Breaking down what the players and coaches said about Keisean Nixon’s game-ending interception.
With just 27 seconds left in the game and the Chicago Bears facing a 4th-and-1, cornerback Keisean Nixon ensured the Green Bay Packers would stand victorious over the Bears in the two teams’ first meeting this season by intercepting a Caleb Williams pass in the end zone intended for tight end Cole Kmet.
The Bears, facing 4th-and-1, decided to run a play-action pass by leaking D’Andre Swift out into the flat quickly in the hopes of drawing the defense up and somehow letting the tight end Cole Kmet slip downfield unnoticed and maybe uncovered.
It was a play the Bears ran the previous week in the Black Friday Amazon Prime game against the Eagles on a 2nd-and-8 halfway through the fourth quarter. On that play, the Bears didn’t leak any receiver through the line like they did with D.J. Moore on Sunday, but still sent the running back out to the flat quickly with a sprint out behind it. Caleb pumped to the running back, and the Eagles’ defense left their zones and chased to the flat.
Kmet got behind the defense and broke free downfield as Williams saw the coverage bust and launched it downfield to the end zone for him. Reid Blankenship couldn’t keep up and Kmet caught it in the end zone.
Fast forward to the end of the week 14 game in Green Bay. The Bears tried to dress up the concept by sifting D.J. Moore to the front side as another way to grab the defense’s eyes while releasing Kmet downfield as the deep receiver.
The Packers defense nearly had a coverage bust, but Nixon instinctively peeled off to cover Kmet down the field into the end zone. Sometimes you just have to go be a football player.
The defense is in man coverage, and Nixon confirmed they likely were in a cover-0 pressure after the game when he said they were in a “a zero call and my guy went behind the back field and I was chasing and I saw the tight end free…I was It wasn’t my man and my guy went behind the line of scrimmage. I was chasing, and I just saw somebody go free. I just chased him. Wasn’t even my man.”
Hafley said the defense was “sending pressure off the right side” in an attempt to make Caleb Williams pull up and throw if it was a pass.
D.J. Moore is his guy in man coverage, and Moore ran the sift/slide route to the play side. Safety Evan Williams had Kmet in coverage, and Quay Walker was responsible for the running back out of the backfield.
As the running back runs out quickly to the flat after the play fake, it’s here where it could have really gone off the rails for the defense. After the game, Williams said Nixon
“was saving my butt on that play, I must say…that was definitely my man. But the back kind of came out and I knew Quay [Walker] was on the back, I mean, that would have been pitch and catch. If he was able to get it to the flat, he was right in front of him. So I kind of, you know, kind of just off instinct, you know, took off and played the flat and was praying that somebody was behind could make the play on the corner.”
And Hafley confirmed that “Evan just decided not to cover the back and go take somebody else, which led to Keisean taking his man…Keisean had one guy, and Evan should have stayed on his man. That man would have been covered, and the ball would have never gone over there. He would have either been pulled up or had to outrun [Edgerrin] Cooper for the first down.”
Caleb Williams booted out to his right, looking for Swift for the quick first down. Four defenders chased Williams and the running back to the flat, and no one appeared to cover Kmet at first. Two defenders peeled off to chase the quarterback, so there was no attempt for Williams to scramble for a first down.
On Monday, speaking to ESPN 1000 in Chicago, Ben Johnson stated he “had no problem with Caleb throwing it to Cole. He was definitely open, but had we been able to see him just a second sooner and give him a little bit of an earlier ball, I think we would have had a different result.”
Williams needed to see it sooner due to where they were on the field. They didn’t have a lot of room to operate so a throw to the corner route needed to happen sooner. On Thursday at Hafley’s press conference, he confirmed again that “Evan just decided to go rogue, and it led to an interception. So, he shouldn’t do that again, but I’m very glad that he did on that play.”
Category: General Sports
