CHICAGO -- When the Chicago Bears learned that Rome Odunze would not be able to play through a recurring foot injury ahead of their game with the Green Bay Packers, coach Ben Johnson expected his absence would yield a bigger workload for wide receiver DJ Moore.
The opposite occurred during the Bears' 28-21 loss at Lambeau Field. Moore was targeted three times and logged one catch for minus-4 yards. It was the first time in his seven-year career where his receiving total reflected negative yardage.
"I thought he ran some pretty good routes over the course of the day, and we just couldn't give him the ball," Johnson said. "Which, that was not the intent. I thought going into the game we might have had more for him than any other player in the offense. Was a little surprised at the end when I saw the stat sheet for one catch like he had."
Moore was on the field for 56 of Chicago's 68 snaps, which was the most of any non-offensive lineman or quarterback Caleb Williams. He ran 33 routes and was dropped immediately for a 4-yard loss on his lone reception of the day that came in the second quarter.
He was targeted on Williams' first third-down throw of the game, which sailed too high over the middle of the field, and on a screen pass late in the third quarter that was blown up immediately. While Moore came open on Chicago's final play of the game that resulted in Williams throwing an end zone interception, Johnson did not feel the 28-year-old receiver was a realistic option.
"I didn't see him as being the answer in that time," Johnson said. "I think he came open more after the ball was released from Caleb. [Packers cornerback Keisean] Nixon was man-to-man with DJ and was trailing him and ended up falling off and making a play on [tight end] Cole [Kmet] there. So, you know, it was a good play by Nixon and yet I still don't think if we get the spacing right and all that, and a good ball, that he's gonna be able to cover both of those players like that."
Behind Odunze, the Bears' leading receiver, Moore has 39 catches for 498 yards and three touchdowns through 13 games. Rookie Luther Burden III finished with a team-high four catches for 67 yards on six targets.
The Bears fought back from a 14-3 halftime deficit and tied the game at 21 with 8:05 to play in the fourth quarter. After Packers running back Josh Jacobs ran in a 2-yard touchdown to extend Green Bay's lead to 28-21, the Bears got the ball back with 3:32 to play.
Johnson said his decision for how Chicago would handle its final drive rested with two options: "Do we go as fast as we can, and if we stall out, we get another possession potentially? Or do we go ahead and let this one be the last one? And we went with the latter."
The objective, according to Johnson, was to keep the ball away from Jordan Love and the Packers offense.
"With a quarterback playing as well as Jordan Love was playing in that game -- they had eight possessions and four touchdowns and he was finding receivers down the field and explosives and all that -- the last thing we wanted to do; well, let me say this: the first thing we needed to do was score a touchdown, "Johnson said. "But the last thing we wanted to do as well was give them enough time to respond because of how dangerous they had been on offense."
Johnson was pleased with how the Bears offense moved the ball on its final drive, which included Williams completing passes of 27- and 24-yards ahead of the two-minute warning. Williams then handed the ball off on three consecutive plays. On the last, running back Kyle Monangai got stopped for no-gain on third-and-1 from the Packers' 14-yard line.
Johnson used a timeout to set up the final play of the game on fourth down. While rolling out to his left, Williams found Kmet in the end zone but under threw the tight end. The pass was intercepted.
Johnson said he felt good about the offense's execution throughout that drive aside from the final third and fourth downs.
When asked on the broadcast whether he thought the Bears would attempt a 2-point conversion if they scored over kicking a point-after, Hall of Fame quarterback and Fox analyst Tom Brady expressed little doubt.
"I definitely think they're thinking about going for two," Brady said. "Absolutely. On the road, going to win, that's Ben Johnson's attitude. A 100%."
Given the Bears had all three of their timeouts remaining, Brady said that "time was not a factor one bit" as Chicago ran the clock down from 1:17 to 35 seconds, before Monangai was stopped on third down.
While Brady agreed with the Bears' strategy, he intimated the need for more urgency on the final few plays.
"There can't be such a slow pace," he said. "I'd still like to see a little tempo in and out of the huddle."
Johnson did not see an issue with how his team handled those final moments of the game.
"I thought we handled that situation -- I don't know a better way to do it to be honest with you," Johnson said. "Like I said, the less amount of time that we would have left on that clock to score the better off we would have been. The entire offense knew that we were looking to milk that clock down. The moment it got under a certain level I then relayed to the quarterback, OK, now we're going to score the touchdown. And so we were all on the same page and I thought we handled that situation as beautifully as we could minus the execution on third-and-1."