tyreek Hill is on the field.”
It remains to be seen if that mistake ends up costing the Bears the game entirely. But at the very least, rather than a one-sided contest, the play has breathed new life into the Patriots and could spark them into a second-half comeback.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.