Just in time, the Bears rediscovered the draw play.
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The Bears used to run it exquisitely with Walter Payton. A ferocious blocker, Payton could stay put without automatically signaling a ruse. And when he took off with the ball, the pass rush pushed aside and the defensive secondary dropping deep against the pass, he usually had ample room to maneuver. The draw actually became something of a crutch for the overly cautious Mike Ditka. When the Bears found themselves third and long, odds were that Ditka would call the draw. It never worked as well after Payton retired, and its status lapsed in the Bears’ playbook.
But a draw was just what the moment required against the Giants at the Meadowlands. As Jones is a solid blocker, no alarms went off when he stayed by quarterback Rex Grossman as if to protect him. Then he got the ball, slipped through a hole in the line, shook off a couple of hip tackles, and was gone. The Giants’ pass rush became more tentative and Grossman soon hit Mark Bradley with a touchdown pass. And that’s the way the second half went too. Grossman had time to pass, and when he wasn’t handing off to Jones he was deceiving the Giants with the draw’s opposite, the play-action pass, a pass that first looks like a run. The Bears won going away, 38-20, helped mightily by Devin Hester’s ultimate deception: he faked downing a missed field goal in the end zone and then ran it back 108 yards for the touchdown that broke the game open.
