Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur was regretful for the way he used a timeout late in the fourth quarter of his team’s 24-22 loss to the Chicago Bears in Sunday’s season finale.
The ill-timed timeout — after Emanuel Wilson was tackled for a loss on third down before Brandon McManus’ go-ahead field goal — saved precious seconds for the Bears, who used the extra time to go down and kick the game-winning field goal as time expired.
“At the end of the game, that’s squarely on me. Got caught in a situation where we were planning on going for it. They felt like Brandon could make that field goal. Hindsight is 20/20, I wish I wouldn’t have taken that timeout. It gave them way too much time to go down and operate. Like I told the team, that’s on me, that can’t happen.”
Trailing 21-19, the Packers had 3rd-and-2 from Chicago’s 35-yard line with 1:07 left. LaFleur said he was prepared to go for it on fourth down if the Packers didn’t gain two yards, and when Wilson got stuffed for a loss, LaFleur called timeout to go over the fourth down call. But special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia convinced LaFleur to send out McManus for a 55-yard field goal, and the veteran kicker drilled the kick to give the Packers the lead.
The problem? LaFleur called the timeout at the 58-second mark, and the Packers could have killed off at least another 20 seconds had LaFleur either not called a timeout or waited to use the timeout until more playclock had been used.
“I have to be better, more on the same page with exactly where we were,” LaFleur said.
LaFleur admitted being hesitant to send out the kicker from 55 yards out in frigid January temps at Lambeau Field. He also said he liked the playcall on third down but the Packers ended up being out-leveraged at the point of attack and lost yards.
“Wasn’t anticipating that, but that was the circumstance,” LaFleur said. “That’s why I called the timeout because we went backwards. I was planning on going for it right there.”
Given 54 seconds instead of more like a half-minute, the Bears marched down the field — using a horse-collar penalty on Kingsley Enagbare, a 15-yard completion to Rome Odunze and an 18-yard completion to D.J. Moore on 3rd-and-11 with 15 seconds left — to set up the game-winning field goal as time expired.
The loss dropped the Packers to 11-6 and snapped the Packers’ 11-game win streak over the Bears. The defeat was LaFleur’s first to the Bears as head coach of the Packers.