Wide receiver DJ Moore, who caught the Bears’ 46-yard game-winning touchdown pass in overtime against the rival Packers on Saturday night, has a theory about his team’s late-game successes: They’re getting help from above — and also behind them.
“It’s got a lot to do with Virginia looking over us,” he said, “and Ben being on our ass.”
The Bears are playing their first season without matriarch Virginia McCaskey, who died in February, and their first with hard-driving head coach Ben Johnson.
Saturday night’s 22-16 overtime win was the most manic victory in a season full of them. The Bears have won enough of these close games, though, that some of their players are beginning to wonder just how special this season can become.
After the Bears improved to 11-4 Saturday, it’s not a ridiculous notion.
“It feels like since I’ve been here the past five years, everything’s gone wrong,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “You’re bound to get at least one thing going right.”
Kmet joked that he’d like to see the probability of the Bears winning the game — one which they never led until the final score. Right before Cairo Santos made a field goal to cut the Packers’ lead to seven with 1:59 to play, Green Bay had a 96.9% chance of winning, per ESPN.
To steal the game, so much had to go right for the Bears:
• Santos had to make the 43-yarder in blustery conditions.
• Cornerback Josh Blackwell had to recover the onside kick when Romeo Doubs muffed Santos’ ball.
• Quarterback Caleb Williams had to drive the Bears to a touchdown in the final 1:59.
• The Bears had to stop the Packers on fourth-and-one in overtime.
• And then the Bears had to win the game.
“You feel like you’re rubbing salt in the wound there — but that’s the reality of it,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It should hurt because these guys, all of us, we put a lot into this thing. And we had opportunities. You’re up two scores late in the game. And unfortunately, it flipped pretty quick.”
Johnson was wise to kick the ball onside when other coaches would have considered kicking deep, burning timeouts and trying to get the ball back with maybe 45 seconds to play. And Williams, whose teammates call the “Iceman,” had to flip a switch after underperforming for the first 58 minutes of regulation.
It all happened.
“We’re going to keep working, we’re going to keep striving for wins, we’re going to deep striving for being the top team in this league,” said Williams, who ran a lap around the field after the game to high-five fans. “And we’re going to keep fighting until that clock says zero. From there, we’ll look up and see who wins.”
Maybe it’s destiny. It sure felt like it Saturday night.
“That’s the cool part about destiny,” Williams said. “You have to get to the end to know.”
