Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia said he did not challenge a third-down catch by Anthony Miller on the Chicago Bears' game-winning drive Thursday because he did not get a "clean" look at a replay.
Miller made two big third-down conversions on the Bears' 90-yard touchdown drive.
He caught a 35-yard pass from Mitchell Trubisky on third-and-4 at the Bears' 16-yard line, then had a 32-yard catch four plays later that gave Chicago a first down at the Lions' 2.
David Montgomery caught a 3-yard touchdown pass two plays later, after a delay-of-game penalty and a short run, to give the Bears a 24-20 win.
On Miller's second catch, cornerback Justin Coleman got his arm on the pass just enough to jar the ball loose as Miller fell to ground.
Replays showed Miller secure possession about the same time as his shoulder landed out of bounds.
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"We were trying to look at all of the different angles," Patricia said. "I was actually looking at the push-off. That was kind of the first thing that I saw because Justin was really right on him, and then all of a sudden, the separation came. I look at that because I’m obviously on one side of it, but I look at that as extension or just kind of a little bit of motion, but they’re really hard to see.
"So I was just trying to see if that was part of it, and then the bobble. We saw that going through, but couldn’t get a really clean look at it."
Had the Lions won a challenge, the Bears, with one of the NFL's worst kicking situations, would have been forced to either go for a fourth-and-5 at the 34-yard line or try a game-tying 52-yard field goal.
The Lions had all three of their timeouts at the time of the catch, and had 2:33 on the clock.
"Look, those guys on the field, the officials, they do a great job," Patricia said. "They work really hard and they see it, so in that moment we had to go with the calls."
Tripped up
The Lions settled for two short field goals after driving inside the Bears' 10-yard line, including a 24-yard chip shot with 10:47 to play after J.D. McKissic was stopped for a short loss on third-and-inches.
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While bruising running back Bo Scarbrough has been the Lions' short-yardage back for most of the last three weeks, Patricia said he decided to leave McKissic on the field after officials marked off a half-the-distance-to-the-goal penalty on a third-and-5 incompletion.
"There was a situation where we trying to figure out exactly what the third-down down-and-distance was, so we had the personnel out because the clock was running, and they were trying to figure out the spot and everything like that," Patricia said. "Once we got all of that organized and saw what it was, we didn’t want to sub late. We have a lot of confidence in J.D. He runs hard, he’s got a great skill set, and it puts the defense in a little bit of a bind as far as what exactly are we going to do with him on the field as opposed to Bo in that situation."
McKissic lined up 8 yards deep in the backfield, took a handoff from quarterback David Blough and bounced outside to the right, where Kyle Fuller made a touchdown-saving shoestring tackle.
Both McKissic and Patricia said they thought McKissic had a touchdown on the play.
"He made a good play on me. Tripped up, couldn't finish the run," McKissic said. "You can tell by my posture right now, (I'm) extremely upset. Got to be better."
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Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. Read more on the Detroit Lions and sign up for our Lions newsletter.
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November 28, 2019 at 06:03PM
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Why Matt Patricia didn't challenge late Bears catch: 'Couldn’t get a really clean look' - Detroit Free Press
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