Certainly, the rest of the NFL heard that Saturday night. Felt it even. That explosion in Chicago, an eruption of disbelief and delight downtown when Caleb Williams hit his unforgettable 46-yard walk-off touchdown bomb to DJ Moore.

Across social media, seemingly hundreds of angles captured that moment, the throw that secured the Bears’ latest signature victory, a 22-16 overtime triumph over the Green Bay Packers.

Yep, on a night when the offense managed just six points in the game’s first 58 minutes, the Bears scored 16 over the final two minutes of regulation and 5:10 of overtime, a rally that confirmed this team’s resolve and confidence.

Yes, despite never leading the Packers across 125 minutes of action over two games in December, the Bears pulled off a season split with their rival thanks to Saturday’s jaw-dropping finish.

Sometimes down, but never out, they provided Exhibit F of how dangerous they have become in the late stages of close games. The Bears now have three walk-off victories plus three others in which they scored their game-winning points after the two-minute warning.

“That’s what you need at the end of the year and going into playoffs and just (to become) a championship team,” linebacker Tremaine Edmunds said Monday. “You’ve got to be able to keep fighting until there’s no time left on the clock. That’s what we did as a group.”

The Bears have done that repeatedly. All season. Which suddenly makes them a very real threat to play football into …. wait for it … February?

Yes, February. It has now been said.

Now that the Bears have their formal invitation to the playoff party, they have a viable path to Super Bowl LX, a game scheduled for Feb. 8. Kickoff: 5:30 p.m. at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., which just happens to be the site of the Bears’ penultimate regular-season game on Sunday night.

A little recon folded into this West Coast field trip? Why not?

The butterfly effect

Do you want to tell these Bears they don’t have what it takes to conquer the NFC after they’ve continually surpassed expectations and defied the odds?

“Our guys are still finding ways to come out on top,” coach Ben Johnson said Monday. “I think that’s an important thing,”

Edmunds was asked what, for him, qualified as the wildest moment of Saturday’s comeback. He was five seconds into detailing Moore’s overtime TD grab when he stopped himself and instead started describing the improbable onside kick recovery the Bears had late in regulation.

“Too many moments to choose from,” Edmunds said with a laugh.

To that end, it’s important to at least acknowledge how close the Bears came to tumbling over the cliff Saturday. The number of Christmas gifts the Packers handed out late in that game included, but were not limited to:

• A third-down facemask penalty on rookie defensive tackle Warren Brinson. That negated a sack that would have pushed the Bears into fourth-and-26, still down 10 points with 3:11 remaining.

• Romeo Doubs’ clumsy handling of that onside kick with 1:56 to play. That gaffe, which rescued the Bears from a spurt of clock mismanagement before the two-minute warning, set Chicago up with possession near midfield for its game-tying TD drive.

• Blown communication between cornerbacks Nate Hobbs and Keisean Nixon on Williams’ TD pass in the final half-minute of regulation. That left rookie receiver Jahdae Walker uncovered in the back of the end zone for a stadium-shaking score.

• Malik Willis’ fumble on fourth-and-1 at the Bears’ 36-yard line on Green Bay’s overtime possession.

If even one of those moments swings the other direction, all of Chicago likely becomes an anxious mess during Christmas week with the Bears tumbling out of first place in the division with two difficult games remaining and with critics waiting to poke at a sloppy performance that, for 57 minutes, didn’t exactly feel playoff-ready.

Clean-up process

Indeed it is easy to recognize the long odds of every favorable twist the Bears needed just to slip past a Packers team that played the whole night without star pass rusher Micah Parson and its last 46 offensive snaps without starting quarterback Jordan Love.

The Bears’ sloppiness — 105 penalty yards and a scoreless first half included — will keep Johnson up at night.

Despite a stellar night inside the red zone, the defense didn’t force a punt across nine possessions Saturday. They are still a bottom-five unit in yards allowed per play this season while ranking 21st in sacks, problem areas that may be exposed by upper-tier quarterbacks and quality offenses in the postseason.

Williams, even with his clutch nature, remains inconsistent and prone to slow starts.

This is also a roster still relatively low on big-game experience. And that may have contributed to Saturday’s four personal-foul penalties — “preventable and at times egregious,” Johnson said Monday — possible indicators of a team that was too juiced up.

“You get in these big games and you can get a little emotional because it’s a division rival and you want to make an impact,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to shy away from that. We want to play aggressive and we want to be a very physical team. At the same time, we can’t hurt the team, and that happened a number of times.

“It’s not OK. Those 15-yard penalties really add up.”

Through that lens, it’s easy to recognize that an early playoff exit in January would be far from stunning as the Bears continue learning what it takes to excel in high-leverage moments with their season on the line.

‘The cool part about destiny’

Still, Johnson looks at his 11-win, first-place team and sees a group that hasn’t come close to reaching its peak.

“We’re still not necessarily playing at the level we’re capable of yet,” he said. “That’s the beautiful thing about this season. We’re all still getting better at what we’re doing.”

After 16 games, and especially after Saturday night, it’s more than fair to classify this team as somewhat lucky. Yet the volume of good fortune the Bears have cashed in this season also makes it easy to reason that this has become part of their DNA.

“You want to be a clutch team,” Johnson said. “You want to be able to handle the pressure and rise to the occasion. I think we’ve got a team built like that.

“There are guys on offense, defense and special teams who rise up and play their best on the biggest stage and in the biggest moments.”

Perhaps no one more so than QB1, the game-on-the-line magician who now has seven game-winning drives on his resume in the calendar year of 2025. Williams’ latest entry into his “clutch” log: Saturday’s four-play, 64-yard overtime masterpiece and that missile to Moore.

That came after an eight-play, 53-yard march and his fourth-down TD pass to Walker to tie the game with 24 seconds left.

“What do they call him, the Iceman?” Moore said. “He just was cool, calm and collected all game. And when we needed a big play, he put it on the money.”

This season, with an opportunity to lead a game-tying or go-ahead drive that began in the final eight minutes of regulation or overtime, Williams is 6-for-10.

With a consistently productive running game plus an astounding plus-21 turnover margin, the Bears have a reliable formula for at least keeping games close. Now, also having a quarterback with infectious confidence and playmaking prowess under late-game pressure supplies the Bears with an X-factor: added belief that also raises the heat on opponents.

If we can just give Caleb a chance …

In a roundabout way, the Bears gave Williams a chance on Saturday night and he responded, on consecutive drives, with arguably the two most meaningful touchdown drives of his career. In doing so, in helping the Bears clinch their playoff spot, the potential for the season became unlimited.

Williams was asked late Saturday night if this was starting to feel like a team of destiny.

“That’s the cool part about destiny,” he said. “You have to get to the end to know.”

Make no mistake, though. February football is in play. Super Bowl LX is on the radar.