The 2018 Chicago Bears team was truly special. A team destined to make a run in the postseason and get to the Super Bowl. That was until the dreaded sound of two doinks crushed the Windy City to its core.
Most Bears fans will remember (or try to forget) the NFC Wild Card game against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2018, the last time the franchise hosted a playoff game. They were down 16-15 as quarterback Mitch Trubisky drove the Bears down the field on the final minute of the game to set up Cody Parkey with a 43-yard field goal.
The operation was good, Parkey's kick sent the ball in the air, and Eagles defensive tackle Treyvon Hester tipped it enough to change the course of a whole season. Parkey's kick ended up hitting the field goal post twice and fell on the ground without crossing it.
Eagles miraculously won. Bears season was devastatingly over in a blink of an eye.
That's what everyone knows about it, but apparently, there is more to the nightmare that will only make it worse. Let's get this over with, Bears fans.
Doug Pederson adds some more nuggets to the "Double Doink"
While appearing on the Pardon My Take podcast, former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was asked about the infamous "Double Doink." Pederson was not shy about releasing some information that hadn't been known by the public for seven years.
"You know what's interesting, and I can reveal this now," Pederson said. "During the week, my special teams coordinator, Dave Fipp, came to me, and I'll always remember this. Cody (Parkey), at the time, was hitting 92-93% of his field goals. He was in the low 90s in field goal makes that season. But anytime a coach burned a timeout, it literally cut in half. (Fipp) came to me with this interesting nugget of information."
"We're getting to the end, and Mitch Trubisky was looking brilliant; he's like throwing darts out there on a two-minute drive and gets them down to field goal range. I'm going, "There is no way. I got one timeout left, and this is coming down to a kick. I'm going to test the theory.' I'm replaying this whole thing in my head, and obviously, it's history now."
Pederson's final timeout sealed the Bears' fate—a crushing blow to what was one of the franchise's best seasons in the last decade plus.
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It feels like a past memory that hopefully never reappears again. A valuable lesson for current Bears head coach Ben Johnson to know for the future when learning about mistakes from the past.