The Chicago Bears’ outstanding season reached its final chapter last night at Soldier Field. In a showdown with a movie-worthy finish, the Los Angeles Rams asserted their pedigree and proved to be just a step ahead of the talent of Caleb Williams and the rest of his teammates.
The game’s outcome could have gone a different way, but safety Kamren Curl had other plans, picking off a pass from Williams intended for DJ Moore. When addressing the moment, the quarterback didn’t shy away from responsibility, and his frustration was evident in the postgame aftermath.
“I got to go back and watch it, haven’t seen it and don’t really know, but in the moment, I saw the front-side safety down, front-sided concept,” the QB said. “Ended up getting hemmed up a little bit and so moved on and had D.J. going over top over all of it. Just a miscommunication between him and I. Tried to flatten him off under the safety and he kept it vertical, from what I saw in the moment.”
While the loss is painful given the expectations that had been built, Caleb Williams took responsibility but also made it clear that the foundation has been laid to build something special in the Windy City.
“It’s tough. In these moments you feel that you let your team down,” he also added. “It’s a good lesson learned for us, first time being in this situation for me and for us as a team. I’m excited for what’s to come, but obviously going to go back and watch this and figure out how I can be better.”
A dramatic finish sealed the fate of the Bears
At a moment when the Bears had cut the deficit to just one point against the Rams, head coach Ben Johnson chose to kick the extra point to tie the game, rather than risk a two-point conversion that could have put Chicago ahead with only seconds remaining.
Once the loss was official, the question from the media was inevitable: why did Johnson choose to kick it. On that decision, the Bears’ head coach pointed to his past experiences as the basis for the call.
“Thought about it,” he said in his postgame press conference. “Probably what played a little bit of a factor was our goal-to-go situations hadn’t gone very clean. Our inside the five plan hadn’t worked out quite like we’d hoped. I just felt better about taking our chances there in overtime.”