LAS VEGAS —Special teams coordinator Richard Hightower narrated the field goal try in Ben Johnson’s headset, trying to will the result he wanted. Josh Blackwell, he said, was going to block this field goal. Quarterback Caleb Williams sat on the bench, trying to stay even-keeled. He listened for the crowd and fixed his eyes toward the goal posts.
Needing to make a 54-yard field goal to take the lead with 38 seconds to play Sunday, the Raiders snapped the ball. Blackwell, the Bears backup cornerback and special teams ace, sprinted in from the right side. safety Jaquan Brisker engaged Jonah Laulu on the edge, leaving Blackwell untouched.
He aimed for a spot in the air in front of the holder, did a Superman leap and blocked the Daniel Carlson’s kick to preserve the 25-24 win, setting off pandemonium inside an Allegiant Stadium that had as many Bears fans as Raiders supporters.
Blackwell sprinted down the field, delirious.
“An out-of-body experience,” he said.
Safety Kevin Byard, who had two of the Bears’ three interceptions of Geno Smith in what he considered one of the best wins in his 10-year career, was overwhelmed by what he called a wave of white noise.
“You can’t recreate this type of atmosphere, energy, excitement anywhere in the world,” he said.
Getting there, though, started last week in a quiet meeting room. Each week, Hightower has each of his specialists present a scouting report on their opposing counterpart. Bears long snapper Scott Daly noticed something in his film study — right before he snaps the ball, Raiders snapper Jacob Bobenmoyer turns the ball just slightly. With the Bears looking to time the snap, the slight twist was the tell.
“We got close the first two kicks,” Blackwell said, “and I was like, ‘I’m going to time this up good.’”
In doing so, he moved the Bears to 2-2 — and hoped to bury his team’s well-earned reputation.
“The narrative is that the Bears can’t finish out games that are close,” Blackwell said. “I think this team is different.”
Johnson had told the team that directly — that many around the league didn’t think they could close out games. Such finishes typically don’t go the Bears’ way — in the last year, they lost to the Commanders on the Fail Mary, the Packers when they had a field goal blocked at the gun and, in Week 1, blew an 11-point fourth quarter lead.
The win, Johnson told his players in the locker room later, is a sign that things are different.
“He told everybody it was a character win,” running back D’Andre Swift said. “We found a way to win, and that’s what you want to see.”
Williams believed it was an important win for the team’s culture.
“It was a big moment for us,” he said.
Until the block, the game felt a lot like the Commanders loss last year, with a Bears offense stuck in the mud scoring late to take the lead. Sunday, Johnson made his gutsiest call of the game, a third-and-four handoff to Swift, who to that point had only 31 yards on 12 carries. Swift got five yards and scored on a two-yard run on the next play to give the Bears the lead with 1:39 to play.
Dylan Laube returned the ensuing kickoff all the way to the Raiders’ 42. It took the Raiders only four plays to get within field goal range, but Byard stuffed running back Ashton Jeanty on third-and-one at the 35 to set up Carlson’s kick.
Then Blackwell watched for the spin, timed the snap and soared through the air.
“You watch a lot of film on a lot of guys and you look for one little thing to give you some kind of edge,” Daly said. “Games like this come down to last second, last play, last inch. It was awesome to see.”