MINNEAPOLIS – Devin Duvernay stood at the 3-yard line, eagerly awaiting the kickoff. The Bears return man looked up as Minnesota’s Will Reichard sent the football skyward, and this positioned himself to stop its decent.

He knew, in that moment, he had to make a play. The Bears had just coughed up a late lead, and they had only 50 seconds to reach Cairo Santos’s field-goal range. Duvernay was determined to get him there.

The former All-Pro took possession near the left sideline, built some speed and angled to his right behind lead blocker Josh Blackwell, who charged forward and pulverized the Viking before him.

“I just saw a lot of green grass and my eyes lit up,” Duvernay said. “I knew it was time to go make a play.”

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Duvernay turned on the afterburners and sprinted down the right sideline. Vikings linebacker Eric Wilson took a good angle and eventually tracked him down, but not before he completed a 56-yard return that was vital to Sunday’s 19-17 victory over Minnesota at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“I was just trying to get down the sideline, maximize the return,” Duvernay said, “and just put ourselves in a great position to get some points to win the game.”

He did exactly that. The Bears ran three more times to give Santos a 48-yard field-goal attempt that he sent through the uprights.

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“We don’t get that field goal,” head coach Ben Johnson said in his postgame speech, “if not for Duvernay.”

Santos agreed. It provided a jolt and a surge of optimism that the Bears were going to get another dramatic win.

“That was huge,” Santos said. “It was great to see him make a big play for our special teams and help us complete the comeback.”

Duvernay’s big return probably doesn’t happen without Blackwell, who delivered the key block on the return. It also doesn’t happen if Duvernay tries to do too much.

“You have to let the game come to you,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been in positions earlier in my career, where I’m trying to force things to happen that doesn’t always work out. So just let the game come to you.”

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He ran the play exactly as it was drawn up and used elite speed to get the ball down the field.

“We absolutely needed that,” head coach Ben Johnson said in his postgame press conference. “We’ve been waiting for one of those from him, to be honest with you. He has come really close a number of times and he was able to capture it on the bounce and got use right there on the cusp of field goal range. We were just a little bit out of it, and we were able to run it enough to feel good about our kick from there. He got one of the game balls because of that. Very well deserved.”

It was required in this one, and it was a moment Duvernay won’t soon forget.

“It hasn’t really hit me what just happened,” Duvernay said. “But, yeah, it was big time.”