How there can be any debate over his new contract after this is beyond belief.
The ball, from Saido Berahino, was floated in with four minutes remaining. It was a fine cross from a fine player, but a good centre-half would have had it covered, or at least done enough to disconcert West Bromwich Albion substitute Victor Anichebe in the air.
Sadly for Jose Mourinho, his best man was indisposed, only the second league game he has missed this season.
And so, what should have been an ominous four-point gap at the top became two and vulnerable with Arsenal and Manchester City at home on Wednesday night. Chelsea could be third by Thursday morning.
There was other mitigation. Gary Cahill has just taken a knock and was hobbling, so Branislav Ivanovic was slow to get out to Berahino because he was worried about deserting his centre-half.
Yet the fact is, if David Luiz had got in a position to clear the ball, or tight enough to disturb Anichebe as he rose to head it, Chelsea would have won. And that is just the sort of resistance Terry brings to a team.
It is speculation, obviously, but one imagines with Terry in the ranks, Mourinho's little horse would have been home and hosed here.
Until the final 15 minutes this had shaped up as what might be termed a Mourinho template title-winning performance. One of those displays when Chelsea look utterly assured from the get-go, seemingly in cruise control, untroubled, unhurried, a 1-0 win waiting to happen. Yet one is a slender margin. And it needs a steady back line to defend it.
Chelsea have had just that this season because Terry has been in some of the best form of his life. He makes Cahill better, he allows Luiz to be used as a central midfield player. He directs, he commands; before the win at Manchester City, Terry could even be seen orchestrating matters in the warm-up.
Whatever the size or quality of the mount, in Terry, Chelsea have a top jockey. He gets them home. Luiz dropped the reins and one came up on the rails.
At 70 minutes, West Bromwich were done. They are fighting for their future in the Barclays Premier League but had offered little but a tame, timid surrender. Albion did not threaten, did not challenge and Chelsea were comfortable.
Perhaps sensing a lack of ambition, West Brom began to take the initiative. It was at this point, surely, that Terry would have intervened, taken charge, reorganised. Nobody took that responsibility.
Ivanovic screaming at a linesman over a disputed decision is not responsibility. Petr Cech being called in to calm his team-mate down is merely a distraction. And all the while, Albion grew more hopeful.
James Morrison and new signing Thievy Bifouma shot over, then Chris Brunt lashed one across the face of goal. There were headers and skirmishes and those previously possessing such certainty in Chelsea's ability to close out a game began exchanging worried glances.
When Cahill went down injured and got up limping it was the fissure that brought the wall down. Lack of ambition played a part, too.
Chelsea had another tilt at West Brom in the first 15 minutes of the second half but after that appeared to lose interest.
Oscar had a shot from 25 yards that curled just wide, and Ben Foster made two excellent saves, but this was Chelsea in energy-saving mode.
In the 50th minute Willian - the best player on the field, and always a threat - found Samuel Eto'o, whose low shot forced a good stop from Foster. Then, in the 58th minute, an effort from range by Willian took a slight deflection and produced the save of the night.
After which, as West Bromwich got busy at last, Mourinho brought on John Mikel Obi to shore up the win. He didn't. Terry would have. That's the difference.
It wasn't much of a match, in the first-half at least. The biggest reaction came when Ramires appeared to turn his right knee under pressure from Thievy, giving the home fans the opportunity to vent some pretty base theories about his personal ethics.
It was Ramires's fall that gave Chelsea a late penalty to equalise when the teams met earlier in the season at Stamford Bridge. Many Albion supporters regard that as the incident that changed their season, precipitating a poor run, the hasty dismissal of Steve Clarke, the drawn-out appointment of Pepe Mel and the slide towards the relegation places
It is fair to say if Ramires is ever low on petrol passing through the West Bromwich area, he may be advised to chance running on fumes until he gets to Wolverhampton. This time, though, the locals appear to have done the Brazilian a disservice. Replays showed it could have been a nasty injury, and he did well to run it off - even though his every touch thereafter bought fresh waves of booing.
Well, they haven't had much to cheer about, of late. And they didn't here, initially. Albion's only chance of the first half came almost by accident. A cross from Berahino found Thievy in a good scoring position but he was let down by his touch, the ball actually travelling backwards. Thievy then made the best of it, finding Brunt, who drove a low shot wide. It was meagre stuff.
There was a gulf in class here for much of the game and, while not immediately apparent from the scoreline, it was from the action.
Chelsea had control from early and their goal seemed a matter of time; of injury time, in fact. It was in the additional period signalled by fourth official David Coote that Chelsea scored, a set-piece goal aided by some woeful defending from the home team.
Willian took a corner from the right and put it short, as he so often does, where it was flicked on by Luiz. A header? No, this was close to a backheel flick, a low-level assist that was not cut out, or picked up, as if flew across the goal to Ivanovic at the far post.
A lot has been made of Seamus Coleman's goalscoring for Everton this season, but few full-backs have made so many vital appearances on the scoresheet as Chelsea's right-back in recent seasons.
And there it should have remained. Mourinho said his team were too comfortable, but that is only half the story. They didn't commit in the periods when West Bromwich were there for the taking. Terry usually covers for lapses like that with clean sheets.
They'll miss him when he's gone. A new contract? Have they considered cloning?
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