Bear Digest

The good, the bad, and the ugly of heart-stopping Bears playoff win

Bears coach Ben Johnson needs to revise his pet saying after the team went from DOA to surging past the Packers in the fourth quarter, 31-27.
Gene Chamberlain|
DJ Moore celebrates the win after his TD catch supplied the points needed for a 31-27 victory over Green Bay.
DJ Moore celebrates the win after his TD catch supplied the points needed for a 31-27 victory over Green Bay. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

At this rate, Ben Johnson needs to change his pet saying.

It's going to now be "awful, better, best."

There wasn't much good in the way the Bears started their playoff win over Green Bay on either side of the football. Maybe only special teams held their own.

Before the third quarter ended they started to stir and you had another miracle finish, 31-27, and Caleb Williams had one of the best 50% completion rates in team history.

"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," Johnson said. "We'll keep striving to be better earlier in games and starting faster and all that, but that gives us something to work towards. I can't be any more proud of that crew than I am now.”

It wasn't just the offense looking comatose early in this one, as the Packers and Jordan Love piled up a 231-122 yardage avantage, 12-6 first-down edge and 21-3 lead by halftime.

"We had to respond," cornerback Jaylon Johnson said.

The defense did, and then it was Caleb Williams time.

"All I said to the guys was you don't need to be Superman," Williams said. "You don't need to go do anything crazy."

That's because they already had him there wearing No. 18, sans the cape. The halftime message was simple.

"Have each other's back, go win the F'ing game,” Williams said.

He led drives to two field goals and three touchdowns on the six second-half Bears drives and they pulled out yet another miracle win. They were so proficient in driving 66, 81 and 66 yards to TDs on the last three possessions that they had the lead by the time 1:43 remained and had to watch the defense hang on. Williams threw for 283 yards in the second half.

"I've had some games throughout my career, some years throughout my career where you got to come back and go win the game. I've done that, been a part of it. I always feel with me out on the field I felt pretty confident that until the clock hits zero we got a pretty good shot.”

Here is the good, the bad and the ugly from yet another Bears win in the final two minutes.

The Good

Superman

Williams put on his cape in the second half. He shattered the team postseason yardage record with his 361 passing yards for the game, a total that isn't surprising considering how much the 1980s Bears ran the ball and how Sid Luckman in the 1940s looked like he was a medicine ball rather than a football.

The old record? Mitchell Trubisky's 303 in the double-doink loss.

Williams faced an unusual amount of pressure much of the night and absorbed nine quarterback hits, although he was sacked just once.

For the game, Williams had 10 pass completions of 19 yards or longer and nine that were considered "big plays," or 20 yards or longer. His fourth-down-and-8 conversion for 27 yards to Rome Odunze was something even Patrick Mahomes would have trouble duplicating.

Colston loves second halves

Colton Loveland proved the key instrument in getting the chains moving in the second half. He had seven catches for 102 yards in the second half as Williams repeatedly looked to him on big downs. He had just one catch for 22 in the first half, eight for 124 in the game.

"We got a homerun with him, and that's something coach said the other day to me," Williams said of the rookie tight end. "We were sitting in his office and everybody goes back to draft night. Why did we get Colston Loveland and why did we do this and why did we do that?

"It's Colston Loveland, you know what I mean? That's who he is. One of the hardest  workers on this team. He's there late, he's there early. His body language when he's on the field, all of that. I'm excited for what's to come."

Second half defense

Green Bay had only six second-half points. In the second half, even with T.J. Edwards going out for the season with a broken bone in his leg, the defense had three three-and-outs, choked off the Packer offense for four straight punts at one point and had two other drives end in a missed field goal and on an incompletion in the end zone.

The pass rush even amped up with Austin Booker getting their one sack in a "remember me" moment for Jordan Love. They had eight quarterback hits and broke up six passes.

Special performance

Special teams contributed in a big way.

Not only did Devin Duverney produce a critical 37-yard punt return to kick-start a scoring drive in the second half, but the Bears made all of their kicks. Cairo Santos connected on three field goals, including the crucial 51-yarder in the fourth quarter to help fuel the comeback and get the Bears within 21-9. Meanwhile, the Packers' Brandon McManus was chunking it up, missing the crucial 44-yard kick that let the Bears dictate the final minutes.

With that kick, the Packers would have needed only a field goal at the end.

He also missed the extra point after Green Bay's only second-half touchdown. It wasn't blocked, just missed.

Flag reversal

After a year when the Bears were flagged among the most times in the league, they committed only two penalties.

Green Bay had only one in the first half, but as the noose began to tighten, the Packers offense tightened up and started committing violations.

The Packers had seven second-half penalties, six by their offense.

The Bad

Early man-coverage

Bears DBs were matched up in man-to-man in the first half and repeatedly gave Jordan Love's receivers too much room, as the Packers QB got rid of the ball just before pressure arrived.

He averaged 9.3 yards per pass attempt in the first half and was 9-for-15. In the second half, the clamps tightened. Love went 15-for-31 and his yards per attempt collapsed to a paltry 5.9.

Ground to a halt

Green Bay did not have a good run defense at season's end but the Bears could manage only 3.3 yards per carry, with neither Bears back getting a run in double digits. Later, they managed to scrape out a few yards here and there and Williams ran for 20 yards to get them to 93 yards. Whatever happened to those 150-yard rushing days?

They finally did get a crucial 6-yard TD run from D'Andre Swift on third down early in the fourth quarter.

Kyler's drop

DB Kyler Gordon showed bad hands when he dropped the game-ending interception with a bobbled attempt, but no one cared. All it had to do was hit the ground.

The Ugly

Pregame amusement

Players rushed at each other from both sides during warmups because of jawing but no punches were thrown.

It looked like one of those heated pregame college football scenes and not a pro game.

This came after a week when Green Bay had mouthed off repeatedly about a concussion Love suffered in the second game, one which they blamed on Austin Booker even though Love lowered his helmet at the last instant to cause the helmet-to-helmet blow.

 There had been a lot of “sh—talk,” as Kevin Byard put it.

Ben Johnson's gambles

Johnson looked like Chevy Chase in "Vegas Vacation," with his gambling on fourth downs. He couldn't win on a single gamble, losing four of the first five, including one at his own 32. The Bears refused to punt. They wound up 2-for-6 because Williams converted a critical fourth down pass to Rome Odunze in the fourth-quarter comeback.

"We knew that was going to be a big part of the game plan going in just because the last few times out here against these guys they did a good job of possessing the football and keeping our offense on the bench," tight end Cole Kmet said of fourth-down gambles. "It kind of kills our momentum.

"So I think coach felt like, 'hey, maybe we go for it from our 30. I think if we turn it over, our defense has done a really good job of keeping teams from scoring.' We knew that was going to be part of the game plan and we didn't falter in the second half."

They also didn't punt in the second half, or in the game for that matter.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker

He's lost a lot of weight and he's also going to lose the Bears.

After a magical season like this, the guy is going to let the comeback Bears become the pride and joy of Indiana.

For shame. This guy's a joke. This one's all on you not-so-big guy.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.