(670 The Score) Tom Brady didn't appear old until the last drive of the game Thursday.
Then Brady, the 43-year-old largely considered the NFL's greatest quarterback of all time, apparently lost track of downs at the end of the Bears' 20-19 victory over the Buccaneers at Soldier Field.
It happens to everybody eventually, as they say. Of course, Brady isn't everybody.
After Bears safety DeAndre Houston-Carson broke up Brady's fourth-and-6 pass forced to Bucs tight end Cameron Brate, a bewildered Brady bizarrely held up four fingers and looked toward the officials as if he expected another play.
But the Bucs had turned the ball over on downs.
"I can't believe 6X Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady lost track of downs,'' Magic Johnson tweeted to his five million followers, speaking on behalf of everyone in the audience.
"Yeah, you're up against the clock and you're up against the -- I knew we had to gain a chunk, so I should have been thinking more first down instead of chunk in that situation," Brady told reporters postgame.
Make no mistake: This win felt like it counted more than most.
The Bears go forth with a 4-1 record after rallying from another double-digit deficit, the ugliest of victories they had every right to consider beautiful, a nationally televised statement about the power of resilience. Coach Matt Nagy talked incessantly in the days before this game about calibration.
This one came down to determination.
"That's a huge win,'' Nagy told reporters postgame.
That was the understatement of the night. This game represented a credibility test for a Bears team that had yet to beat a quality opponent.
That no longer can be said after Nick Foles got the best of Brady once again, stinging Brady badly enough that he appeared to run off the field without shaking hands. That no longer is true after the Bears defense came through with the game-changing takeaway on Kyle Fuller's bone-rattling hit, the offense woke up thanks to Foles and kicker Cairo Santos became the unlikeliest of heroes with a 38-yard field goal with 1:13 left.
Style matters much less after a substantive win like this one.
"The best thing about this is we're 4-1 and we know we can play a lot better,'' Nagy said.
True, but who saw such rapid improvement coming in the midst of a few minutes Thursday night?
When the Bucs took a 13-0 lead with 7:08 left in the second quarter, the Bears offense looked as lost and listless as it had in a 19-11 loss to the Colts last Sunday. It was sloppy enough to revive the social media movement calling for Mitchell Trubisky, the quarterback whom Foles replaced as the starter.
Foles earned the skepticism, looking shaky early even if he shared responsibility with Allen Robinson for a first-quarter interception on a "50-50 ball" that bounced out of Robinson's hands and to cornerback Carlton Davis.
And Foles' inaccuracy got worse before it got better. Down 10-0 at the start of the second quarter, Darnell Mooney found himself alone behind the Bucs secondary but Foles misfired badly. If there was a crowd, fans would have booed Foles loudly enough to be heard in Bridgeport.
Then, almost suddenly, Foles reminded America why he was the right quarterback for this Bears team after the Bucs took a 13-point lead.
Arm talent is the vaguest of NFL terms, often used to distinguish one quarterback from another, usually the first trait offered to describe a special quality not every passer possesses. You know it when you see it.
You see it in Foles.
There were other reasons but, in a nutshell, that's why Foles replaced Trubisky and why the Bears never really panicked after falling behind 13 points. The confidence Foles derives from that talent allows him to prevent one play from affecting the next one. For instance, after throwing that interception, Foles completed 11 of his next 15 passes for 99 yards and a touchdown. His command conditions Foles to expect positive results from his passes, however risky they appear.
And Foles' willingness to take those risks led to the reward of a comeback.
The first example came when Foles dropped a 25-yard pass into the arms of Cordarrelle Patterson on a wheel route up the home sideline down to the Tampa Bay 3-yard line late in the second quarter. Two plays later, David Montgomery scored the Bears' first rushing touchdown of the season.
The Bears' second touchdown came on a play that underscored how much Foles trusts his receivers to come down with the football. Tight end Jimmy Graham was covered well by Bucs cornerback Jamel Dean, but Foles put the ball on the back shoulder and that allowed Graham to make a circus one-handed catch.
Two other throws demonstrated the same moxie: a 19-yard pass interference call that Robinson drew on third-and-2 when Foles threw the ball up for grabs, keeping alive the drive that led to a field goal, and a 17-yard pinpoint pass between three defenders that Foles dropped into the bucket to Montgomery on a wheel route during the game-winning drive.
All those decisions made the Bears offense more dangerous. All those decisions reflect growth in the Bears offense that a quarterback with Foles' experience allows.
"Tonight was a big night of learning,'' said Foles, who was 30-of-42 for 243 yards with a touchdown and an interception.
Let this game also be a lesson to the remaining teams on the Bears' schedule: Khalil Mack appears to be back.
Mack displayed dominance that, by his standards, his game had been lacking. He sacked Brady twice and registered three quarterback hits, two tackles for loss, one batted pass and a tremendous body slam of rookie offensive tackle Tristan Wirfs.
"He was holding onto me and I had to get him off,'' Mack said.
And yet the most indelible hit of the game came from Fuller, who lowered his shoulder and dislodged the football from Bucs running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn to force a fumble that Robert Quinn recovered at the Tampa Bay 27-yard line with 1:37 left in the first half. That takeaway swung momentum and set up Graham's touchdown catch.
"The play of the night,'' Nagy correctly called it.
The Bears defense missed its share of tackles (Roquan Smith) and committed enough mistakes (Danny Trevatha) to make watching the tape a cringeworthy experience. But overall, the unit did enough to win against a dynamic offense that arrived averaging 30 points per game. Against the Bears, the Bucs managed a mere 19 and Brady got rattled enough to scream at his offensive line on the sidelines and lose track of downs at the end of the game.
Early on, Brady did a nice job making many a handful of pedestrian Buccaneer receivers feel like NFL somebodies. The star of the group, Mike Evans, scored the Bucs' first touchdown on a two-yard pass from Brady – Evans was lined up one-on-one on Bears rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson, an invitation for a veteran quarterback that Brady happily RSVP'd. But before finding Evans, Brady connected with the likes of unproven and largely unknown receivers such as Jaydon Mickens and Tyler Johnson and tight end Tanner Hudson. Nothing reveals a great quarterback quicker than the way he elevates the play of the receivers lucky enough to run routes for him.
It started so well for the Bucs that coach Bruce Arians decided to go for it on fourth-and-1 at his own 19 with a 10-0 lead in the second quarter, showing the Bears offense and defense as much respect as they had earned up to that point. The Bucs converted it.
Before long, everything changed – including the direction of the Bears' season.
It was a sloppy game marred by 17 penalties and enough stops and starts to make us wonder about the wisdom of Thursday football. Nagy mismanaged the clock badly enough to give Brady the ball back with too much time on the Bucs' final drive. And officials missed a false start by Bears right guard Germain Ifedi on third-and-12, instead flagging Shaq Barrett for offside to create a more manageable third-and-7. But no apologies were necessary. Ice bags? Perhaps.
"This was a fist fight,'' Foles said.
Yeah, but you should see the other guy.
David Haugh is the co-host of the Mully & Haugh Show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on 670 The Score. Click here to listen. Follow him on Twitter @DavidHaugh.
