In his first game as head coach, Chicago’s Ben Johnson made a costly error by allowing the Vikings to burn the two-minute warning on a kickoff return as the Bears desperately needed to stop the clock and get the ball back.
The Bears scored a touchdown with 2:02 remaining in the fourth quarter, cutting the Vikings’ lead to 27-24. At that point, the smart options were either to onside kick, or to kick the ball out of bounds to ensure that no time would run off the clock on the kickoff and that the Vikings’ next offensive play would immediately be followed by the clock stopping for the two-minute warning. The Bears chose neither smart option.
Instead, Johnson called for his kicker to boot the ball deep, hoping for a touchback. But the Vikings smartly ran the ball out of the end zone, taking more than two seconds off the clock and burning the two-minute warning before their offensive possession started.
“The intent was for the ball to go out of the end zone,” Johnson said after the game.
That may have been the intent, but it’s not realistic to assume your kicker is going to be able to kick it so far that the opposing team has no chance to return it. Every NFL kicker can reliably kick off out of bounds, however, and that’s what the Bears should have done if they weren’t going to onside kick. Touchbacks get placed at the 35-yard line while kickoffs out of bounds go to the 40-yard line, so the Vikings only would have gained five additional yards of field position with a kickoff out of bounds. Five yards doesn’t mean much at that point in the game, but losing the two-minute warning meant the difference between a realistic chance to get the ball back and drive down the field, and losing the game.
Asked if he considered an onside kick, Johnson answered, “Yeah. We felt like if we had kicked it out of the end zone and gotten the three-and-out that we got, we’d get the ball back with around 56 seconds.”
Instead, the Bears’ final offensive possession started at their own 20-yard line with nine seconds remaining. They never got remotely close to field goal range before the game was over. By allowing the Vikings to run back the kick and run off the two-minute warning, Johnson cost his team any realistic hope of a comeback.
This might all sound like 20/20 hindsight, but it isn’t: The instant the Bears scored the touchdown to cut the score to 27-23 with 2:02 left, before the Bears even lined up for the extra point, Peyton Manning was already pointing out on the ManningCast that the Bears couldn’t afford to lose the two-minute warning.
“I like the onside kick,” Manning said, before noting the risk of kicking the ball into the end zone would be the Vikings running it out and taking the two seconds off the clock to burn the two-minute warning.
Manning was confident that Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell would understand the importance of using up the two-minute warning on special teams, rather than offense, because O’Connell had told him before the game that he and his team had worked on late-game strategy.
“Kevin O’Connell said they spent a ton of time on situational football,” Manning said after the Bears’ touchdown. “This should be good situational football for both sides right here. The kick return team for Minnesota has got to run it out, and if they onside kick, Minnesota’s got to find a way to make it take two seconds.”
Manning said the Bears needed to kick the ball out of bounds rather than risk a kickoff return, noting that the field position difference would be minuscule.
“You could kick it out of bounds, it goes on the 40, that’s like an onside kick anyway that you didn’t recover,” Manning said.
Once the Bears declared that they were kicking off rather than onside kicking, Manning immediately noted that the potential to gain five yards with a touchback rather than kicking out of bounds wasn’t worth the risk that the ball would be returned out of the end zone, burning the two-minute warning.
“They’re kicking off. I’d kick it out of bounds,” Manning said as the Bears’ kickoff team lined up.
After the Bears’ kickoff was returned out of the end zone by the Vikings, Manning reiterated what a mistake that was by the Bears.
“Kick it out of bounds. Take the penalty, it’s on the 40 . . . now you’ve got the timeout and the two-minute warning,” Manning said. “Out of bounds. Not out of the end zone, out of bounds.”
After the Bears’ defense forced a three-and-out with time running down, Manning noted how much better off the Bears would have been if the two-minute warning had stoped the clock after the Vikings’ first offensive play.
“They would have had a lot of time,” Manning said. “The defense did their job and stopped it.”
Manning said he could have told the Bears what to do if they’d asked him.
“I just don’t know if I have time to be the Bears’ analytics guy and do this show,” Manning joked.
Johnson needs to listen to an analytics guy who understands these late-game situations. He botched his final decision on Monday night, and cost his team any realistic chance of getting the ball back with enough time to score.
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