DETROIT — The Chicago Bears seemed a couple of seconds away — or an officiating consensus away — from entering the locker room trailing only by a touchdown at halftime of Sunday’s 52-21 loss to the Lions.

Confusion reigned at Ford Field after Lions quarterback Jared Goff’s deep ball to receiver Isaac TeSlaa, whose one-handed catch put Detroit at the Bears’ 4-yard line. Even though the official closest to TeSlaa signaled he was out of bounds after the catch, another official said he was in bounds, and the clock continued to run. Goff sprinted to the ball and spiked it as the clock hit zero. One official spoke with Bears coach Ben Johnson and let him know time had run out.

The Bears ran to the locker room. They had stopped the juggernaut from scoring and would be getting the ball to start the second half with a chance to tie the game with a touchdown.

“I had the official right next to me throughout that process,” Johnson said. “He told me it was halftime, so we went in for halftime.”

But wait, referee Land Clark said. A replay review took place, which deemed that TeSlaa caught the ball in bounds with 16 seconds left. Next came a 10-second runoff for the replay, since the Lions didn’t have any timeouts left, which meant Goff would get one shot at the end zone with six seconds on the clock.

Here’s NFL vice president of instant replay Mark Butterworth in the postgame pool report: “They ruled that it was a completed catch with the receiver out of bounds. The impact of that ruling is the clock stopped because they ruled him out of bounds. If they ruled him in bounds with the catch, the clock would continue to run. We stopped the game through replay to confirm the catch, which we were able to do. We confirmed there was contact by the defense after he controlled the ball, and we had his leg in bounds prior to going out of bounds. Therefore, the clock should have continued to run. So, we reset the clock to the down-by-contact time and then ran 10 seconds.”

Had they not needed to use replay review, and the clock had run live, maybe the Bears could have continued to the locker room. Instead, Goff took advantage, throwing a touchdown pass to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown to give the Lions a 28-14 lead.

“The official covering the play stopped the clock. The clock operator didn’t stop it but should have,” Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira said on the broadcast. “It was an error by the covering official that led to this. If it was officiated properly, they probably wouldn’t have gotten the play off.”

Gut punch. Detroit never looked back.

“Land came up to me before the third quarter that they ruled it out of bounds, reviewed it that it was in bounds and it was a 10-second runoff,” Johnson said. “We’ll see what it looks like on the game tape. That certainly was not communicated to us.”

The Bears went three-and-out to start the second half, and the Lions went on to score 24 points on their next four possessions.

“We were halfway in the locker room, but we got to go out there and play another play and get a stop,” Bears defensive tackle Grady Jarrett said. “So they worked that in their favor and it was a momentum swing for them. But we did think the half (was) over.”

Safety Kevin Byard thought the clock was at zero when Goff spiked the ball, and that was that.

“I don’t really know what really happened on the referee’s side,” he said. “But that’s what we thought happened.”

It’s a bit of a mental shift to go from, ‘We just kept them from scoring and can go into halftime within a score’ to ‘We have to go line up and stop them from the 4-yard line.’”

“You just got to be able to adjust,” defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo said. “You can’t leave it up to the refs in that situation, don’t even allow it to be close. So, you know, just do a better job making a play and then do a job adjusting when we come back out.”

Lions coach Dan Campbell said he never considered kicking a field goal with six seconds left. He also would’ve had to rush the kicking unit onto the field, as the officials wound the clock once everything got settled. He knew the impact of that last-second score.

“That was big,” he said. “That was big that we were able to apply a lot of pressure right before halftime, knowing they were getting the ball coming out. That was a big play. That whole thing was — they’re waving them out, but then nobody is stopping the clock. So, we were fortunate that we got an opportunity to do it. I mean Goff and (St. Brown) make it a huge play. It was great.”

How much difference could it have made? It’s easy to look at it now as a footnote. The Bears got blitzed in the second half and showed no ability to stop the Lions.

Then again, entering the locker room down seven coming off a stop does a lot more for the psyche than what the Bears experienced. Maybe their opening-half possession would’ve resulted in a punt no matter what, but had they been able to march down and score … well, based on the result, it’s a difficult hypothetical to even consider.

“There’s a lot more things in that game than we can get better on,” Jarrett said.

(Photo of Isaac TeSlaa: Lon Horwedel / Imagn Images)