Kmet won’t dwell on Hail Mary miss
The Bears aren’t blaming Darnell Mooney for their loss Sunday, even though the receiver had a chance to make an amazing catch on a tipped Hail Mary as time expired.
“If that’s the play you’re pointing to, that’s not the play we should be harping on — and we didn’t,” tight end Cole Kmet said one day after the Bears’ 20-17 loss to the Browns in Cleveland. “I can understand why as a fan you’d be upset because it looked like it was there and all that, but there were plenty of opportunities throughout the game for us to make things happen and we weren’t able to do that.”
Quarterback Justin Fields threw the ball toward Kmet with hopes he’d catch it or the Bears would get lucky in the ensuing scrum. The ball was tipped forward and onto Mooney’s lap as he fell to the ground. It went through his hands, he kicked it into the air and it was picked off. “[Mooney] wants to make the play, you know what I mean?” Kmet said. “But again, it’s hard for me to look at that and just be like that’s ... . Sure, that’s the play that could have won it, but you can’t be depending on those plays at the end of the game to win the game.
“Three-and-outs are the things that are more glaring. If we’re able to execute a couple first downs here and there instead of threeand-outs, we win that game with how our defense is playing. I tend to look more at those things. But the Hail Mary, it kind of just is what it is.”
Eberflus defends blitz
Coach Matt Eberflus joked last week he’d compensate for the injury to edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue thusly: “blitz every snap.” He didn’t do that Sunday, but he did blitz on the most important play of the game.
On third-and-15 from the Browns’ 47 with the game tied and 56 seconds left, Eberflus blitzed cornerback Kyler Gordon, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and safety Jaquan Brisker. Defensive tackle Justin Jones dropped into coverage, and quarterback Joe Flacco dropped a pass over his head to tight end David Njoku, who turned and ran upfield for a 34-yard gain.
Eberflus wanted to blitz to draw a quick throw from Flacco, but he backpedaled and floated the pass to buy time for Njoku.
“It’s a play that’s designed to get the ball spit out fast and tackle them,” Eberflus said Monday.
Did he regret it?
“I’ve been calling defenses for 12 years, 13 years now, and every game you have three or four that you want back,” he said. “Of course, you’d like to see it work in that situation, but it didn’t.”
The play “hurt,” Edmunds said. “Anytime you are out there on the field and have a chance to close out the game, you want to close it out,” he said. “But the truth of it is the game didn’t come down to just that play.”
This and that
Eberflus pushed back on Mooney’s claim that Bears offensive players were too comfortable playing with a lead in the third quarter.
“I don’t believe our guys do that,” he said. “In fact, I know they don’t. We just gotta keep the hammer down.”
Kmet said comfort had nothing to do with it. “We just weren’t executing, man,” he said.
† Defensive end Dominique Robinson, who’d been a healthy scratch since late October, played 28% of the Bears’ snaps in place of Ngakoue. Defensive end DeMarcus Walker played 78% of the time, way above his season average of 66%.