Watch: Bears Player Doesn't Realize Guy is Behind Him, Gets Stripped at One-Yard Line
An absolutely bonkers play just happened in the Bears-Steelers game that I will now do my best to explain.
On what appeared to be the last play of the first half, the Steelers had a field goal blocked that would have cut their deficit to 14-10. The field goal was blocked, and Marcus Cooper Sr. picked up the ball and looked to be headed for an easy touchdown.
Cooper Sr. then slowed up considerably before reaching the end zone—note: this is never a good idea—and apparently didn't hear footsteps behind him, because he was stripped by the Steelers' Vance McDonald. In other words, he pulled a full Leon Lett.
But the Bears lucked out big time—instead of recovering the ball, they intentionally batted it out of the end zone. That's an illegal touch penalty, so by rule the ball goes back to the Bears at the spot of the fumble before the penalty is enacted. Because the fumble happened on the one-yard line, the penalty was enforced half the distance to the goal, giving the Bears the ultra-rare untimed down on the half-yard line.
The Bears were promptly called for a false-start penalty and kicked a field goal to push the lead to 17-10.
You definitely don't see that every day.
