ClutchPoints
The Chicago Bears are no longer the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoff structure. They have fallen to the No. 7 spot and they have fallen behind the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North after suffering a 28-21 defeat at Lambeau Field.
At a glance, the Bears played a very good opponent and lost the game and gave up their advantage. The schedule may not be favorable either. After their Week 15 home game against the Cleveland Browns, they have a return match at Soldier Field with the Packers, a road game against the San Francisco 49ers and they close the season with the Detroit Lions.
In past years, a tough closing schedule for the Bears would mean the team would fold up and fail to take advantage of their opportunity to earn a spot in the NFC playoffs. But this is a different Bears team and much of the credit belongs to first-year head coach Ben Johnson. He was hired by the Bears largely because of the creativity he had demonstrated while leading the Lions offense. However, he has imposed discipline on the team, helped develop second-year quarterback Caleb Williams and has imbued his players with confidence that has long been missing from the team that calls Soldier Field home.
The Bears may have lost to the Packers, but the team did not give the game away. In the past, a key game against the Packers would mean that the game was lost before the kickoff. The Packers had simply owned the Bears since 1992. Green Bay had employed quarterbacks Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love, and the Bears could not compete with that trio.
But that was not the case in Week 14. The Packers had built a 14-3 lead at halftime and they had seemingly gained control. But the Bears made key adjustments at halftime, something that almost never happened under previous coaching regimes. Johnson used his play-calling ability to get the Packers off balance and the Bears employed running backs D’Andre Swift and rookie Kyle Monangai to take it to an excellent defensive team.
The Bears came all the way back and tied the score at 21-21 when Williams threw a short touchdown pass to tight end Colston Loveland, and they silenced the crowd at Lambeau Field for a moment.
Cole Kmet, the Bears’ other tight end, said there is a full-time belief in the Bears locker room this year that was missing in the past. “The resilience just keeps showing up,” Kmet said, per The Athletic. “I mean we come in at halftime and I don’t think anybody’s sweating a bit about it. Like, we know what we got to do. We regroup and we go out there and we go execute. And usually when we do that and we stay on pace, stay on rhythm and do our jobs, we usually like the result that we see.”
The Packers had an answer when...
