Bears Rewind: What went wrong on Micah Parsons fumble-return touchdown -

ARLINGTON, Texas — It’s not the play that lost the Bears the game, but it’s the one that put it away.

One mistake by a key player was compounded by another, and a team that prides itself on playing harder than its opponent was left watching.

Micah Parsons’ 36-yard scoop-and-score touchdown with five minutes to go in the third quarter gave the Cowboys a 19-point lead in their eventual 49-29 win.

Bears running back David Montgomery fumbled. Quarterback Justin Fields didn’t touch Parsons down. Then no one tackled him.

Fact of the day: @MicahhParsons11 was a running back in high school. And you can tell from this touchdown return! 😤

📺: @NFLonFOX | #CHIvsDAL pic.twitter.com/6l8EU3vHwU

— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) October 30, 2022

When one team scores 42 points on offense in a game that was rarely within one score, it’s a little harsh to pinpoint this as a turning point, but Bears coach Matt Eberflus acknowledged, “It was big.”

After scoring 16 unanswered points to cut the Cowboys’ lead to five, the Bears gave up another Cowboys touchdown. They trailed by 12 but were feeling good about the way they were moving the football. A sack and a false start put them in a third-and-16 situation.

Fields scrambled to his left and found Montgomery, who had room to run. He had a few yards to go before the first down when a tackle attempt by Cowboys linebacker Leighton Vander Esch led to the ball hitting the turf.

“Dropped the ball,” Montgomery said. “I dropped the ball.”

Parsons, the Cowboys star player who had been limited to no sacks, no tackles for loss and no QB hits, got to the ball just before Fields. The Bears quarterback then jumped over Parsons but didn’t make contact.

“Yeah, that’s my fault for just hopping over him,” Fields said. “I should’ve tagged him. I can’t tell you the last time I made a tackle. Just got to be aware in that situation. Just tag him and make sure he’s down.”

There was a slight pause as Cowboys players started to celebrate around Parsons before he took off for the end zone.

Left guard Michael Schofield was kicking himself for not getting to the fumble first. He was near the ball but then not in position to make the tackle.

“I thought he was touched, but still, I tried to get through, but there were three guys in front of me so I couldn’t get there,” he said.

Right guard Teven Jenkins saw it happen and also thought Parsons was down. Then he saw right tackle Riley Reiff chasing Parsons.

“I was like, ‘Oh, s—, this is an active play,’” Jenkins said. “Then I had to try to maneuver and see where he was going.”

Jenkins made quite the effort to get to Parsons, with his diving attempt at a shoestring tackle coming up just short. Parsons scored the touchdown.

“Just touch him down,” Eberflus said. “We’ve shown multiple times during the course of our situations tape that we show every Friday that you’ve got to touch guys down. Whoever is right there in the scrum, when you see that, you’ve got to touch him down. We know that. That’s part of pro football. We’ve just got to do a better job there.”

The play happened right in front of the Bears’ sideline. Linebacker Joe Thomas reacted immediately, yelling to his teammates. But it seemed the players on the field weren’t alone in thinking Parsons was down.

“We could’ve done a good job even on the sideline, ‘Hey, touch him down,’” Eberflus said. “We certainly could’ve done a better job.”

To the Bears’ credit, they did score on the ensuing possession — a 13-play, 75-yard drive that ended with tight end Cole Kmet’s first touchdown catch since 2020, but the Cowboys answered with another score of their own.

“Anytime you fumble and the defense gets a touchdown, it’s always going to be a little deflating, but it’s how you respond,” Schofield said. “Can’t let it affect the game.”

Said Jenkins, “It’s not easy seeing that happen, because the offense has to come right back out. It hurt a little bit. That’s how the way the game goes.”

From the locker room

With less than a minute to go in the first half, Fields got hit as he threw what appeared to be a brutal interception to Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs. But officials threw a flag for roughing the passer.

On the next play, Fields threw a strike to wide receiver N’Keal Harry for Harry’s first touchdown as a Bear.

First TD as a Bear for @NkealHarry15 🙌

📺: #CHIvsDAL on FOX pic.twitter.com/Gt3siJAKe4

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) October 30, 2022

“I think they had 10 guys on the field on that play,” Fields said. “It looked like a Cover-0 shell, so I just checked the protection, kept the same route concepts up. We had great protection. N’Keal ran a great route. Just put it on him, scored a touchdown.”

Harry saw the Cover-0 pre-snap and knew he had one job to do.

“All I really have to do is beat (the defender) across his face,” he said. “I did. Justin gave me a good ball and touchdown.”

Harry played 45 snaps, outplaying Equanimeous St. Brown — who did get checked out in the medical tent. Harry had one other catch that went for 7 yards.

“I had been paying attention in meetings the whole time I wasn’t playing, but these past few weeks, being on the field getting reps has helped me a lot,” he said.

For Fields, it was another display of his toughness — to take the hit the one play, then respond with the score the next.

“I’m pretty sure everybody that watches the games can see he’s a tough guy,” Harry said. “Get hits a lot, pops right back up all the time. That’s just one example.”

Bears wide receiver N’Keal Harry catches a pass for his first touchdown of the season as Cowboys cornerback Kelvin Joseph defends. (Jerome Miron / USA Today)

How Fields stacked up

• Fields had a career-best 120.0 passer rating. His completion percentage of 73.9 was also a career high.

• According to TruMedia, Fields’ EPA (expected points added) per dropback was -0.10, which ranks fifth for him this season.

• The Cowboys pressured Fields 13 times — tied for the second most this season — while sacking him four times and hitting him five times. The sack Fields took in the second quarter from Cowboys defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa sent him to the medical tent. He said he re-injured a hip bruise from last week and took some Advil.

• Fields played behind his fifth starting offensive line combination in eight games.

• The hit that Fields regrets taking came on his first run of the game, a 15-yard scramble in the first quarter. “I should’ve run out of bounds initially,” he said. Fields also acknowledged his legs were sore and he wasn’t 100 percent as a runner playing a second game in six days.

• Fields was 5-for-5 with two touchdowns on passes that traveled between 10 and 20 yards in the air. He was 0-for-4 on passes that went 20 yards or longer in the air.

Another week of running wild

The Bears ran for 240 yards, their fourth game of the season with more than 230 yards rushing — a franchise first dating to 1977.

It’s the first time they rushed for 200 yards rushing in three consecutive games since Weeks 7-9 in 1968, per NFL Research.

Khalil Herbert (99 yards), Fields (60), Montgomery (53) and Velus Jones Jr. (33) gave the Bears their first quartet of players rushing for at least 30 yards in the same game since 1986 (Walter Payton, Dennis Gentry, Neal Anderson, Thomas Sanders).

It was another outstanding game for Herbert, who had a 36-yard run, a 6.2-yard rushing average and a nifty cutback and finish on his 12-yard touchdown run.

Let's go, @JuiceHerbert 😤

📺: #CHIvsDAL on FOX pic.twitter.com/aT4O4z6eyR

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) October 30, 2022

Snap count observations

Week 8 snap counts (offense)

Eberflus decided to pull Fields, the running backs and center Sam Mustipher at the end of the game, a strategy that seemed to go against his decision to use his timeouts. “We just wanted to get a couple of linemen in there, to get some work and we wanted to get Trevor (Siemian) some work,” Eberflus said. “It was a 20-point game and at that point with five minutes to go or so, we were going to bang our timeouts. We planned on getting (Trestan Ebner) in there just to get him a couple of reps.”

That meant Fields missed his first snaps of the season. The only player on the Bears offense who has played every snap is left tackle Braxton Jones.

• Teven Jenkins said postgame that the officials pulled him off the field in the third quarter after hearing from the concussion spotter. He went to the tent and passed protocol and returned. Dieter Eiselen filled in. On the final possession, Eiselen played center for three snaps.

• Tight end Cole Kmet played 75 snaps — every play but one before the final series — yet he was targeted only twice. This is becoming a weekly staple, but for a passing game that needs a jolt, how can the Bears still not find a way to involve Kmet?

• Wide receiver Darnell Mooney caught all five passes thrown his way for 70 yards, including the longest Bears play of the afternoon — a 36-yard catch. He is now up to five consecutive games with at least 50 yards receiving. It was the first game this season in which Mooney caught all of his targets.

• Montgomery finished with 53 yards on 15 carries, while Herbert had 99 yards on 16 carries on 33 fewer snaps. Herbert touched the ball on 72.7 percent of his snaps. That’s a big disparity in playing time considering the gap in rushing production. Montgomery had three catches for 22 yards and is probably better as a pass protector, but I’m not sure he’s that much better than Herbert on passing downs to play more than twice as much as him.

• Harry was surprisingly the No. 2 receiver based on snap counts. That could be because of his effectiveness as a run blocker as the Bears handed it off 35 times. But Equanimeous St. Brown thrives there as well. St. Brown did go to the medical tent to get checked out in the second quarter, so he may have been limited. He had only one catch on three targets. Dante Pettis had four catches for only 18 yards on five targets.

• It was a busy day for blocking tight end Trevon Wesco, but his name appeared in the box score only once — for a false start, one play before Parsons’ scoop-and-score. The Bears surprisingly went no-huddle on third-and-11, which meant Wesco would stay on the field after Montgomery had a 10-yard gain. Normally he wouldn’t be out there for a third-and-long, and there was obvious confusion pre-snap about where he needed to line up, leading to the penalty.

• Velus Jones Jr. was once again productive with the ball in his hands, rushing for 18 and 15 yards on his two carries, but his drop on a beautiful deep ball from Fields was crushing. The Bears eventually scored on the drive, but Jones has to make those plays. Hopefully for the Bears’ sake, this won’t be a common theme in this story, but a third-round pick on an offense lacking weapons at receiver has to be more effective as a receiver. Tight end Ryan Griffin played six snaps.

• Fullback Khari Blasingame played only nine snaps. The Bears leaned more on 12 personnel with the second tight end as opposed to 21 with a fullback. That could have been part of playing from behind. The Bears gained only 8 yards on four carries when Blasingame was on the field before the fourth quarter, so maybe the Cowboys keyed in on something.

Week 8 snap counts (defense)

• Safety Eddie Jackson was named the fourth team captain over the weekend, replacing Robert Quinn. He then intercepted his fourth pass of the season, tying for the league lead. Seeing him in the locker room postgame, Jackson seemed to take the loss hard. He had a touchdown-saving tackle on running back Tony Pollard early in the game but failed to bring him down on another score late.

• Rookie safety Jaquan Brisker may have had the most productive game on defense for the Bears. His stop for no gain in the third quarter led to Dallas’ only punt. He had another run stop for 1 yard and then the team’s lone sack of the game. He has three sacks, the most for a Bears defensive back since 2001 (Mike Brown and Mike Green).

• Watching live, it seemed to be a strong game for cornerback Jaylon Johnson, who had one pass defensed and was in coverage for another one of Dak Prescott’s few incomplete passes. The Cowboys quarterback went after cornerback Kindle Vildor, who admitted he has to be tighter on slant routes.

• Linebacker Roquan Smith, who was self-critical after the game, had only five tackles, his lowest total of the season and his fewest since Week 12 of 2021.

• Linebacker Nicholas Morrow had the Bears’ lone tackle for loss. It came on second-and-1 on the first drive, but Prescott proceeded to hit wide receiver Michael Gallup on the next play to convert the first down.

• Defensive end Al-Quadin Muhammad saw the biggest increase in playing time in the first game without Quinn, but he did not make the stat sheet.

• Defensive end Trevis Gipson got the start and had two tackles and the Bears’ only QB hit before Brisker’s sack.

• Defensive end Dominique Robinson played only 21 snaps. It probably didn’t help that the Cowboys rarely got into third-and-long situations. He had one pass defensed and one tackle. Kingsley Jonathan, who had been inactive recently, played nine snaps in his new role as the No. 4 defensive end.

• Defensive tackle Armon Watts led the interior linemen with three tackles. He got the start again at the nose next to Justin Jones, who had two tackles — one was for no gain on second-and-9, but Prescott threw a touchdown to CeeDee Lamb on the next play. Jones’ other stop was also a run stuff for 2yards on second-and-10. Angelo Blackson played seven fewer snaps than Watts and had two tackles. Mike Pennel, fresh off last week’s ejection, played 22 snaps and did not have a tackle.

• Rookie Jack Sanborn and veteran Joe Thomas seem to be splitting time as the strongside linebacker. Sanborn played 13 snaps while Thomas played eight.

• Thomas led the team with 26 snaps on special teams. Dane Cruikshank, DeAndre Houston-Carson, Jaylon Jones, Sterling Weatherford, Sanborn, Ebner and Elijah Hicks led the team in special teams snaps. They limited KaVontae Turpin to 15 yards on his two punt returns.

• Trenton Gill had a career-high 62-yard punt. He averaged 50.8 yards and 47 net yards on his four punts.

• Cairo Santos extended his streak to 12 consecutive field goals this season and made both of his extra points.

(Top photo of Justin Fields jumping over Micah Parsons: Jerome Miron / USA Today)

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