Marty Booker’s lunge probably won Sunday’s game for the Bears. What? You mean you don’t remember it?
Sometimes a game’s biggest play is as obvious as a dog bite. Sometimes it occurs in the flow and its significance is more clearly recognized later.
The Bears topped the Detroit Lions 13-10 at Soldier Field and they put together only one touchdown drive. The score itself was a nothing-flashy-about-it 1-yard burst by Leon Johnson with 51/2 minutes left.
But the only reason the 9-2 Bears were able to run off five straight plays from inside the 20-yard line was a Booker catch for a first down on third-and-5 just before it. Booker doesn’t make the catch and the Bears probably try a field goal. Even if it’s good, they still trail 10-9. Maybe they get the ball back and drive again, maybe not. The Booker reception took the suspense out of it, positioning the Bears to win right then.
Behind 10-6, the Bears took possession on their own 45-yard line but stalled at the Lions’ 41. It was fourth-and-6 and Brad Maynard came on to punt. But Detroit defensive end James Hall jumped offside.
“I’d just hate to be the guy who was watching the ball,” Bears running back James Allen said.
It was a reprieve for the Bears, in some ways a mistake as pivotal for 0-11 Detroit as Booker’s catch.
“That was huge,” Bears tackle Blake Brockermeyer said of the penalty.
On the next play–still fourth down, but only a yard to go–the Bears gambled by going for it. A handoff to Johnson produced 6 yards off left tackle and the march continued.
So early in the drive the Bears were lucky. After that they were good.
They advanced to the Lions’ 25, but faced the critical third-down play. It was designed to go to Dez White. White lined up on the left side, Booker on the right.
“I thought in the pre-snap call it was going to go to [Booker] the way the defense was [lined up],” quarterback Jim Miller said.
At the snap, White and Booker tried to peel off defenders.
“I had a lot of defenders looking me up,” White said. “There were just too many people lined up.”
Booker, a 5-foot-11-inch, 208-pound, third-year man out of Northeast Louisiana, who has become the Bears’ leading receiver in 2001, made the most timely of his nine grabs for the day. Booker ran his route expecting to be a decoy, but when the ball appeared, he was ready.
“It was a crucial time in the game,” Booker, who has 73 catches this season, said. “I was surprised Jim came to me myself. You’ve always got to be alert.”
The pass reached Booker before he passed the first-down marker. Lions cornerback Terry Fair hit him, but Booker fought forward, gaining just enough.
“Marty did a great job getting the first down,” Miller said.
Booker did not make a big deal out of the big play.
“It’s just what I do,” he said.
Because he did the Bears had first-and-10 on the 20 and the momentum to pound the ball in for the winning touchdown.
