Mike Ditka costume with cigar crown. Snow-covered Soldier Field. The miracle of Caleb Williams. Chicago Bears commotion. Heartbreaking for the Chicago Bears. It was classic box office sensation NFL playoff football.
Trailing 17-10 and facing 4th-and-4 from the Los Angeles Rams’ 14-yard line with 18 seconds left, Williams stuck his elbow deep into his magic bag. The Bears’ quarterback found himself in a desperate, hapless retreat as three pass rushers stalked him with intent to end the game. Williams, whose vision was almost completely impaired, somehow summoned arm strength to fire the ball to the back of the end zone where Cole Kmet eluded corner Cobie Durant to give him the game-tying touchdown. Besides time.
The 14-yard touchdown pass actually traveled 51 yards, which was Williams’ escape range. The camera cleverly panned to Rams coach Sean McVay, his eyes wide and in disbelief.
A sleeping giant of football was awakened, unleashing more final chaos that sparked Chicago’s return to contention under Williams and first-year coach Ben Johnson. But so is football, and so is the Chicago Bears’ experience. Ecstasy was dashed when Williams was intercepted in overtime to set up Harrison Mevis’ 42-yard field goal as the Rams won 20-17.
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The Bears lost to the Rams in overtime.
“I was like, ‘What are you doing?!’ And then boom.” said Jeff Reinebold of Sky Sports NFL. “The guy is really special. He’s like Patrick Mahomes x2 in what he does.
“There was one pitch he threw, and it was an incomplete ball that he threw sidearm as he was running to the right side of the sideline. And I have no idea how he threw that ball that far. And it was incomplete, but it was like an unbelievable feat of athleticism.
“He’s a special, special guy. So the Bears, after all these years, they’ve got a quarterback.
As the Rams advance to the NFC Championship Game, the Bears face a bittersweet assessment of the heartbreaking end to a sparkling, fresh opening campaign.
“It’s frustration. It’s fire,” Williams said after the game. “Those are the two words I would like to say. I’m still excited. Of course I’m not happy with the result. Of course I’m disappointed with the result. But it’s done, there’s no going back.
“I can go back and watch and see how I can get better in the near future and help this organization get to where we want to be.”
The ending was a bittersweet note for Williams, who has been a consistent architect of late Bears drama while leading seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season. Last week, he led three touchdown drives in the final quarter as Chicago overturned a 21-6 deficit to beat the Green Bay Packers 31-27 in the wild card round.
The first year of the 2024 No. 1 pick has proven a shaky menu of jaw-dropping flashes and grimacing misfires, going 5-12 as a starter while seeing both head coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron get fired. The second year was an increasingly slicker, smarter, and increasingly commanding operation on an upward trajectory of playmaking magic. Although marred at times by accuracy issues, he also led the Bears to their first NFC North title since 2018 and a No. 2 seed with an 11-6 record.
Williams coach Johnson called the late touchdown pass “ridiculous.” “That’s ridiculous. You talked about how great fourth and eighth last week were, and I think this one was probably a step above that.
“There are things you can’t coach. He has the bottom, he has the flair, he has the clutch. He does so many good things. He is an eraser. I get a lot of bad calls every week, and he helps me fix them.”
Williams, his freelance work and unstructured nous warranted comparisons to Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers as soon as he graduated from college. There was a lot on display during his sophomore season that suggested the Bears had found the coveted, blossoming long-term quarterback-coach marriage.
The Bears qualified for the divisional round for the first time since the 2010 campaign, ending with a 21–14 loss to the Packers in the NFC Championship Game. They last reached the Super Bowl at the end of the 2006 season, when they lost 29-17 to the Indianapolis Colts.
For most of the past decade, they’ve trudged through a state of quarterback and coaching purgatory, fighting to keep pace with Minnesota and Detroit and staring down Green Bay’s familiar dominance of the division behind Aaron Rodgers.
Johnson changed the narrative this season. This was a different Bears team. It is a united front with an optimistic attitude, undeterred by backlash or setbacks. They wanted to believe that everyone was against them. And that’s what brought them here.
“When you have a season like this, when you have so much fun throughout the season, when you win so many games, you can’t let it all go to waste after one loss at the end of the season,” cornerback Jaylon Johnson said.
“We’ve had a really tough time, each and every player has gone through a really tough time, and I can be really grateful and appreciative of what we’ve accomplished this season and how we’ve grown as men and as a team.”
Despite all their struggles in the modern era, the Bears remain one of the NFL’s stalwart franchises, recognized around the world with some of the most devoted fans in the league. Between the old-fashioned wooden stands still lining the locker rooms at Soldier Field, the ice-cold elements of the city, the nostalgia of 1985 evoked by Ditka sweater vests, and the roots of the Decatur Stalis who helped develop football as we know it, there’s a feeling that’s right and necessary for Chicago to return to prominence.
Johnson knows this is just the beginning. They believe the Bears are back.
“Next season is next season,” he said. “It’s a completely different group. That’s a completely different chapter. We would have to write a whole new story.
“That’s the problem. You do all this work, you make sacrifices, you trust the people around you. But you can’t take shortcuts. I would say this is the momentum of Year 1. We’re going to take it (forward). It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way.”
Watch the New England Patriots take on the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game live on Sky Sports NFL on Sunday 25 January from 8pm.
