Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Bears get job done, end skid
DETROIT — Matt Nagy still has a job and perhaps his team has a shot to salvage its season.
Cairo Santos made a 28-yard game-ending field goal to give the slumping Bears a 16-14 victory over the winless Lions on Thursday.
The Bears (4-7) ended a five-game losing streak under Nagy, who was answering questions about his job status less than 48 hours before kickoff.
Nagy said team chairman George McCaskey told the team Wednesday the Patch.com report that the fourth-year coach was told he will no longer coach after the game against the Lions wasn’t accurate.
“We’ve been through some distractions,” Nagy acknowledged.
“But it just proves who they are, what type of fighters they are, what type of winners they are.”
Meanwhile, the Lions (0-10-1) showed no one in the NFL comes up short quite as they do.
“First, you have to learn how not to lose,” said Lions QB Jared Goff, who returned from a one-game injury absence.
The Lions made many mistakes to extend their winless skid to 15 games since beating the Bears on the road nearly a year ago. The Lions had 10 penalties, including three in a row when they were at midfield that ended their chance to score on their last possession.
“Having second-and-25 or third-and-32 definitely shrinks your playbook,” first year coach Dan Campbell lamented.
Andy Dalton, starting in place of injured rookie Justin Fields, led the Bears on an 18-play, 69-yard drive that took the final 8:30 off the clock.
Dalton converted a third-and-5 with a 13-yard pass to Damiere Byrd to get the Bears to midfield. The Lions later helped out, giving them 5 yards on a penalty for calling consecutive timeouts without a play in between.
“I knew it was a penalty, but we had half of our guys with one call and half with another,” Campbell said. “I either could call the timeout, knowing it would be a penalty, or stand there and watch them score.”
On the next snap, Dalton converted third-and-4 with a 7-yard pass to Byrd. With only one timeout left, Dalton was able to kneel to run the clock down to 1 second before calling a timeout to set up Santos’ third field goal.
“I don’t think I’ve been a part of a game with two timeouts in a row,” the 34-year-old Dalton said.
Dalton finished 24 of 39 for 317 yards with a go-ahead, 17-yard touchdown pass to Jimmy Graham late in the first half and an interception.
Goff was 21 of 25 for 171 yards with two TDs and a fumble on a play that was reversed after Nagy challenged. Goff threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to Josh Reynolds on his first drive and a 17-yard pass to T.J. Hockenson late in the third that helped the Lions take a 14-13 lead that they simply failed to keep.
The Bears won three of their last four last season to rally into the expanded postseason field after losing six straight games.
“This week was an important week to believe in each other,” said Santos, whose second field goal right before halftime gave the Bears a 13-7 lead. “And, hope to catch fire again.”