Santos’ game-ending FG ends Bears’ skid versus winless Lions

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 Chicago Bears a 16-14 victory

over the winless Detroit 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

on Wednesday the Patch.com report that

the fourth-year coach was told he will no longer coach after the game in Detroit was not accurate.

“We’ve been through some stuff, some distractions, the last couple days,” 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 Detroit quarterback Jared Goff, who returned from a onegame absence because

of an oblique injury.

Detroit made many mistakes, early and late, to extend its 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 secondand-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 18play, 69-yard drive that took the final 8:30 off the clock.

Dalton converted a third-and-5 with a 13yard pass to Damiere Byrd to get the Bears to midfield. Detroit 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 a touchdown.”

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

touchdowns 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 Detroit take a 14-13 lead that it simply failed to keep.

Goff did not get a chance to lead the Lions on a game-winning drive in the end because they couldn’t get the ball back.

“I never thought there was a scenario when we left the field

that it was the last time we’d be out there,” he

said. “I figured, at worst, we’d have a

four-minute drive to win the game.”

Chicago won three of its past four games last season to rally into the expanded postseason field.