Chicago Bears Take Back Door to Playoffs After Loss to Packers
The Bears took their shot in the fourth quarter when it was there for the taking, and failed.
Their consolation prize for failing to beat Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers Sunday for the 19th time in 22 games is a ticket to the NFL playoffs.
Green Bay put away a 35-16 victory over the Bears but in Los Angeles the Rams won a war of attrition over the Arizona Cardinals, 18-7. As a result, the back door swung open to the NFC playoffs and the Bears will play at New Orleans Sunday at 3:40 p.m. in the wild-card round.
"I don’t care how we got there. We’re in," safety Eddie Jackson said. "That's the marvel of it. All these records are at 0-0. No one’s guaranteed to play right now, so we just gotta go out there and compete no matter how we got there, we got in.
"That's the most important part. Everything before that doesn’t matter. We are in there. We gotta play our best ball there, without a doubt."
The Bears will limp into the postseason, possibly without inside linebacker Roquan Smith and wide receiver Darnell Mooney after injuries suffered in a tough, physical battle with Green Bay.
Smith suffered an elbow injury in the first half and Mooney a fourth-quarter ankle injury as the Bears (8-8) were driving for what could have been the go-ahead touchdown.
The subdued locker room scene afterward had more to do with losing to Green Bay than about the injuries.
"It's crazy the way things are going," coach Matt Nagy said. "Our guys have the right mindset. And I would probably be a little bit upset if our locker room was just, like, going crazy and celebrating and being excited in the locker room after the game.
"I'd be a little bit concerned. Our guys weren't. They'll reshift their focus and get ready."
The difference between the Bears and Packers, as usual, was Rodgers and his four touchdown passes. The Bears defense this time shut down Green Bay's running game but Rodgers completed 19 of 24 for 240 yards, including a 72-yard first-half strike to Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
Rodgers let the Packers (13-3) win despite the Bears dominating time of possession as they played keepaway almost to perfection. The problem was they didn't score much when they had the ball.
The Bears took their shot in the early fourth quarter with a drive to the 24 of Green Bay while trailing 21-16, but the Packers stopped a fourth-and-1 gamble and then made the Bears pay with a 76-yard clinching drive.
"You get to the fourth quarter against this team and you have that fourth-and-1, you know third-and-1 and then fourth-and-1, 11 minutes to go and you know a touchdown puts you ahead," Nagy said. "And I thought that for really, up until that point, we thought that gameplan-wise it was really going how you want it to go.
"And in the fourth quarter to be right there, we just gotta get that fourth-and-1 and that bothers me that we didn’t."
Mitchell Trubisky finished 33 of 42 for 252 yards with a fourth-quarter interception after the Bears were down 28-16. He found Mooney a career-high 11 times for 93 yards as the Packers put double teams on Allen Robinson much of the day.
"I feel like I've gotten better over these last couple weeks," Trubisky said. "For the most part in that game, we were in a good position to compete towards the end. We just let it get out of hand.
"Really, that fourth-and-1 was really the turning point for us. When the game was 21-16, we were going down to score. We were there to compete but we've got to be able to finish games. A big part of that is my play. I'm confident in what we can do going forward."
Rodgers threw a 3-yard TD to Robert Tonyan after the Bears went up 7-0 on a 2-yard David Montgomery run. Montgomery finished with nine catches for 63 yards and 22 rushes for 69 yards.
Cairo Santos set a Bears record with 27 straight field goals by making three Sunday, and his 30-yarder put the Bears ahead 10-7.
However, Rodgers took advantage of a Bears blitz in the second quarter to find Valdes-Scantling all alone behind linebacker Danny Trevathan for a 72-yard TD and the Bears never led again after falling behind 14-10.
"There are a lot of things that went into that that a lot of people don't know that I won't get into detail about," Trevathan said. "But all I can say is I can do a little bit better if I'm ever in that situation and it's supposed to be like that. I could do a lot better and I will do a lot better."
Rodgers found Dominque Dafney for a 13-yard score behind Josh Woods, who replaced Smith, then threw a 6-yard TD to Davante Adams in the fourth quarter to finish his season with a team-record 48 TD passes.
The Bears remained in the game into the fourth quarter, trailing 21-16 after Santos field goals of 27 and 20 yards. They drove to Green Bay's 25 and with 11 1/2 minutes left gambled on a fourth-and-1, but Mitchell Trubisky's pass to Allen Robinson at the sticks was well covered and incomplete.
Green Bay then drove 76 yards to put it away on an Aaron Jones 4-yard TD run.
The Bears are in the playoffs for the second time in three years under Nagy. They lost a 26-23 overtime game against the Saints earlier this season with Nick Foles at quarterback.
"It's a weird feeling," Trubisky said. "Obviously disappointed from the game, but finding out the news that we got in, I think we just got rewarded for the work we put in the last couple weeks and even though tonight didn't go the way we wanted, we're in the playoffs and that's really all that matters."
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