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The Chicago Bears got a big win over the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football, but it was far from pretty. In fact, it was downright ugly at times, be it the penalties or execution, especially by the defense on one specific play.
On the final play of the first half, there was a brutal showing by the defense where Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson turned what should've been nothing into a 48-yard touchdown to cut Chicago's lead to just one possession heading into halftime.
Head coach Ben Johnson addressed that final play, which luckily didn't wind up biting them in the second half in their 30-26 win. Johnson got brutally honest about the execution by the defense and said they must be better.
“There was some execution that we felt like, in terms of the rush, we need to be cleaner on,” Johnson said. “It’s one of those things, you work these situational plays so much over the course of camp, so much in the walkthroughs leading up into a game. It gets coached. It gets talked about. We rep it. We do it full speed over the course of the year. We do it slow. And so when that moment comes, we have to be at our best, and we simply weren’t … We’ve got to continue to coach it better. And the at the end of the day, it’s still about rallying to the football and making sure in the case like that, we find a way to get the ball carrier down.”
It was the first of two big-play touchdowns Chicago gave up against the Patriots as they also allowed New England to complete a 30-yard touchdown to rookie tight end Eli Raridon in the third quarter to get it back to a one-possession game after the Bears were up by 13 points.
Chicago has a mini-bye before facing the reigning Super Bowl Champions, the Seattle Seahawks. Through the first six weeks, the Seahawks are just 3-3. While their pass defense has performed well so far, the offense has been mediocre and they have struggled to run the ball as effectively as they did last year with Kenneth Walker III, who is now with the Kansas City Chiefs.