Byard disagreed with Eberflus’ approach on play just before Hail Mary |
CHICAGO—Safety Kevin Byard was one of the players on the field during Chicago’s failed hail mary defense in their 18-15 loss to the Washington Commanders.
A lot went wrong on that play, and Byard broke down what he saw when speaking to the media on Monday. “It’s something we do practice throughout the week. Every week is a little different because as far as (linebacker) Tremaine (Edmunds), who’s the double guy, so he may be aligned on whoever’s the double guy. So, (wide receiver Terry) McLaurin was to the single side where (cornerback) Jaylon (Johnson) was and that’s also something that we kind of didn’t execute right because they were supposed to be flipped, even though he ended up getting to the double guy. Tremaine and (safety) Elijah Hicks were supposed to be flipped and so, Elijah is supposed to be the back guy because it’s supposed to double McLaurin in the front. Elijah’s supposed to be kind of the back tip guy,” Byard said. “But, at the same time … everybody was pretty much boxing out. 85 was the guy who obviously caught the ball at the end. He was not being boxed out. I was supposed to be the jumper. I was supposed to kind of have a free jump kind of like volleyball to tip the ball back down and even looking at it from the film and I felt it during the play, obviously it was a long, developing play. I didn’t really have an opportunity to jump honestly because it was 85 who was kind of pushing me from behind. So, I couldn’t really get a clean jump. But, at the end of the day, it’s a tough way to lose. You never know what’s going to be the play.” Everyone in Chicago knew what the play was going to be in those final two seconds. But apparently, cornerback Tyrique Stevenson did not get the message. During the hail mary play, Stevenson had his back turned toward the field and was playing to the crowd. He was late arriving to the play and tipped the ball into the hands of Washington’s receiver, who caught the game-winning hail mary. Despite Stevenson’s actions, Byard is standing by his teammate. “But obviously, I know Tyrique’s kind of been getting hammered, whether it was social media or obviously in meetings and things like that. But, (I’m going to) support my guy,” Byard said. “I think for him, it’s going to be a great lesson for him just as we go forward throughout the season and just in life period, just how to be able to handle this adversity, and you only lose when you don’t learn, and I think he’s going to learn from it and we’ll get better from it.” There are a lot of reasons this game never should have come down to a Hail Mary. One of them is how Chicago handled the play before the hail mary. When it was clear Washington was trying to get some extra yards to get into hail mary range with six seconds left, head coach Matt Eberflus decided to allow the Commanders to pick up 13 yards. This made the Hail Mary 52 yards as opposed to 65 yards. When Byard was asked about this discussion, he stated he would not have made this same decision. “I had a discussion with Flus about it. He has his feelings about it. I think it’s a lot of different ways you can defend those plays. Me personally, I think that in that scenario, possibly could have had the corners pressed up there because they just ran two out cuts and the play was called just to get a couple more yards to throw it down the field,” Byard said. “If you had the guys pressed up, maybe they convert to vertical and they actually run the hail mary. But, even if they do that and our corners run with those guys, (I’m) not saying he doesn’t have the arm strength, but you think about the ball maybe landing 10 yards shorter and it may be a little different … At the end of the day, things happen the way it happened. Could we have sent pressure? Maybe. But, he made the call, and that’s what it was.”
