Tyrique Stevenson, Matt Eberflus deserve blame for Bears’ Washington debacle

Chicago Bears cornerback Tyrique Stevenson wasn’t taunting Washington Commanders fans as the now infamous Hail Mary unfolded at Northwest Stadium on Sunday. He was cheering on Bears fans.

That’s his story.

“I was just cheering with some Bears fans and the Washington fans reacted how they wanted to,” he told reporters over video conference Monday.

That explanation still doesn’t make what he was doing in those seconds and then didn’t do after those interactions any better, though. His job was to box out Commanders wide receiver Noah Brown, who caught the winning Hail Mary pass from quarterback Jayden Daniels. Instead, Stevenson ran in, tried to make a play on the ball and tipped the ball back to Brown.

“Just trying to make a play for my team,” Stevenson said. “It easily could have went, ‘Oh, Tyrique, good pass knockdown’ and we’re not in the situation we’re in right now.”

Instead, the situation — a debacle, really — required an apology from Stevenson to his teammates and coaches Monday morning.

“Honestly, I don’t feel like I should probably share what intimate side of me that I shared with the guys because I know I let them down and those guys hold me to a higher standard such as everybody in this building,” he said. “But the brief message is I apologize to the boys for letting them down. I let the moment get too big and it’s something that can never happen again and won’t ever happen again.”

This is where this week’s takeaways column begins.

1. The Bears will say the right things and rally around Tyrique Stevenson, but his actions still put coach Matt Eberflus and the Bears’ team leaders in a delicate spot.

It was important for Stevenson to talk to the media Monday, but addressing his teammates and coaches mattered more.

The video of Stevenson “cheering on” Bears fans as the Hail Mary played out is an awful look for him. It deserved to go viral, and Stevenson deserved to be criticized. He didn’t do his job.

It’s the worst look for a Bears player on the field since defensive end Lamarr Houston celebrated a late sack in a blowout loss against the New England Patriots in 2014 and tore his ACL in the process. Houston hurt himself. But Stevenson hurt his team. Houston’s celebration happened under the watch of former coach Marc Trestman in a short-lived era during which accountability was lacking.

Eberflus isn’t Trestman. He held on to his locker room last season. Team leaders have also emerged this year. The best teams forgive, but in the results-based NFL, you can’t forget about such mistakes, either.

Stevenson’s unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty in the third quarter also was unacceptable. Removing Stevenson from the field, albeit briefly, felt like an option at that moment since he had already been rotating with Terell Smith. A 25-yard completion over the middle to receiver Terry McLaurin became a 40-yard gain because of the penalty. Stevenson was fortunate that Commanders kicker Austin Seibert missed a 51-yard field goal to end that drive.

With safety Jaquan Brisker and nickelback Kyler Gordon dealing with injuries, the Bears aren’t in a position to fully bench Stevenson. He’s still one of their best defensive backs. He’s a young player who deserves an opportunity to redeem himself, and he did make some good plays against the Commanders. But the team’s tolerance level for some of his actions must change.

At the time of his interview Monday, Stevenson told reporters that things were essentially status quo.

“I don’t think there’s no consequences,” he said. “As of right now, I haven’t met with the coaches yet. We’ve been going over film and doing walk-throughs and trying to get everything corrected. So honestly, I can’t give you (any) details on that.”

We’ll see if that changes later this week.

2. If crazy, head-scratching losses return as a theme this season after occurring last year, then general manager Ryan Poles will have a lot to think about as the season nears its conclusion.

The Bears’ loss to the Commanders fits with three losses from last season: Week 4 versus the Denver Broncos, Week 11 at the Detroit Lions and Week 15 at the Cleveland Browns. In all four, the Bears’ win probability was at least 91 percent in the fourth quarter.

Different things went wrong to produce the losses. Quarterback Justin Fields lost a fumble that was returned for a touchdown against the Broncos, while defensive tackle Justin Jones got caught in coverage against Browns quarterback Joe Flacco on a third-and-15 blitz call by Eberflus.

This week, the Bears have Stevenson’s Hail Mary to get over but also the play right before it: a 13-yard competition to McLaurin that left two seconds on the clock.

After the game, Eberflus suggested it didn’t matter much. He repeated that message first on ESPN 1000 and then during his Monday news conference.

“With six seconds to go at the 35, they’re going to either go for the end zone there or just try to get more yards and do that,” Eberflus said. “So if you want to play sideline defense, what they’re going to do is convert to the Hail Mary right there and then just run everybody off of the sideline. Then you have to pick them up from the sideline and do the same job that you’re going to do in the Hail Mary. So to me, we wanted to just bring them up so that they wouldn’t get something that was too far down the field. Which was to the 48. And then we set up for the Hail Mary at the end.”

In Washington, that 13-yard gain was viewed differently. Coach Dan Quinn said, “That’s the one you need” to set up the Hail Mary. Bears veteran safety Kevin Byard also disagreed with Eberflus’ assessment of the penultimate play and told him as much.

“He has his feelings about it,” Byard said. “I think it’s a lot of different ways you can defend those plays. Me personally, I think that in that scenario possibly could’ve had the corners pressed up there because they just ran two out cuts and the play was called just to get a couple more yards to throw it down the field. If you had the guys pressed up, maybe they convert to verticals and they actually run the Hail Mary, but even if they do that, our corners run with those guys.

“I’m not saying (Daniels) doesn’t have the arm strength, but you think about the ball maybe landing 10 yards shorter and it may be a little different. … We don’t know, it’s always looking back at it, ‘woulda coulda shoulda.’ But at the end of the day, things happened the way it happened. Could we have sent pressure? Maybe. But he made the call and that’s what it was.”

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3. There’s no doubt that the Bears missed safety Jaquan Brisker and nickelback Kyler Gordon on Sunday, but the personnel on the field for the Hail Mary still could have been better.

The story from the Commanders’ locker room was that veteran tight end Zach Ertz played an integral role in the success of the Hail Mary. He was Washington’s “jumper.” Byard handled that role for the Bears.

The issue is that Ertz is 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, while Byard is listed at 5-11 and 212 pounds. It’s not a surprise that the Bears had trouble boxing out. Ertz is bigger. Backup safety Elijah Hicks is 5-11 and 200 pounds. Nickelback Josh Blackwell is listed at 6-foot and 175 pounds. Brown, the hero for the Commanders, is 6-2 and 225 pounds.

Where was tight end Cole Kmet, who is 6-6 and 260 pounds? Or at the very least, why not move linebacker Tremaine Edmunds — all 6-5, 250 pounds of him — back into the end zone?

The Bears wouldn’t be the first team to feature offensive players on defense to stop Hail Marys. Former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick used tight end Rob Gronkowski against them.

“We’ve done that in the past,” Eberflus said Monday. “But we just have to keep KB (Byard) clean. He has to be clean. We have to have a body on a body and keep him clean there.”

There’s more, too. The Bears rushed only three players and linebacker T.J. Edwards covered running back Austin Ekeler, who stayed in as an extra blocker. The lack of pressure gave Daniels too much time.

4. The dive for center-turned-fullback Doug Kramer has replaced the Week 3 speed option at the goal line as the Bears’ worst play call of the season.

There is nothing wrong with giving a lineman a chance to score a touchdown. They’re fun plays and locker rooms love them.

Defensive tackle William Perry famously scored in Super Bowl XX for the Bears against the Patriots. Former Bears coach Matt Nagy once called “Freezer Left” for a touchdown run by defensive lineman Akiem Hicks during the 2018 season against the New York Giants.

The problem with the play call is the timing of it. Perry’s touchdown gave the Bears a 44-3 lead. Hicks’ score was the Bears’ second of the game and came during a season full of plays with nicknames.

It doesn’t matter how much the Bears practiced Kramer’s dive last week or even before. It didn’t fit the situation or the moment in the game. The game was too close and the offensive production was too limited to call that run for Kramer. The fumble ruined Caleb Williams’ best drive of the day.

“It was the first play from the 1,” Eberflus said. “We had other plays to go to after that. Again, we just have to be better with the execution of the handoff there.”

Or maybe give it to running back Roschon Johnson instead? The Bears also called the play after Kramer had been filling in at left guard for an ailing Teven Jenkins.

“My answer was that when things don’t work, obviously you (look) to something else and you go to a different piece that executes at a higher rate,” Eberflus said. “But that right there? Again, we practiced it. It was good during practice. We went with it.”

The speed option also looked good in practice.

5. It’s OK to search for positives in an otherwise awful performance by quarterback Caleb Williams, and there were definitely few behind the Bears’ battered offensive line.

At one point in the second half, this was the Bears’ line: left tackle Kiran Amegadjie, left guard Doug Kramer, center Coleman Shelton, right guard Matt Pryor and right tackle Darnell Wright.

Looking back, the only projected starter at the start of training camp who was on the field was Wright.

The offensive line injuries exacerbated the unit’s protection issues. It became very obvious as Williams scrambled again and again where the Bears should commit their resources in 2025: the offensive line. The Bears can’t win with Williams if they can’t protect Williams.

(Top photo: Geoff Burke / Imagn Images)