Every football fan in America is talking about the final play of the Commanders’ victory over the Bears on Sunday, when Jayden Daniels launched a 52-yard Hail Mary for the winning touchdown. But the penultimate play of the game also deserves some discussion.

On the penultimate play, the Commanders had the ball on their own 35-yard line with six seconds left. They ran out of timeouts. They were too far for Daniels to launch the ball into the end zone for a Hail Mary, and they wanted to get closer and get out of bounds quickly. If the Bears could keep the Commanders in check, it would be game over.

So what did the bears do? They went into preemptive defense and surrendered much of the field to Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin, who caught a pass from Daniels and stepped out of bounds for a 13-yard gain. The piece lasted only four seconds.

Everyone should have known it was coming; Tony Romo drew the exact route McLaurin would take on the telestrator just before the snap. Once McLaurin was out of bounds, Romo explained what it did for the commanders.

“That gives them an opportunity now, because before they wouldn’t have been able to get to the end zone with a throw,” Romo said.

The Commanders seized that opportunity and threw the game-winning Hail Mary. So why did the Bears give them that opportunity? Bears coach Matt Eberflus explained.

“Because you’re defending the touchdown, right? You’re defending the touchdown there. And they throw the ball 13 meters or 10 meters, whatever that is, it doesn’t really matter. It always comes down to that last play,” Eberflus said, via ESPN’s Courtney Cronin.

But it did matter. The whole reason the commanders wanted to pick up the 13 yards before the Hail Mary is because those 13 yards mattered and came close enough to the end zone to make a Hail Mary feasible. And if the Bears had played their regular defense, they might have been able to tackle McLaurin’s inbounds and end the game before the Hail Mary.

The reality is that Eberflus’ defense suffered a huge disappointment. And not just about the Hail Mary, but also about the play that set up the Hail Mary.