IS TYRIQUE THE TERRIBLE WORSE THAN STEVE BARTMAN AND 121 WHITE SOX LOSSES?
In what has become America’s worst sports town, Chicago must consider why the cornerback teased fans near the sideline before rushing into a pile and batting the ball to … Noah Brown for a Hail Mary
If it’s remotely possible in Chicago sports history, I’d suggest the Tyrique Stevenson brain fart — carelessness, absurdity, insanity — is more lethal than Steve Bartman. The playoff series didn’t suddenly end at Wrigley Field when the dude in a Cubs cap caught the ball. Stevenson’s taunting of fans in enemy territory was followed by a Hail Mary.
That would be the miracle mishmash he created by rushing belatedly into a pile of players, leaping high and letting the football bounce off his right hand instead of batting it down. He deflected it directly to Noah Brown, who was standing alone in the end zone and secured an 18-15 victory for the Washington Commanders. Days before Halloween, Tyrique the Terrible gave his city the sorriest costume getup.
And yet another moment of embarrassment in what has become the nation’s worst sports town. Is this equivalent to the 121 losses of the White Sox? Sammy Sosa being caught with cork in his bat? The Black Sox? Scottie Pippen refusing to play when the shot went to Toni Kukoc? The Sneaker Game when the New York Giants used rubber basketball shoes when the Bears did not? Jerry Reinsdorf, even?
Stevenson is the high school in the north suburbs where my daughters attended. Can we try another name this week — using Jalen Brunson, say? Tyrique apologized Sunday night after videos appeared, showing him outside the hashmarks and near the sideline, where he pointed to people in the stands. As Jayden Daniels took the snap and held the ball for 12.79 seconds, Stevenson continued to wave hands at the fans. Finally, when Commanders receivers were inside the Bears 30-yard line, he flashed a goodbye sign, turned around and saw a receiver at the 12. When the moment of agony finally kicked in, he rushed toward the forming mob. He soared, let the ball hit off his hand and watched with the rest of us as it veered straight to Brown.
Using a name he might have to change — @dreamchaserTy10 — he posted this online: “To Chicago and teammates my apologies for lack of awareness and focus …. The game ain’t over until zeros hit the clock. Can’t take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen. #Beardown.”
Beardown?
How about Bear gone?
Some might suggest Stevenson be waived after a day when Daniels burned him, but coach Matt Eberflus doesn’t operate that way. He’ll see it as a painful lesson. He might have pulled out his coiffed hair after reviewing the tapes. “It comes down to that last play, and we've practiced that play a hundred times since we've been here,” Eberflus said. “I’ll have to look at what the execution was on that, but we have a body on a body, boxing guys out like basketball at the very end. We have one guy at the rim that knocks the ball down. We've got a tip guy that goes behind the pile. I've got to look at it and detail it out and make sure we're better next time.”
One of the team captains, receiver DJ Moore, appeared on a WSCR-AM show and said they would address the mess. “A few of the captains were talking about how we need to really address that,” he said. “I think he put something out about how he was sorry, but we've still got to address it as a leadership group and in front of the team.
“Upstairs is going to have to do what they were going to do.”
The Bears, who play in the difficult NFC North, somehow must recover emotionally and carry on with a mean schedule. “When you lose a game like that, that's a tough one to swallow,” Eberflus said. Safety Kevin Byard tried to explain.
“I’m supposed to be the jumper to try to jump and tip the ball down,” he said. “Everybody was kind of piling up. It was hard to get an angle, get a running start.”
Especially when Tyrique the Terrible was concentrating on mopes at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md. He wears No. 29.
The jerseys should be easy to find this week.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.