{"id":227408,"date":"2025-09-15T00:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T00:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227408\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T00:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T00:18:09","slug":"isaac-teslaas-catch-explained-what-officials-said-about-confusing-bears-lions-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227408\/","title":{"rendered":"Isaac TeSlaa\u2019s catch explained: What officials said about confusing Bears-Lions call"},"content":{"rendered":"

DETROIT \u2014 The Chicago Bears seemed a couple of seconds away \u2014 or an officiating consensus away \u2014 from entering the locker room trailing only by a touchdown at halftime of Sunday\u2019s 52-21 loss<\/a> to the Lions.<\/p>\n

Confusion reigned at Ford Field after Lions quarterback Jared Goff\u2019s deep ball to receiver Isaac TeSlaa, whose one-handed catch put Detroit at the Bears\u2019 4-yard line. Even though the official closest to TeSlaa signaled he was out of bounds after the catch, another official said he was in bounds, and the clock continued to run. Goff sprinted to the ball and spiked it as the clock hit zero. One official spoke with Bears coach Ben Johnson and let him know time had run out.<\/p>\n

The Bears ran to the locker room. They had stopped the juggernaut from scoring and would be getting the ball to start the second half with a chance to tie the game with a touchdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the official right next to me throughout that process,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe told me it was halftime, so we went in for halftime.\u201d<\/p>\n

But wait, referee Land Clark said. A replay review took place, which deemed that TeSlaa caught the ball in bounds with 16 seconds left. Next came a 10-second runoff for the replay, since the Lions didn\u2019t have any timeouts left, which meant Goff would get one shot at the end zone with six seconds on the clock.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth in the postgame pool report: \u201cThey ruled that it was a completed catch with the receiver out of bounds. The impact of that ruling is the clock stopped because they ruled him out of bounds. If they ruled him in bounds with the catch, the clock would continue to run. We stopped the game through replay to confirm the catch, which we were able to do. We confirmed there was contact by the defense after he controlled the ball, and we had his leg in bounds prior to going out of bounds. Therefore, the clock should have continued to run. So, we reset the clock to the down-by-contact time and then ran 10 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had they not needed to use replay review, and the clock had run live, maybe the Bears could have continued to the locker room.\u00a0Instead, Goff took advantage, throwing a touchdown pass to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to give the Lions a 28-14 lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe official covering the play stopped the clock. The clock operator didn\u2019t stop it but should have,\u201d Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira said on the broadcast. \u201cIt was an error by the covering official that led to this. If it was officiated properly, they probably wouldn\u2019t have gotten the play off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gut punch. Detroit never looked back.<\/p>\n

\u201cLand came up to me before the third quarter that they ruled it out of bounds, reviewed it that it was in bounds and it was a 10-second runoff,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see what it looks like on the game tape. That certainly was not communicated to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bears went three-and-out to start the second half, and the Lions went on to score 24 points on their next four possessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were halfway in the locker room, but we got to go out there and play another play and get a stop,\u201d Bears defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said. \u201cSo they worked that in their favor and it was a momentum swing for them. But we did think the half (was) over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Safety Kevin Byard thought the clock was at zero when Goff spiked the ball, and that was that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know what really happened on the referee\u2019s side,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s what we thought happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bit of a mental shift to go from, \u2018We just kept them from scoring and can go into halftime within a score\u2019 to \u2018We have to go line up and stop them from the 4-yard line.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just got to be able to adjust,\u201d defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo said. \u201cYou can\u2019t leave it up to the refs in that situation, don\u2019t even allow it to be close. So, you know, just do a better job making a play and then do a job adjusting when we come back out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lions coach Dan Campbell said he never considered kicking a field goal with six seconds left. He also would\u2019ve had to rush the kicking unit onto the field, as the officials wound the clock once everything got settled. He knew the impact of that last-second score.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was big,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was big that we were able to apply a lot of pressure right before halftime, knowing they were getting the ball coming out. That was a big play. That whole thing was \u2014 they\u2019re waving them out, but then nobody is stopping the clock. So, we were fortunate that we got an opportunity to do it. I mean Goff and (St. Brown) make it a huge play. It was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much difference could it have made? It\u2019s easy to look at it now as a footnote. The Bears got blitzed in the second half and showed no ability to stop the Lions.<\/p>\n

Then again, entering the locker room down seven coming off a stop does a lot more for the psyche than what the Bears experienced. Maybe their opening-half possession would\u2019ve resulted in a punt no matter what, but had they been able to march down and score \u2026 well, based on the result, it\u2019s a difficult hypothetical to even consider.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more things in that game than we can get better on,\u201d Jarrett said.<\/p>\n

(Photo of Isaac TeSlaa: Lon Horwedel \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2014 The Chicago Bears seemed a couple of seconds away \u2014 or an officiating consensus away \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":227409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[531,9000,1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-227408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-chicago-bears","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115205446315840750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}