Among the many wild things that happened late in Chicago’s loss to Washington last Sunday, one of them was the Bears calling a handoff to backup center Doug Kramer Jr. on third-and-goal at the 1-yard line.
The handoff from quarterback Caleb Williams to Kramer was, of course, botched and fumbled. Washington recovered the loose ball to end that scoring threat.
In the aftermath of the loss, head coach Matt Eberflus said it was a 1-yard play, noting it was part of the game plan. In his own weekly news conference, Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron defended the play call.
“Reflecting on it, I think every play call that doesn’t work out, you go back and look at it and see, was it the best call in that situation? And I think I’ll always look inwardly first,” Waldron said. “And every play-call that doesn’t work out, obviously, you’re going to have a sense of, what could I have done better as a play-caller? What situations could I have put those guys in?
“But also, going back to the play, I have all the confidence in the world in all of our players. And I think something we’ve repped and worked on came up in the moment as a third-and-1 call there. It didn’t work out. But what I was most proud about was seeing our defense then get a three-and-out, our offense comes over to the sideline, everyone’s eyes are up, everyone’s communicating, ready to attack the next drive — and have a chance to score on the next drive as well.”
Waldron noted that while there is a balance between risk and reward — particularly with plays near the goal — he’s looking inward so that the team can have better results in the future.
“I think there’s always valid criticism when things don’t work out,” Waldron said.
But would he call that same play again?
“In that moment? Yeah, I was confident. I had trust in it,” Waldron said. “Looking back at it, all the things that go into any call throughout the course of the game — whether it’s early calls in the game that go to stuff not working out, calls in the middle, calls in the end, critical calls — always assess those and go forward.”
