The Chicago Bears fell to the San Francisco 49ers in an absolutely wild game on Sunday Night Football. The Bears fought hard to the very end, but ultimately, it's hard to win football games when your defense surrenders 42 points.
That being said, the Bears had a chance to win in the final seconds, and that speaks to Ben Johnson's turnaround in Chicago. He has this team believing and applauding his squad's efforts in the second half, making the 49ers sweat down the stretch.
"In the second half, I did feel we picked up our game as a team and we closed that gap and we made it where we could potentially win that thing there at the end. So, was proud of the guys for that. But it just wasn't enough," Johnson said.
Bears loss to 49ers feels different thanks to Ben Johnson influence
This is an accurate way to describe how Week 17's game went for Chicago. The Bears trailed 28-21 at the half but went on to score on their first three drives of the second half. What ended up costing them was settling for a field goal with a little over five minutes remaining in the game.
As we know, the 49ers then executed a seven-play, 75-yard drive that ended up as a touchdown and chewed up over three minutes of clock time. The Bears then had to score a touchdown on their final play, and as we saw, they came as close as they could to doing just that, but unfortunately fell short.
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The good news is that Johnson's team has continued to fight even when it looks bleak. They showed that again in Week 17, and there's no reason to think they won't display that in the playoffs when a loss can end their season.