Washington Commanders Spectacular Hail Mary

Heading into the Sunday evening game between the Washin-gton Commanders and Chicago Bears, it had all the markings of must watch football.  A matchup between two teams led by rookie quarterbacks, and the first and second pick at that.  Both offenses have exceeded expec- tations and this game was shaping up to be a barnburner with playoff implications for both above .500 NFC teams.  But that’s not what we got.  In fact it was almost the opposite.  Both teams struggled to move the ball, and the game was filled with plenty of punts and field goal attempts.  In fact, the first touchdown was not scored until there were 43 seconds left in the 3rd quarter when the Bears running back D’Andre Swift broke off a 56 yard run.  It was the Bears first points of the night.  So with the end of the game in sight, it seemed that this game would be forgotten right after the last play wrapped up, but that could not have been further from the truth.

Photo Credits: Peter Casey-Imagn Images

Even after the Bears put points on the board, the Commanders were still in the lead by five, as they had kicked 4 field goals throughout the day.  And at the conclusion of their first drive of the 4th quarter they attempted a 5th, but their 51 yard try was blocked by the Bears. 

The Bears did nothing with that break from their defense and special teams however, going 3 and out their next drive.  The Commanders followed that up with a punt of their own.  But then the Bears marched down the field with the minutes winding down, going 84 yards in 8 plays.  But as they were about to punch it in for a touchdown on 3rd and Goal at the Commanders 1 yard line, Caleb Williams made a costly fumble that was recovered by the defense. 

But after being gifted a stop once again by their defense, the Commanders went 3 and out and punted the ball away after taking just two minutes off the clock. 

This left plenty of time for the Bears, and this time they would make the most of it by going 62 yards for the go-ahead touchdown, aided by a defensive pass interference call committed in the end zone by Washington’s Benjamin St-Juste.

They then tried and succeeded with a two point conversion to put them up by 3 with just 25 seconds left, the first lead they had all day.

This put their win probability at 97.9% according to ESPN as the Commanders only had one timeout left to go down the length of the field in an attempt just to try and get a field goal to force overtime.  But after 3 plays they found themselves at their own 48 yard line with no time to attempt another play to reach field goal range.  That’s when quarterback Jayden Daniels threw up a hail mary pass that came down right at the goal line, was tipped by a Bears player then fell right into the hands of wide receiver Noah Brown for a touchdown.  According to Amazon’s Next Gen Stats this pass only had a 24.2 percent chance of being completed, which just adds to the insanity.  The pass was caught when time expired, so the Commanders won 18-15 to improve their record to 6-2.  As for the Bears, the shocking loss put them at 4-3 in a very competitive NFC North.  If they ended up missing out on the playoffs, this historic loss will certainly sting even more.