The Chicago Bears had just scored a touchdown to cut the Detroit Lions’ lead to 21-14 near the end of the second quarter in Week 2 of the 2025 NFL season. The Lions got the ball back with less than two minutes left, and they immediately started mounting a drive down the field.
Bears got screwed by refs on the Lions’ last second TD drive after Isaac TeSlaa catch
Did the Bears get screwed here?
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
With 21 seconds remaining and no timeouts, Detroit QB Jared Goff hit rookie receiver Isaac TeSlaa for a huge downfield strike. TeSlaa hauled the ball in with one hand, but he appeared to be touched before sliding out of bounds. The clock kept running, the Lions couldn’t get lined up to spike the ball quickly enough, and the halftime whistle blew.
The Bears were already running to the locker room when the refs huddled to review the play. Here’s what happened, from eeyore19682001 in the comments:
The ruling wasn’t that TeSlaa got out of bounds. The ruling was that the side judge thought he was out of bounds as it happened and signaled for the clock to stop. The clock operator failed to stop it. There was then a video review to figure out whether TeSlaa was inbounds. They declared that he was. They also ruled, correctly, that the side judge had signaled for the clock to stop. The rulebook stipulates that there should be a ten second runoff if the clock doesn’t stop when an official signals for it.
There’s a reason why the rules are written this way. If the official signals for the clock to stop and it doesn’t, players on the field might behave as if the clock is stopped, and not hurry to the line of scrimmage. I don’t know whether that happened in this instance, but it might have. An offense can usually get reset in less than 16 seconds, even with a long gain.
Bears fans were losing their minds over the call, but in the end, it didn’t really matter. The Lions smoked the Bears, 52-21. Watch the play here:
The Bears thought they were going into the half down one score. Instead, the refs put more time on the clock, and the Lions scored a touchdown the next play. What a devastating turn of events for Chicago.
Here’s St. Brown’s touchdown catch:
Here’s how the refs explained their decision, via ESPN reporter Courtney Cronin:
Here’s the explanation we were just given on that confusion at the end of the 2nd Q.
-Isaac TeSlaa makes that crazy catch on the sideline
-Official closest to TeSlaa called him out of bounds
-One official said TeSlaa was in bounds
-Clock was at 16 seconds when they went back to review whether it was a catch or not (via replay assist)...thus, a 10 second run-off
-Clock was at 6 seconds after it was reviewed. That’s how much time was put back on for the Goff to St. Brown TD after the Bears had come back onto the field after thinking that there was no time left in the half.
Bears fans had a meltdown over the overturned call.
What do you think: should the clock have kept running after TeSlaa’s catch? It looks like he was touched before he went out of bounds to me. That’s a game-swinging decision.
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