It was a tale of two halves in the Big Apple for the Chicago Bears on Sunday afternoon, as the New York Giants scored a 22-16 victory at MetLife Stadium.
The Bears had a monstrous first half, with their offense clicking on all cylinders, but things quickly went south in the second half as Eli Manning threw a pair of third quarter touchdown passes to put the Giants on the path to victory.
The game was also awful for the Bears on the injury front, as they lost two more key players to ailments in the game. Tight end Zach Miller, who had three catches for 61 yards and a touchdown, was knocked out of the game in the second quarter with a foot injury, and offensive lineman Josh Sitton left the game with an ankle injury in the third quarter of the contest.
Things got off to a great start in the first quarter for the Bears, as Jordan Howard and Jeremy Langford combined to get the team’s running game going early. Jay Cutler finished off an impressive opening drive with a deft touch pass over the top to Miller, who hauled in the ball in the end zone to give Chicago a 6-0 lead after Connor Barth missed an extra point.
Later in the frame, the Giants got even thanks to a fourth down conversion by Sterling Shepard and some quality running by Rashad Jennings. Jennings got the ball down to the one-yard line, and on the very next play he punched it across the goal line to knot things up at 6-6.
Barth made up for his earlier miss by drilling through a 42-yard field goal to make it a 9-6 game, and the Bears’ offense continued to pound away at the Giants. Howard continued to bowl over defenders in the running game, but it was Langford that ultimately got to hit paydirt as he punched in a short touchdown run to make it a 16-6 game.
The Giants trimmed Chicago’s lead to 16-9 before the end of the first half, and as the second half got underway, New York pulled ahead on the scoreboard. Eli Manning found Odell Beckham for a long first down on the Giants’ first drive, and tight end Will Tye finished the possession off to tie the game at 16-16.
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On New York’s next drive, Victor Cruz hauled in a 48-yard pass to get the Giants into scoring range, and Sterling Shepard did the rest as he made a nice touchdown grab to put New York in front. Robbie Gould missed his second extra point of the day, but the Giants still maintained a 22-16 lead through three quarters of action.
The Bears got some big completions from Cutler on their final drive, with Marquess Wilson and Josh Bellamy each making big gains, but an interception by Cutler into the arms of Landon Collins ended the game and sent the Bears to their eighth defeat in 10 games.
