Did Commanders get away with hold on Bears during game-winning Hail Mary?

The Washington Commanders beat the Chicago Bears, 18-15, in Sunday's battle between the top two picks in the 2024 NFL Draft. Jayden Daniels got the best of Caleb Williams statistically, but Williams appeared on track for the victory until a last-second play for the ages.

Chicago went up 15-12 with 23 seconds left in the fourth quarter on a one-yard Roschon Johnson scramble, followed by a Cole Kmet two-point conversion catch. That left the Commanders with little time and a long field. After Washington's offense stalled on three straight plays, it came down to a Daniels Hail Mary as time expired.

True to form, Daniels extended the final play with a long and loopy jog around the backfield before stepping into his final pass of the afternoon. It soared into a mob of Commanders and Bears about two yards from the goal line, where it was batted up — not down — and right into the unimpeded arms of Noah Brown.

The celebration says it all. We only get so many of these plays in our lifetimes. This one should stand the test of time as one of the nuttiest game-winning throws and catches in NFL history. Credit to Daniels for getting the ball so far down field and credit to Brown for being ready for the catch, but this is fate — that couldn't happen twice the same way if the Commanders and Bears tried to recreate it beat-for-beat.

That said, Chicago fans are a bit upset with what appears to be a missed holding call against Washington.

Commanders appear to get away with holding on game-winning Hail Mary against Bears

Is that objectively holding? Well, yeah. By the letter of the law, Washington probably should've been penalized, thus handing the victory to Chicago. That is going to infuriate Bears fans, and it's a great excuse to numb some of the disappointment from an avoidable loss. Why yell at Matt Eberflus when you can chalk it up to a bad ref job and sleep at night?

That said... pretty much every Hail Mary ever thrown in the NFL has some version of this uncalled hold. Quarterbacks are dancing around the backfield waiting for an angle to open up, running circles around a disparate pass rush until the receivers get far enough downfield. At some point, there's going to be a grab or tug as the offensive linemen work overtime to keep the pocket — or what's left of it — open.

The refs aren't going to call it. Ever. Nor should they.

Having that all-time incredible throw taken off the board because of a weak holding call would've led to an entirely different strain of discourse, one even less pleasurable than this. Sometimes you need to let them play. This is the equivalent of not calling a foul in the waning seconds of a basketball game. When it's an all-out mad dash for control of the ball and the top slot on the scoreboard, the refs are best served by swallowing their whistles.

This was a hold, but c'mon. Let's live a little. I'd probably be upset if I was a Bears fan, so I understand it, but that hold wouldn't have been called if it was Caleb Williams scrambling around with triple zeros on the game clock either. Almost all bets are off once it's Hail Mary time. Credit to Washington for executing and taking advantage of the luck afforded to them.