The Dallas Cowboys took a gloves off beat-down in Chicago on Monday night, falling to the Bears 45-28 on the back of a pathetic defensive performance.
The Cowboys offense marched right down the field on the opening drive of the game, moving 75 yards in 12 plays, capping the drive with a two-yard touchdown pass from Tony Romo to Dez Bryant for a 7-0 lead. For the moment, Dallas looked good. But that was before this historically awful defense took the field.
The Dallas D allowed the Bears to answer with a 12-play scoring drive of their own, capped with a four-yard touchdown pass from Chicago quarterback Josh McCown to a wide open Earl Bennett. McCown, the Bears backup, would go 27 of 36 passing for 348 yards, four touchdowns and no interceptions on Monday.
Chicago took the lead, 14-7 on their next possession with a seven-yard run from McCown to finish off a 10-play drive.
Romo threw his second touchdown pass of the half on the Cowboys’ next drive--this time a 10-yarder to Jason Witten, the veteran tight end’s seventh on the year--to tie it up at 14-14. Romo finished 11 of 20 for 104 yards and three touchdowns.
But of course, the defense didn’t hold for long.
Kicker Robbie Gould added a 27-yard field goal to make it 17-14, Bears. Then that pesky defense allowed Chicago to drive 60 yards in 37 seconds for a touchdown. McCown hit Alshon Jeffery in the end zone for a 25-yard score with 10 seconds left in the half.
At the break, it was Bears 24, Cowboys 14.
The Bears took the opening kick of the second half and--surprise, surprise--they were all too happy to score some more points on the porous Dallas defense.
Gould opened up the second half with a 34-yard field goal. Running backs Matt Forte and Michael Bush then caught a touchdown pass each--of four and 17 yards, respectively--and, with less than a minute in the fourth, it was 42-14 Bears.
The Cowboys would answer feebly after the game was well out of reach with a nine-yard touchdown pass from Romo to Cole Beasley. Gould added his third field goal on the Bears’ next possession and--after Kyle Orton had replaced Romo--rookie running back Joseph Randle took in a one-yard touchdown run.
The final was Bears 45, Cowboys 28, and even that score is misleading as to how one-sided the game was. There’s really no overstating how bad this Cowboys’ defense was. The Bears never failed to score on a possession, until the empty possession with five seconds left, after the failed onside kick. Dallas allowed 498 yards of total offense to a backup quarterback--and recorded just one sack and no turnovers--on a night when the temperature was in single digits.
At 7-6, the Cowboys will host the Packers at AT&T Stadium next Sunday.
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