Jayden Daniels Beat Caleb Williams And The Bears On A 52-Yard Hail Mary

After a hot start to the season for both the Bears and Commanders, CBS flexed the matchup between the top two picks in the NFL Draft into their national window at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday. The hope was to see a shootout between Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, but instead the first 50-plus minutes of action saw a defensive struggle as neither offense could really get rolling.

The Commanders were having more success, but couldn’t finish off drives and had a tenuous hold on a 12-7 lead late. The Bears, meanwhile, had only scored on a long run by DeAndre Swift and saw a goal line drive to take the lead end in a turnover when they tried to hand it off to a lineman, only for him to fumble the handoff. It was a sloppy game that finished with a flourish, though, as Williams led the Bears to a go-ahead touchdown with under a minute to play, leaving Daniels one timeout and less than 30 seconds to figure out how to force overtime or come up with a miracle for the win.

Daniels opted for that second option, as he moved Washington to their 48 with two seconds to play and, after buying a ton of time for his guys to all get to the end zone, unleashed a prayer that got answered when it got tipped backwards into the waiting arms of Noah Brown for the winning score.

It’s about as bad a job as you can do if you’re the Bears in this situation, as they don’t rush enough to put any real pressure on Daniels, allowing him to create space to load up and launch the ball. Then, in the end zone, they fail to stay with their assignment and all clump together to go for the football, leaving Brown unguarded once the ball tips up into the air. Somewhere, Tom Jackson is shaking his head yelling “KNOCK IT DOWN”, but the Commanders are thrilled no one in the Bears secondary grew up watching NFL Primetime.