Rhamondre Stevenson says Bears’ pre-snap look set up his 48-yard halftime touchdown

Rhamondre Stevenson turned a dump-off with the clock nearly gone into a 48-yard touchdown on the final snap of the first half in Chicago, and the New England Patriots running back says the Bears’ own alignment told him the play was there before the ball was snapped.

The score did not save the night. Chicago won 30-24 at Soldier Field on Thursday, October 22, and New England fell to 4-3. But the catch-and-run cut a 20-7 deficit to six at the break, and it was the sort of play that almost never works.

RHAMONDRE STEVENSON‼️

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What Stevenson saw

With three seconds left and the ball near midfield, the Bears sent six rushers and parked two defensive backs near their own end zone in case Maye heaved it. That left the middle of the field empty. Drake Maye flipped the ball to Stevenson underneath, and the running back went the distance as Chicago’s pursuit angles fell apart.

“It’s kind of how they lined up pre-snap that got us into that play,” Stevenson said after the game. He added that it was no improvisation: “We’ve been working on that play for a long time and it came in handy today.” Asked what was going through his head when the ball arrived, he gave a one-word answer: he was thinking about scoring.

Doug Clawson looked at every comparable snap from the past 20 years: inside the last 10 seconds of a half, beyond 40 yards from the end zone, with a throw travelling under 10 yards. There were 1,006 of them, and Stevenson’s is the only one that went for six. Tracking estimates gave Stevenson a 4.3 percent chance of reaching the end zone and had New England’s chances of winning jump from about 10 percent to nearly 25 percent on the snap.

His night in numbers

Stevenson finished with five catches for 93 yards on five targets, the most receiving yards of any Patriot in the game, with the 48-yard touchdown as his long. He added 22 yards on six carries, the longest a 13-yard run. Maye completed 24 of 31 passes for 321 yards with two touchdowns and an interception, and ran for another score.

The ground game remains the worry. New England ran just 50 plays to Chicago’s 66, and Stevenson’s 3.7 yards per carry showed how little room there was between the tackles. His value on Thursday came as a receiver, where the Patriots found him in space five times and he turned every target into a catch.

The touchdown also answered a two-score swing that had started 14 seconds earlier, when Luther Burden III caught a 24-yard touchdown from Caleb Williams to put Chicago up 20-7. Instead of going to the locker room down two scores, New England trailed by six and later pulled within 27-21 on Eli Raridon’s 30-yard touchdown in the third quarter. Cairo Santos’ 58-yard field goal with 1:34 left put the game away.

Full box score and drive chart: Patriots at Bears Game Center. Season numbers and career log: Rhamondre Stevenson player page.

What comes next

The Patriots have a long week off the Thursday game before visiting the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, November 1, at 4:25 p.m. EST. The Bears, now 5-2, play at the Seattle Seahawks on Monday, November 2.