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The Chicago Bears started off the 2025 season with a disastrous 27-24 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in prime time. Monday night was supposed to be a celebration for the arrival of the Ben Johnson era, but it instead turned into the J.J. McCarthy coming out party.

The Bears held an 11-point lead entering the fourth quarter, which was quickly erased by Minnesota. There's plenty of blame to go around for this loss. Caleb Williams' play noticeably dropped off as the game went on, the defense couldn't stop a nosebleed in the fourth quarter, allowing three straight touchdown drives, and Johnson made some mistakes in his first game as an NFL head coach. Perhaps Johnson's missteps were the most frustrating aspect of this collapse. 

Johnson proved to be one of the most intriguing offensive minds in the league during his time with the Detroit Lions, but he has a ways to go regarding game management. Below, we will break down how Johnson hurt his own team in his first game as an NFL head coach. 

Timeout mismanagement 

This NFC North matchup came down to the wire, and Chicago would have had a chance to tie the game or even win it if the Bears had more than one timeout late in the fourth quarter. What happened to the first two timeouts? Let's take a look.

First timeout: In the third quarter, McCarthy completed a pass to tight end T.J. Hockenson for a short gain. Hockenson went down to his knees to catch the low ball. When Bears defenders Nick McCloud and Noah Sewell got to Hockenson, who was still on his knees, Sewell knocked the ball out, and it was recovered by Chicago. The officials ruled that Hockenson was down by contact. 

Johnson decided to challenge this ruling, in what was one of the more confounding challenges we've seen in quite some time. By knocking the ball out, Sewell was making contact with Hockenson -- who again, was on his knees at the time. It seemed incredibly unlikely Johnson had a chance to win this challenge, and as a result, burned his first timeout of the second half trying to do so. 

Second timeout: With just three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, the Bears were losing control of the game quickly. The Vikings had just scored two straight touchdowns to acquire a three-point lead, and McCarthy had just hit Justin Jefferson for a 10-yard gain to get the Vikings to the Bears' 14-yard line. With Chicago's defense facing a third-and-1, Johnson called his second timeout. On the very next play, McCarthy ran in a 14-yard touchdown to extend Minnesota's lead to 10.

The Bears now had 2:53 and just one timeout to make up 10 points. 

Williams then led a five-play, 65-yard touchdown drive that took 51 seconds, leaving the clock at 2:02. There are some coaches who may have kicked a field goal earlier in this drive so they could comfortably utilize the two-minute warning as a "timeout" for the defense before hopefully getting the ball back needing a touchdown to tie, but Chicago scored the touchdown first -- and did so just before the two-minute warning. However, what happened next dug the Bears' hole deeper. 

The kickoff debacle

Down 27-24 with 2:02 remaining in the fourth quarter, the Bears were set to kick off to the Vikings. Coach Johnson said after the game that they considered an onside kick, but instead opted to kick the ball out of the back of the end zone. Yet, Cairo Santos failed to do so! 

This allowed Vikings returner Ty Chandler to field the ball, run it out of the end zone, and take the two-minute warning off the board. This meant the Bears had just one timeout to utilize with 1:55 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Vikings ran the clock down to 16 seconds before punting it away, leaving the Bears just nine seconds to get into field goal range to tie the game. They were unable to do so. 

What Johnson should have done here is have Santos kick the ball out of bounds -- to the left or to the right. This would have kept 2:02 on the clock, therefore giving the Bears another "timeout" in the form of the two-minute warning. Kicking the ball out of bounds is a penalty, and allows the receiving team to take possession at its own 40-yard line or where the ball went out -- whichever is more favorable. The receiving team can't decline this penalty, which again, would have preserved the two-minute warning for the Bears defense.

Hypothetically, Williams would have had 49 seconds to get Chicago into field-goal territory with no timeouts remaining instead of just nine seconds. Johnson having Santos kick the ball out of bounds following Chicago's last touchdown does not guarantee the Bears would have been able to send the game to overtime, but it would have put his offense in a better/more comfortable spot.

Between the wasting of timeouts and botching the final kickoff, Johnson hurt his own team in his first game as head coach. You can't blame the 0-1 start solely on the Bears' new coach, but it's frustrating anytime your leader on the sideline and the one in charge of managing the game fails to do so effectively.