Commanders defeat Bears on wild 52-yard Hail Mary landing on closing play
Excessive expectations comply with being a excessive NFL draft choose. Midway by their rookie seasons quarterbacks Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, the primary two gamers chosen in April’s draft, had lived as much as their hype behind their typically explosive offensive playmaking, elevating the anticipation for his or her first assembly Sunday.
For 3 quarters, the matchup reduce in opposition to these lofty expectations in some methods -- and for the final quarter, turned an prompt basic that ended with the defining play of the 2024 NFL season thus far.
By summoning offense that had been lacking the primary three quarters, Williams and the Chicago Bears rallied from a 12-point deficit to take a 15-12 lead in opposition to Washington with 23 seconds left, adopted by a two-point conversion.
Given one closing play to heave a cross into the top zone, Daniels — taking part in by a rib damage suffered just one week earlier — scrambled round to increase the play 12 seconds, every tick permitting his receivers to get farther downfield. Then he lofted a high-arching Hail Mary 65 yards within the air that was tipped on the objective line by a Bears defensive again and flipped completely into the arms of Commanders teammate Noah Brown for the game-winning landing.
Washington gained 18-15 to enhance to 6-2, whereas Chicago fell to 4-3 in one of the crucial inconceivable methods.
As seen in video widely circulated on X, earlier than the ultimate play Bears defensive again Tyrique Stevenson was seen speaking with Commanders followers along with his again to the play. When he bumped into protection, Stevenson leapt and tipped the cross — on to Brown.
Daniels completed with 326 passing yards and that one, unforgettable landing. Williams, making a homecoming to the Washington D.C. space the place he was raised, threw for 131 yards and ran for 41 extra.
The stunning closing completion was a shocking, large play to finish a recreation that had produced few for a lot of the afternoon as Washington took a 9-0 halftime lead. A Commanders protection that had struggled to get stops throughout a lot of the season’s first two months held Williams, coming off of 530 mixed passing yards and 6 touchdowns in consecutive wins the previous two weeks, to simply 33 yards passing and 29 speeding on the half.
Daniels, in the meantime, had produced a 61-yard completion and threw for greater than 150 yards within the first half for the league’s second-best offense, when it comes to common scoring. And but Washington couldn’t flip its manufacturing into its regular touchdowns, settling for area objectives as a substitute.
Chicago rallied within the fourth quarter; of the Bears’ 10 longest performs, 5 got here within the closing quarter, with 4 coming off of Williams passes. Chicago even overcame a fullback fumble on the objective line that price it a possible landing with 6:18 remaining.
The Bears didn’t maintain the lead the whole recreation, till 23 seconds remained. And it appeared they'd maintain on as Daniels evaded tacklers on the ultimate play, with effectively over half a area in entrance of him. Then the correct arm that has produced sudden hope amongst a fan base that hasn’t seen a postseason berth since 2020, or a postseason victory since 2005, produced one other spotlight in a season filled with them.