GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The final play run by the Chicago Bears in their 28-21 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday should look familiar.
There were 27 seconds remaining when quarterback Caleb Williams and the Bears offense took their positions on the Packers 14-yard line trailing by seven points. Needing just 1 yard on fourth down, Williams dropped back from under center and saw tight end Cole Kmet running open toward the end zone.
According to coach Ben Johnson, the concept was "almost identical" to the play where Kmet hauled in a 28-yard touchdown in the Bears' 24-15 win against the Philadelphia Eagles on Nov. 28. But against the Packers, Williams underthrew Kmet and was picked off by Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon, which put the kibosh on Chicago's late-game rally.
"I tried to give him a big-boy ball, try and let him go up for it because I ended up seeing [Nixon] start to sprint," Williams said. "I tried to slow them up and kind of give him a chance. In those moments, it's a got-to-have-it moment. And they had a guy trailing me, so I didn't feel like I could go get it myself. Just got to give Cole a better shot at it. I think next time, just extend him a little bit more and kind of lead him. But in those moments, you want to put the ball in play and trust your guy or try to have your guy go make a play and just got to give him a better ball."
Williams downplayed the difficulty of completing that throw while moving to his left.
"Not tough at all," he said. "Just got to give him a better ball. Thinking too much."
Kmet wasn't the only option on the play. Wide receiver DJ Moore ran across the formation and got himself open after crossing the Green Bay 10.
"We had a lot of options there," Johnson said. "Don't know who's going to pop necessarily but between the options that we have and then Caleb using his legs, I was hopeful that we could find a way to get a yard there."
Sunday was a tale of two halves for the Bears offense. Chicago trailed 14-3 at halftime and came away with points on three of its four drives in the second half. Williams struggled to throw the ball down field early and completed one pass that traveled at least 10 yards in the air in the opening half.
In the second half, Williams went 6-of-10 for 123 yards with an interception on passes thrown 10-or-more yards downfield, which accounted for more such yards than he had in two games against the Packers last season (6-of-11 for 105 yards combined).
Chicago strung together a 17-play, 83-yard drive to tie the score at 21 after Williams connected with tight end Colston Loveland for a 1-yard touchdown.
After the Packers extended their lead to 28-21 with 3:37 to play, the Bears began their final drive from their own 26. Williams made two of his biggest throws on Chicago's final drive -- a 27-yard pass to Luther Burden III and a 24-yard throw to Devin Duvernay. Coming out of the two-minute warning, the Bears ran the ball three straight times with Kyle Monangai and picked up 9 total yards before using their first timeout with 27 seconds remaining.
After Green Bay used a timeout immediately after Chicago, Williams threw an interception on fourth down. Packers quarterback Jordan Love took a knee on Green Bay's subsequent possession to seal the win.
Packers defensive end Micah Parsons said he was surprised by the Bears' approach in the two-minute drill.
"It's two-minute and you've got to get seven, and they're playing like they need to play for three," Parsons said. "Running the ball, not wanting to do any dropbacks, a completely different expectation than what I expected to see in a got-to-have-it situation. It's something that we've got to look at but overall was surprised about the calls in total.
"I mean, 20 seconds left in a got-to-have-it situation, I understand the timeouts, too, I mean they had two timeouts."
Williams lamented the Bears not getting off to a faster start on offense.
"It's frustration," he said. "Just because we shot ourselves in the foot, I think more than anything. I think that's where the frustration comes from. We got ... we had a great shot early in the game with the interception. Defense doing a good job and then we kind of let them get going and they put up some points on the board, and we had to try and rally."
Johnson had a similar pulse on the locker room's frustrations over the offense's slow start but was pleased with his team's ability to respond later in the game.
"We weren't happy," he said. "We weren't pleased with our first-half performance on offense and sometimes just coming in and just catching your breath for a second allows you to hit that reset button, and our guys responded the right way."