How the Packers’ coverage bust led to the Bears’ game-tying TD

The Green Bay Packers’ defense, without Micah Parsons and Evan Williams, held the Chicago Bears offense to just nine points for 59 minutes and 36 seconds of the football game. In the game’s final seconds, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams hit a touchdown throw to a wide-open Jahdae Walker after a coverage bust that allowed the Bears to tie the game.

To the defense’s credit, they did more than enough to win the game. By that point in the fourth quarter, the game was already slowly slipping away after Jordan Love was ruled out before halftime. To add to that, Josh Jacobs fumbled at the 2-yard line on a drive where any points would have won the game.

And the final fourth-quarter touchdown came just over a minute after the Packers’ special teams, Romeo Doubs specifically, misplayed the onside kick and couldn’t recover it, allowing a Bears recovery and the ball at midfield, putting enormous pressure on a defense that had largely already done its job.

After the Bears drove the length of midfield to the 6-yard line, the defense held until fourth down, forcing two incompletions on 2nd and 3rd down. On third down, the Packers showed a cover-0 shell but ended up rushing five postsnap and popping out a defensive lineman underneath.

The intent was to get a free rusher at Williams with the offensive line sliding one way while the bulk of the rush came from the other side.

On fourth down, Jeff Hafley called the same pressure and coverage shell combination, but the defense had a coverage bust, most likely from Keisean Nixon, that allowed the Bears to score.

The defensive alignment shows eight defenders along the line of scrimmage and three coverage defenders in off coverage.

For Williams, it’s easy to tell that the Packers are likely not sending more than six rushers. On the left side of the offense, they have three eligibles, and there are three coverage defenders to account for them.

The rest of the defensive front dictated which way the offensive line would slide. They’re sliding to the right and leaving Brenton Cox (No. 57) as the free rusher off the left edge.

The Bears have a staple red zone concept that numerous teams run from this area of the red zone, a quick slant/angle route concept.

Matt LaFleur and the rest of the Kyle Shanahan tree call this combination “Pile.”

An old Ben Johnson/Dolphins install from 2015 refers to this combination as “Angle.”

The side running the angle concept is the focal point of the play here. The receivers to that side are in a stack formation, so the defenders, Nate Hobbs inside and Keisean Nixon outside, are in off coverage and staggered so the routes that develop cannot pick them off.

They’re playing a banjo coverage technique. Hobbs takes the first inside release, and Nixon takes the first outside release. As soon as one or the other receiver declares their route intent, that defender should either jump up and follow or pass it off to the guy next to them.

Here, since Nixon’s receiver is underneath immediately, he should back off and look for an out-breaking route from the other receiver or look for him vertically.

The pass rush gets immediate pressure on Williams from his left edge by Cox as the offensive line slides to their right. The defensive front gets them to waste a blocker with this slide, and that’s what frees up Cox to get a free run at Williams.

On the outside, Hobbs jumps the quick slant route, and defensive tackle Karl Brooks pops out underneath to rob the low middle, but the problem here is Nixon jumps the slant route too. This leaves Jahdae Walker wide open on the angle route to the back pylon.

After the game, reporters converged on Nixon’s locker to get his thoughts on the game. Hobbs immediately stepped in and shooed them away, answering their questions on his own. He was asked about this specific play but didn’t give a breakdown of it, instead telling The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman that it was just a miscommunication.

Whether it was Hobbs or Nixon’s responsibility, we can’t really be sure without direct confirmation. We know that it was a mental error on someone’s part, and it was just one of several mistakes that cost the Packers the game.