Denver Broncos: Reactions to loss against Chicago Bears
The Denver Broncos are 0-2 for the first time since 1999. What happened against the Chicago Bears in this very difficult loss to swallow?
The Denver Broncos had a win against the Chicago Bears until they didn’t.
With multiple fourth-and-long conversions on the final possession of the game for the Broncos’ offense, a touchdown to Emmanuel Sanders and a two-point conversion to give the Broncos their first lead since they started the game up 3-0 in the first quarter, the team merely needed a defensive stop against Mitch Trubisky to seal the deal.
Simple, right?
Apparently not so much.
The Broncos were hosed on a roughing the passer penalty called against Bradley Chubb which gave the Bears 15 extra yards of field position, and those yards proved to be absolutely critical.
With a 4th-and-15 later on the Bears’ final drive seemingly their last gasp, the Broncos allowed a long throw and catch to Allen Robinson, who was tackled as the clock expired. Only the Bears apparently worked out a deal with the officials to have a timeout called in any event that there was one second on the clock when their receiver went down.
Without any sort of review, the Bears came out, lined up for a 53-yard field goal, and won the game, stealing the home opener from the Broncos even though Denver had to scratch and claw their way down the field with no timeouts to even be in it at all.
As many NFL games as I have watched, I’ve never seen a timeout granted from the sideline that fast, and certainly not without a review. The Bears being granted that timeout essentially gave them an extra second to win the game, a close game the Broncos otherwise made enough plays to win.
There are penalties throughout the game on both sides that may be debatable, but putting time back on the clock without a review is unquestionably one of the worst ways you can lose a game.
At this point, it’s really tough to try and dissect what happened between the opening kickoff and the final whistle, but let’s do our best to give some reactions to all 60 minutes and one second of this heart-breaking, potentially season-ruining loss to the Bears.