“I gave Tillery a game ball just because I just felt him, the penetration, getting into the backfield, making the back stop his feet,” O’Connell said. “To get stops in those [fourth-down] situations, they’re essentially turnovers.”
They also were essentially the two main reasons the Vikings maintained control over a sloppy first half.
“It set a tone,” Tillery said. “When a team tries us multiple times on fourth-and-short, we take that personally. We need to make a statement on those weighty downs when they do that. And that’s what we did.”
The Bears ran the ball 29 times. Eight times (27.6%) they were held to 1 yard or no gain.
Another moment in which Tillery didn’t appear on any statistical record came when the Bears faced second-and-goal from the 1 in the third quarter. Again, Tillery beat Amegadjie so badly that Amegadjie essentially tackled Tillery before Tillery could tackle Swift.
Metellus made the tackle short of the goal line, but the holding penalty that Tillery drew made it second-and-goal from the 11. The Bears settled for a field goal two snaps later.