The surprising sequence pits the Bears against the Cowboys

ARLINGTON, Texas – It was one of those games that looked like it might help change one team’s fortunes, but ended up helping the other.

But this Momentum in the Bears-Cowboys game Sunday afternoon in Arlington was — in the spirit of Halloween — a little spooky. Perhaps fittingly, this happened when the Bears wore orange helmets and jerseys.

With the Bears trailing 35-23 with five minutes left in the third, Justin Fields eluded a Cowboys rush and found David Montgomery over the middle for the catch. He went left and headed to the line for the first down, but that’s where things went wrong.

Leighton Vander Esch picked off the ball from the running back and it was recovered by Dallas linebacker Micah Parsons.

But when he was on the ground, Justin Fields, thinking the game was over, jumped right over Parsons as he lay on the ground with the football. Only the Cowboys were on the football field, the other Bears were gone for a few seconds.

With no one from the Bears touching him, the quarterback stood up and ran 36 yards for a touchdown.

The Cowboys extended their lead to 42-23 and never looked back in a 49-29 victory that handed the Bears their fifth loss of the season.

Fields later took responsibility for the mistake.

“It’s my fault that I just jumped over him. I had to take him. I can’t remember the last time I made a tackle,” Fields said. “So I just have to be aware of this situation and make sure he’s laying down.”

It marked one major blip for the quarterback on an otherwise strong day, when he was 17 of 23 through the air for 151 yards and two 60-yard touchdowns while rushing for another score.

Still, he and the Bears struggled to take this surprising game, and head coach Matt Eberfluss did his best to turn it into a learning moment for everyone involved.

“Yes, just touch it. We’ve shown over and over throughout our situational tapes that we show every Friday that you have to touch guys,” Eberfluss said. “When you see it, you have to touch them. We know that. That’s part of professional football and we just have to do a better job there.”