Bears show again they're not the same old team with wild overtime win over Packers

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CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Bears appeared as though they were headed to yet another loss to the Green Bay Packers trailing by 10 points in the closing minutes.

Then again, these aren't the same old Bears.

A 22-16 overtime victory on Saturday night was just the latest reminder.

“When it’s this late in games, just, they don’t bat an eye,” coach Ben Johnson said. "You don’t feel any despair on the sideline from any of the phases. You might feel it in the stadium a little bit. I could feel the fans kind of coming to life again once we got a little momentum going in the fourth quarter, but our guys, they don’t miss a beat.

"They just keep plucking along, and they know good things will come if we keep swinging away.”

Good things rarely come to the Bears against the Packers. Chicago is 7-30 against Green Bay since 2008, counting the playoffs. But maybe — just maybe — the momentum is starting to shift in the NFL's longest-running rivalry.

The Bears won at Lambeau Field in last year's finale to snap an 11-game losing streak against the Packers. On Saturday, they beat Green Bay at home for the first time since 2018. They also got some payback for what happened at Lambeau two weeks earlier, when they briefly fell out of the division lead.

Williams went from throwing a late interception in the end zone that sealed a 28-21 loss to the Packers to beating them with a 46-yard touchdown to DJ Moore in overtime. And Chicago (11-4) widened its lead in the division over Green Bay (9-5-1) to 1 1/2 games with two remaining.

The receivers. The depth at receiver showed even though the Bears were without two of their top targets in Rome Odunze (foot) and Luther Burden (ankle). Then again, they still had Moore. And he came up big for the second straight game.

Moore caught five passes for a season-high 97 yards and hauled in the winning touchdown even though he had Keisean Nixon draping him. He had 69 yards and two touchdowns the previous week in a blowout win over Cleveland.

It was a huge turnaround from the game at Green Bay, when Moore was targeted just three times and caught one pass for a 4-yard loss. It was the first time in his eight seasons that his receiving total was for negative yardage.

But in the rematch with the Packers, it wasn't just Moore. The Bears had seven players catch passes.

The Bears had trouble sustaining drives, going 2 for 11 on third downs. The Packers, by comparison, were 6 of 12 and had a big advantage in time of possession: 38:57 to 26:13.

WR Jahdae Walker. An undrafted rookie out of Texas A&M, Walker caught the first two passes of his career, including the tying 6-yard touchdown with 24 seconds remaining in regulation. Facing an all-out blitz on fourth down, Williams lofted a pass to a wide-open Walker in the right corner of the end zone, and Cairo Santos kicked the extra point.

“Whoever is on that field in that time, I trust them that they’re going to do their job and go make plays when the ball is in the air," Williams said. "Jahdae is my guy. When Jahdae first got here, I allowed him to stay in my house a little bit until he found a spot.”

DE Austin Booker. He got flagged twice for roughing the passer. He knocked Jordan Love out of the game with the second one with a helmet-to-helmet hit that resulted in a concussion for Green Bay's quarterback.

Odunze missed his third straight game. ... CB C.J. Gardner-Johnson (knee) exited in the fourth quarter.

6 — For the Bears, sixes are wild. They have six straight wins at home since a season-opening loss to Minnesota. And with their latest victory, they stopped a six-game losing streak at Soldier Field against Green Bay. They also have six wins when trailing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, and this one might have been their most incredible, considering the Packers had a win probability of 99%. Williams extended a franchise record with his league-leading sixth fourth-quarter comeback.

The Bears visit San Francisco in a game with potential playoff seeding implications for both teams.

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