Bears' trick play fell flat due to clear rules violation

Published October 24, 2026 08:19 PM Thursday night’s game between the Patriots and Bears included a trick play from Bears coach Ben Johnson. It ended up being a footnote to the contest, but the situation was and still is a head-scratcher.With the Bears facing a second-and-three play from the New England eight, quarterback Caleb Williams pretended with one had to give the ball to running back D’Andre Swift. With the other, Williams gave the ball to left guard Joe Thuney. He was tackled one yard short of the line to gain.A flag was thrown. It was an illegal forward handoff. By rule, a forward handoff is only permitted to an eligible receiver behind the line of scrimmage.“It’s gotta be backwards, I mean, it’s simple as that,” Bears coach Ben Johnson told reporters on Friday. “So, once again, we felt like it looked good over the course of — we’ve been practicing it now for a while. You know, the initial version, we were actually putting it on the ground. Which, you know, in hindsight might have been the way to go. It’s one of those things. Shooters shoot. We shot. We missed. So, keep it moving.”It’s strange, to say the least, that Johnson didn’t know it was against the rules for Williams to hand the ball forward to an ineligible receiver. If someone like Dan Quinn had used a play like that, he would have gotten heavily criticized for it. Unlike Quinn, Johnson doesn’t have a reputation for making mistakes like that. It was still a mistake — and it was compounded by the apparent fact that Johnson didn’t alert the officials to the potential for a trick play before the game. Presumably, the officials would have told him, “You can’t do that.”Then there’s the possibility that Johnson is playing 4-D chess. As Big Cat suggested on the latest episode of Pardon My Take, the whole thing may have been a setup for some other trick play that Johnson will unveil at some point later this year.Regardless, the forward handoff to Thuney was a clear violation of the rules. Johnson should have known it. Someone on the coaching staff should have known it. As they practiced the play “for a while,” the potential illegality of a forward handoff to a lineman should have been flagged.Again, maybe Johnson knew. And maybe he has another trick play in the cylinder that will now be even more likely to work, given that the Thuney play has been put on film.