The Minnesota Vikings handed the Chicago Bears a 29-22 loss Week 5, and it’s not a game that Bears wide receiver Ihmir Smith-Marsette is likely going to remember fondly.
The Bears claimed Smith-Marsette off waivers on September 1 after the Vikings let him go, and he had an opportunity to seek a little revenge against his former team. It didn’t quite work out that way, however.
Smith-Marsette was involved in two of the most costly plays of the game for Chicago: He failed to run out of bounds with just over a minute remaining in the game, instead having the ball stripped by Vikings cornerback Cameron Dantzler, and he was also flagged for an illegal block on Dantzler.
The penalty negated a 52-yard touchdown run by Bears quarterback Justin Fields with 12:08 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Bears scored a field goal on that drive, but a look back at the play shows that the officials likely missed one. Dantzler confirmed as much after the game.
Cam Dantzler on Penalty Against Smith-Marsette: ‘I Sold It Pretty Good’
Fields’ 52-yard TD scamper would have been a game-changing moment for the Bears, but instead, Smith-Marsette’s penalty wiped six points off the board. After the game, both Smith-Marsette and Dantzler seemed to be in agreement about what happened.
“He flopped,” Smith-Marsette said about Dantzler, via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune.
To his credit, Dantzler didn’t deny it. “He was blocking me,” the third-year cornerback told Biggs. “And I sold it pretty good. I was in a tough spot.”
To be fair, the Bears didn’t lose the game because of one play, and the mistake made by Smith-Marsette later in the fourth quarter was much more costly.
Ihmir Smith-Marsette’s 4th Quarter Fumble Was Egregious
After the two-minute warning, needing a touchdown to tie and an extra point to win, the Bears were mounting a potential game-winning drive. Fields completed a 21-yard pass to running back David Montgomery, which left Chicago with the ball on its own 46-yard line with 1:12 to go in the game.
On the very next play, Smith-Marsette caught a short pass on the left side of the field, juking one Vikings defender for a bit of extra yardage. Instead of stepping out of bounds to stop the clock, however, Smith-Marsette stayed in and fought for more, and Dantzler picked his pocket. It was the end of the ball game after that.
“I was stiff-armed, so I was like, ‘Let me get up quick, because he’s gonna try to go out of bounds.’ … It’s a drill that we work on, a turnover drill,” Dantzler told the Vikings’ official website after the game. “I just saw an opportunity and took it.”
Dantzler gave up three catches for 32 yards in the game, earning a 90.7 coverage grade from PFF. “Our coach did a great job getting us prepared for plays we were gonna get, so when I saw the motion, I knew it was coming, and I made a play,” the Vikings CB added.
For his part, the Bears wideout expressed more than a little regret about the play after the game. “I lost track of him after I stiff-armed him,” Smith-Marsette said about Dantzler, via NBC Sports. “I wasn’t expecting that. I should have just went out of bounds instead of looking to extend the play. Just got to be smarter in that situation. That’s it.”
The Bears will play the Vikings again during the final week of the regular season on January 8, and if he’s still on the roster, Smith-Marsette could have another opportunity against his former team.
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