Bears don't finish; Broncos do
DENVER — For almost four quarters Sunday, the Bears made Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow seem like a mere myth.
Instead, after becoming the sixth straight victim to Tebow's comeback mania in a 13-10 overtime defeat, it's Bears playoff chances now that look like the real myth. After Detroit and Atlanta wins, the Bears find themselves a game behind in the wild-card chase at 7-6.
“It's tough to swallow,” said safety Craig Steltz, who seemed to have helped secure a win with a 10-0 lead with a fourth-quarter sack and forced fumble for the Broncos' second turnover.
“We gave it away,” added wide receiver Devin Hester.
The old Bears formula of defense, forced turnovers and special teams proved insufficient to keep Tebow down a full four quarters. The defense had held the Broncos' controversial run-and-pray style quarterback to 3-of-16 passing through three quarters.
The Bears even had the ball with a lead at the two-minute warning after Nick Roach recovered an onside kick, and they merely had to kill clock.
Instead, Tebow prevailed again, with assistance from mistakes by Bears running back Marion Barber.
The end came on a 51-yard Matt Prater field goal with 8:34 left in overtime, but the play almost seemed inconsequential after the way the Bears squandered one opportunity after another.
“We didn't finish,” linebacker Brian Urlacher said. “That was the difference. We got into our cover-2 (defense) and they kind of went down the field and scored on us.
“We just didn't make plays when we had to — that's what it comes down to — and they did.”
The Broncos had gone 12 possessions without a point to show for it, thanks largely to a 28-yard, second-quarter field-goal deflection by Julius Peppers and a first-quarter interception at the Bears' 24 by cornerback Charles Tillman.
Then came the comeback, one that made believers of some Bears in the Tebow myth — but not all of them.
“He's a good running back,” Urlacher said, when asked his opinion of Broncos signalcaller “He does a good job running for them.”
Tebow did throw for 235 yards on 21 of 40 and passed best when it mattered most. The Bears had switched up cornerbacks and had backup Zack Bowman in for Tim Jennings on second-and-3 from the Chicago 10 with 2:08 remaining in regulation, when Tebow scrambled and found Demaryius Thomas for a TD to cut the lead to 10-7.
Tebow found Thomas for 16 yards in overtime behind Jennings for the play that helped set up the game-winning field goal.
“We were just going to see how the game was going because it's Denver and obviously the altitude is a lot different than any other place,” Bowman said of the cornerback rotation. “We didn't want guys out there dog tired. So whenever someone got tired, we rotated, and all of us rotated.”
When Roach recovered the onside kick after the TD pass Bowman allowed, the Bears' eighth win seemed a formality. However, Barber failed to stay in bounds on a 5-yard run on second-and-10. The Bears had to punt and gave Tebow a chance with no timeouts to drive his team 39 yards in 53 seconds and set up Prater's game-tying 59-yard field goal.
“That gave us about 35 more seconds, and that was helpful,” Broncos coach John Fox said about Barber's mistake.
Barber's second mistake occurred in overtime. He rushed for 108 yards but failed to secure the ball, and his lost fumble at the Broncos' 33 deprived the Bears of a chance at the game-winning field goal.
It also set up Tebow for a 33-yard drive that included 28 passing yards, including a 16-yarder to Thomas at the Bears' 40 before Prater's game-winner.
“This one hurts,” linebacker Lance Briggs said in a locker room that seemed even more down than after last season's NFC championship-game loss. “We're getting closer to the end of the season. We've got three games left and they're must win. All of these are must win.”
Finding a way to win any of those three won't be easy with an offense that could manage just 115 yards passing from Caleb Hanie on Sunday as coordinator Mike Martz tried to prevent turnovers.
Robbie Gould's Bears-record, 57-yard field goal and Barber's 9-yard third-quarter TD run were all the offense put on the scoreboard.
“We didn't throw the ball so much (19 times) because we were running the ball well and our defense was playing good,” Hanie said. “That's kind of what the game called for; we were pounding away, running the clock.”
And they were setting up Tebow for one more comeback win by keeping the game close.
“All losses are tough,” coach Lovie Smith said. “But this one was especially tough. We did some things that we normally don't do that kept them in the game.
“Even going into overtime, we had our chances.”
Every team that has fallen prey to Tebow has said the same.