• Credited the resolve and confidence they displayed in the locker room at halftime with fueling their comeback.
Six-time Pro Bowl center Olin Kreutz inspired his teammates by addressing them at halftime.
“Olin wasn’t the most verbal guy in front of the team,” then-long-snapper Patrick Mannelly told ChicagoBears.com in 2016. “He led kind of like the grassroots way, talking to guys one-on-one. So when he spoke that day, everybody looked at him and their ears perked up. He told us we were going to win that game, and then we went out and did it. It was an improbable comeback and a lot of that stemmed from Olin saying we were going to do it. Olin was the leader of the team and people believed him. His words inspired us to go out there and pull off that improbable comeback.”
“Olin wasn’t yelling,” Tillman added. “It wasn’t like he was Ray Lewis giving a speech. Olin just said, ‘No one panic. We’re going to go out there in the second half and we’re going to hit them in the mouth and we’re going to win this game.’ And the second half was a different story. Guys got a little pep talk and had a different mindset.”
The Bears never lost any confidence despite trailing 17-3 at halftime.
“During the halftime they were great,” said coach Matt Eberflus. “They looked each other in the eye and leaned in and leaned on each other and looked at each other and said, ‘We got this.’ That’s a different attitude and a different culture that we’ve developed over here the last couple of years. The guys did a nice job in the second half.”
In the winning locker room after the game, both Eberflus and safety Kevin Byard III referenced what transpired at halftime.