- The Chicago Bears defeated the Green Bay Packers 31-27 in an improbable comeback victory.
- Chicago overcame an 18-point deficit, scoring 28 points in the second half to advance in the NFC playoffs.
- The Bears will face either the Philadelphia Eagles or the Los Angeles Rams in the next round.
Maybe this really is the Chicago Bears’ year.
It’s about the only way to explain it. Trailing their archrivals by 18, with coach Ben Johnson repeatedly getting too cute for his own good and QB Caleb Williams getting outplayed by Jordan Love, it sure looked as if the Bears were headed for the offseason.
But no opponent’s lead is safe with this group, which believes it’s in every game until the clock hits zero.
And who’s to tell the Bears differently, especially after this one?
‘The only option we had was to go out there and be legendary,’ Williams said after the Bears’ improbable 31-27 wild-card win, their first playoff win in almost 15 years and their largest postseason comeback in franchise history.
The Bears will play either the Philadelphia Eagles or the Los Angeles Rams next weekend.
The Bears might not be the best team left in the playoffs. They might not have the best players. They certainly don’t have the experience, with Johnson in his first year as a head coach and Williams in his second NFL season.
But chemistry, and karma, cannot be discounted. This is a Chicago team that believes in each other, and that faith has been borne out time and time again.
This was the seventh game in which the Bears had come back to win in the fourth quarter, and second time in three weeks they’d rallied to beat their neighbors to the North.
At first, the cardiac comebacks were written off as the Bears getting lucky. Or their opponents falling apart at an inopportune time and Chicago being the beneficiary.
But you don’t do this week after week after week without being good. Or being battle-tested, at least.
If a Bears team that is new to the playoffs can score 25 points in the final 15 minutes, with Williams throwing for two touchdowns (and a two-point conversion) in the last 4:18, maybe it’s simply meant to be. Maybe the stars are aligning or the universe has decided a team that’s been so woeful for so long is due its turn.
(Now is a good time to point out that Pope Leo XIV, appointed in May, is a Chicago native and a Bears fan.)
‘To be in those situations and to come out victorious, it’s no fluke. It’s no, ‘Oh, this happened. We’re lucky,” Williams said, a bit of an edge in his voice. ‘We’ve done it multiple times this year. It’s been proven for us to be a great second-half team.’
But the Bears had to be better than great. They had to be near-perfect. They had to be, as Williams said, legendary.
Comeback Bears defy odds again with 25 fourth-quarter points
The Bears’ trailed by 18 at the half, a hole largely of their own making. Johnson got cute with his play calling, converting on one fourth down early in the second quarter and thinking that meant a green light to keep doing it.
But Williams got picked on one fourth-down attempt and couldn’t convert on another, and both failures led to Packers touchdowns that gave them a 21-3 lead.
‘It’s our identity here at this point,’ Johnson said. ‘And some people say it’s not sustainable. I don’t know. … As a team, it’s just resiliency and knowing that late in the fourth quarter, that’s really when we’re at our best as a football team.’
The Bears had not overcome a double-figure deficit this year, but there was no fiery speech in the locker room, no panic. Just a reminder to keep plugging away. To do the things the Bears have done all year long.
And with two players on the Bears roster who were on the field for New England’s epic comeback over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl 51, a reminder that it could be done.
‘That was my message to the group, just reminding them that this has been done before. And rather than saying, ‘Whoa is me and oh crap, we’re in a hole,’ it’s more, this is a great opportunity for us to turn this thing around into a game that we’ll never forget,’ Johnson said.
The defense, which had been so porous in the first half, settled in and flustered the normally unflappable Love. He was called for two delay-of-game penalties, and the Packers also had a false start during their final drive.
Cairo Santos kick-started the offensive revival with a pair of field goals and then, in the fourth quarter, Williams was at his best. As he’s been so many times this season.
Williams and Colston Loveland connected for 20-plus yards twice to set up D’Andre Swift’s 6-yard TD run that cut Green Bay’s lead to 21-16. The Packers would score, but Brandon McManus missed the extra point.
Williams hit Rome Odunze and Kyle Monangai for 20-yard-plus completions — with Odunze’s coming on fourth down, no less. (See? Karma.) — before finding Olamide Zaccheaus for the 8-yard score. Williams and Loveland connected on the 2-point conversion, and Green Bay’s lead was now 27-24.
After McManus missed a field goal on Green Bay’s next possession, Williams wasted no time in getting the lead. He took the Bears 66 yards in a little over a minute, capping the drive with a 25-yard TD pass to D.J. Moore.
‘Pure belief. Belief. That’s all you need,’ Williams said. ‘All I said to the guys was, you don’t need to be Superman. You don’t need to go and do anything crazy. You’ve just got to go out there and focus and do your job. And those guys looked me in my eyes and said, ‘We’re going to make it happen.”
‘So the belief was there, the trust was there and they went out there and made the plays when it counted.’
The McManus field goal miss meant the Packers had to score a touchdown. But they couldn’t do it, only able to get to the Chicago 43 before time ran out on them. The Bears had won. Improbably, or maybe predictably, they had defied the odds once again.
‘This year has been a special year,’ Williams said. ‘The guys that we have in this building are unmatched. The brotherhood, the bond that we have is unmatched. And so we want to keep this going.’
Some teams are just charmed, and it sure feels as if these Bears are one of them.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.