Week 2, Sunday night couldn’t come soon enough for the San Francisco 49ers and their fans as tonight marked the first regular season game at Levi’s Stadium.
San Francisco won the coin toss and elected to receive the ball in the second half, so the Chicago Bears got to start out on offense. Matt Forte got the first offensive play for an opponent and immediately got tackled for a one-yard loss by defensive tackle Ian Williams. Jay Cutler’s first pass of the game was at the feet of Forte resulting in a three and out.
The first punt of the game for Chicago got blocked by 49ers rookie Aaron Lynch out of South Florida resulting in a first and goal from the eight. Colin Kaepernick’s first throw sailed on him with Anquan Boldin his intended target.
Kaepernick got six yards on a run and then found a wide open Michael Crabtree for the first touchdown in Levi’s Stadium history or so it seemed. As the play got reviewed with as it appeared that he might not have kept full possession throughout the process of the catch, yet the call got confirmed by replay.
What upset the Bears is that the play shouldn’t have counted. The play clock had run out on the 49ers, yet no flag got thrown.
For the first completion for an opponent Cutler found Martellus Bennett for seven yards and Santonio Holmes caught a five yard pass for the Bears for a first down, yet the drive stalled from there and
Frank Gore got his first carry of the game running over Ryan Mundy for six yards. A play action pass went for 21 yards to Boldin. After an incomplete pass, Kaepernick’s pass got tipped and Charles Tillman came up with an interception or so it seemed? Replays showed the ball getting tipped and hitting the ground before being fully possessed meaning an incomplete pass.
Two penalties got called on the play one negated by the incomplete pass and the offensive pass interference by Stevie Johnson. The penalty did get declined though. After Joe Staley got called for holding, Chicago got called for a neutral zone infraction and defensive holding to keep the drive alive.
Tight end Vernon Davis caught two passes for 32 yards and the drive resulted in a 27-yard field goal by Phil Dawson.
Chicago got good starting field position on the kickoff as rookie defensive back L.J. McCray got called for unnecessary roughness. An illegal hands to the face penalty on another rookie this time Jimmie Ward kept the Bears from a three and out. Bennett missed out on an opportunity for the longest play of the game, 22 yards.
Unfortunately for the Bears tight end he didn’t catch it cleanly, Patrick Willis got his hand in their making sure he wasn’t able to secure the football. The original ruling on the field was a completed pass and Jim Harbaugh challenged the call reversing the ruling on the field.
Both teams went three and out before former California Golden Bears defensive back Chris Conte forced the first turnover by the 49ers on a pass by Kaepernick to Boldin. Still Cutler and the Bears weren’t able to capitalize. After a 54-yard touchdown run by Gore got overturned on a questionable holding call, Kaepernick fumbled on a hit by Jared Allen turning the ball over on back-to-back possessions.
After Chicago went backwards and Lynch failed to pick up a fumbled snap. Bruce Ellington had a nice punt return, Derek Carrier made a tremendous catch in traffic and Gore got his touchdown on an eight yard run.
With a little over two minutes remaining Cutler led the Bears offense down the field with his legs and a roughing the passer call benefited the Bears as and setup for a one-handed catch by Brandon Marshall. The touchdown cut the 49ers lead to 17-7.
Opening up the third San Francisco ran the football more and managed a 24-yard-field goal by Dawson. The drive ended up taking more than half the quarter.
Trailing by two scores the Bears went on a long drive of their own aided by a number of 49er penalties. Marshall came up with his second touchdown reception of the game to cap off the drive.
It didn’t take long for the Bears to get the lead as Kaepernick got picked by rookie Kyle Fuller and a play later found Bennet for the go ahead touchdown. It got even better as for Fuller as a few plays later he picked off his second pass of the game.
Cutler found Marshall for the third time and again he beat the defense of Ward in the red zone taking a 28-20 lead. An incomplete pass on 4th and 9 sealed the Bears win, as Kaepernick nearly found Crabtree for the touchdown.
The Bears defense stepped up and held the 49ers to three points in the second half and got an impressive win against one of the better NFC teams.