Ben Johnson knew what was at stake going into week three of the season. The Chicago Bears were 0-2 and teetering on the edge of another irrelevant year. He had use every trick in the book he could think of to get the team focused on winning. They responded with a thorough 31-14 beatdown of the Dallas Cowboys. Now came the hard part. They would have to go into Las Vegas against a Raiders team that was equally desperate. Johnson expected it to be a tough, frantic affair and he was proven correct.
The Bears didn’t start well. They struggled offensively for most of the first half. Las Vegas rode a strong running game to a 14-6 lead. They had all the momentum. There were four minutes left in the half. Johnson knew another punt would suck what remaining life was left from the Bears. It was here that he remembered some lessons learned from a Hall of Fame coach he had studied and gone against for years. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune provided details on what tactic Johnson would deploy.
It all stemmed from Emperor Palpatine himself.
Bill Belichick, second on the NFL’s all-time wins list for coaches (including postseason) with 333, is often credited for a focus on what’s called the “middle eight” minutes. That means the final four minutes of the second quarter and the first four of the third quarter. The New England Patriots were at the forefront of deferring when they won the coin toss after the league changed the rule in 2008.
The idea was to be able to double up on the opponent if the Patriots were able to score near the end of the second quarter and then get the ball to begin the third quarter.
“Belichick actually built an entire game-management theory around this simple realization,” former Patriots front office member Michael Lombardi wrote in “Gridiron Genius.” “If the Patriots could manage a drive at the end of the second quarter, that would keep the opposing offense off the field for almost an hour of real time. For a guy like (Peyton) Manning, that’s an eternity. No offense, no points. No plays, no rhythm. When Manning does finally get back in the game, he and his offense have lost their edge.”
Johnson needed to understand himself before anything else.
He desperately wanted to strike quickly. However, the game hadn’t provided those opportunities. If the Bears were going to claw their way back into it, he’d have to stay patient. A sustained drive was crucial to enacting the overall plan.
It’s a challenge for Johnson to push the right buttons. He is super aggressive by nature but has to be mindful of all factors. Get into a spot in his own end late in the second quarter where a few quick incompletions lead to a punt, and now the opponent has an opportunity to seize momentum.
“That’s the hard part,” Johnson said last Monday. “Earlier in my career, I really struggled with that as a play caller. It’s something where you kind of have to sink into what your guys do well.”
The Bears got the ball with 4:03 left. They ran nine plays covering 37 yards and ate up 3:10 on the clock, kicking a field goal to close the gap 14-9. Las Vegas didn’t score before the half ended. Then at the start of the third quarter, Tyrique Stevenson picked off Geno Smith. With great field position, Chicago used seven plays to cash in courtesy of a Caleb Williams TD strike to Rome Odunze.
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Ben Johnson had shifted the outlook of the game.
By dominating those middle eight minutes, it took the Bears from hanging by a thread to being in a position to win. The game went back and forth from there. Las Vegas retook the lead, but Chicago hung around. In the final minutes, Williams led them on an 11-play drive to surge ahead 25-24. The Raiders saw their ensuing game-winning field goal attempt blocked. It wasn’t pretty, but Ben Johnson had gotten it done. Belichick’s strategy had worked, and it wasn’t the first time.
Chicago had done the same thing to Dallas the previous week. In a tight 17-14 game, the Bears scored a touchdown with 25 seconds left in the first half. Then, after forcing a punt to open the second, they scored another touchdown. Suddenly, it was 31-14, and the game was out of hand. Watching the Bears seize opportunities like this is foreign to fans who watched them wilt at such times for years. It is an encouraging sign for the future.
