CHICAGO — Dee Alford kept running and running. His Falcons teammates went wild on the sidelines. Coach Arthur Smith had his hands raised in the air hopefully signaling touchdown while doing a little hop.
It felt as if Alford needed to return that missed field goal for a touchdown to end the first half for the Falcons to have chance to beat the Bears. Alford made it all the way to Chicago’s 13-yard line before tripping. The Falcons wouldn’t get that close to the end zone until Taylor Henicke ran for a touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
That came too late for the Falcons, who were dominated by the Bears on Sunday at Soldier Field. The 37-17 loss didn’t bury the Falcons (7-9). They remain alive in the NFC South race because the Bucs (8-8) lost to the Saints (8-8) on Sunday. The Falcons will make the playoffs as division champions if they win at New Orleans next weekend while the Bucs lose at Carolina.
But everyone knows that if the Falcons make the postseason, it will be because the South is that bad, not because they are good. The Falcons played their best game of the season to beat the Colts at home last week. They followed it with another flop on the road, where they’ve lost six of eight games.
The Falcons trailed the Bears by two touchdowns early in the second half. They answered with Taylor Heinicke’s 75-yard touchdown pass to Tyler Allgeier. The Bears went ahead by two touchdowns again with a 12-play drive. They gained a first-and-goal at the three on the first drive after halftime. The Falcons held them to a field goal to trail 24-7 with 27 minutes to play.
The Falcons weren’t going to overcome that deficit. Their offense hadn’t done much outside of Allgeier’s touchdown. The defense couldn’t prevent Bears quarterback Justin Fields from making plays out of nothing. The Falcons didn’t come close to beating a bad Bears team in Chicago.
Now the Falcons must beat the Saints and hope another bad team who beat them, the Panthers, can upset the Bucs.
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