The preseason may not matter in the grander scheme of things, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely devoid of excitement. There are a lot of young men it means everything to because it is their best hope for making an NFL roster. That’s why the month-long series of games provide the same number of highlight reel plays as a typical regular season. The Chicago Bears know this well.
They’ve been on deliverer and the recipient of some pretty crazy moments in their long preseason history. Ralph Warner of NFL.com wanted to dig deep to discover what he considered to be the 10 craziest plays in the history of the preseason. Keep in mind all those that made the list didn’t go back further than 2009.
So this likely means Warner was at the mercy of how many televised highlights were available. Either way, the Bears being a charter franchise weren’t going to be absent from that list. They came in strong with a ranking of fifth. So what was the play that put them on the board?
Chicago Bears gain ranking courtesy of Deonte Thompson 109-yard return
Sure enough, it was from last year. The Bears were playing the Arizona Cardinals in week two of the preseason. Chicago held a 10-7 lead with one second left in the first half. Arizona decided to try for a 63-yard field goal to tie it up. The kick sailed wide right and into the arms of wide receiver Deonte Thompson.
Subscribe to the BFR podcast and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
After barely managing to stay in bounds, he proceeded to take the ball 109 yards the other way for a touchdown, tying the NFL record for longest in history. It was a wacky play from start to finish. The greatest irony of all? Thompson didn’t even spend the entire year on the roster after that. He ended up in Buffalo. That moment was one of the few high points of an otherwise frustrating year.
