What if we told you that the most important part of any fairy tale is the belief?
Isn’t that the only way to explain what happened late Saturday night in downtown Chicago to trigger this explosion of euphoria near Lake Michigan?
Isn’t that the necessary starting point to describe how, against all odds, the Chicago Bears turned an ultra-sloppy night into an absolute masterpiece, somehow, some way overcoming a 10-point deficit with less than two minutes remaining to stun the Green Bay Packers 22-16 in overtime?
There’s no way. There’s just no way all of that just happened at Soldier Field, with almost every twist of football fate playing in the Bears’ favor late, all leading up to the jaw-dropping finish.
Indeed, this wild, high-stakes game between longtime rivals ended on a 46-yard overtime bomb from Caleb Williams to DJ Moore, a jaw-dropping throw on a play the Bears added to their playbook just days ago. And like many of the most ruthless assassins in sports, Williams was certain the night was over when his final pass left his hand.
“I knew,” he said, “it was good.”
So the Bears quarterback just backpedaled as Moore made a diving TD grab with Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon draped across his back. Then Williams just rubbed his arms in celebration to confirm how icy that final throw really was.
The Bears had just completed their sixth victory this season in which they recorded the go-ahead score on their final possession.
“This is a special group,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said.
Williams’ two touchdown passes Saturday night came within four offensive snaps of each other, one to tie the game with 24 seconds remaining in regulation and the other to win it in walk-off fashion. That finishing flurry came after he had completed only seven passes for 107 yards through the first three quarters.
“He’s clutch like that,” Johnson said.
Williams reciprocated the praise.
“I’ve got the best coach in the world,” he said. “Let’s put it that way. We have the best coaching staff in the world. And so you put this talent with these coaches and people who care, and you can strive for anything. You can go after any goal.
“When you go out there on that football field, your belief is at an all-time high.”
Now it’s starting to make sense, isn’t it?
It’s this belief that has become the high-powered engine of this 11-4 express, the component that has put the Bears within striking distance of an NFC North championship and a home playoff game. That dream could become reality as early as Sunday evening if the Detroit Lions lose at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Williams hesitated to stamp Saturday’s game-winning magic — beating the Packers, in prime time, in dramatic fashion, with first place on the line — as a “signature moment.”
“It was a great moment,” he countered. “I’ve got a lot of great moments coming up. I think it’s a signature moment for us as a team to be able to build this confidence. (It’s) a signature moment for us to be able to be in the position we are with 11 wins and everything at the tip of our fingers.”
To be clear, Williams was far from a solo act with his heroics. In the closing stages alone, the Bears got a 43-yard field goal from kicker Cairo Santos — his third of the night amid wicked wind gusts — plus a successful Santos onside kick with a recovery from Josh Blackwell, plus a nifty 6-yard touchdown catch by wide receiver Jahdae Walker to tie the score.
It was an absolute how-to clinic on miracle working.
The first prerequisite: the belief.
“I know we’re going to fight you for 60 minutes,” Johnson said. “And in a game like that, even though the odds are against us there that late, we’re going to keep on swinging and make some plays when we need to.”
This team is special. pic.twitter.com/SGXkTAljwH
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) December 21, 2025
Just to reiterate, the Bears won a game Saturday night in which their first touchdown came with 24 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter from an undrafted rookie receiver (Walker) whose first regular-season NFL catch came just a few hours earlier.
They won despite committing 10 penalties for 105 yards, including four personal fouls. One of those hurt the Packers more than the Bears, though, with Austin Booker’s helmet-to-helmet hit on Jordan Love in the second quarter giving the Packers quarterback a concussion and pressing backup Malik Willis into action for the rest of the night.
The Bears won Saturday night despite an opening drive that ended with a gadget play on fourth-and-1 from the Green Bay 4 that backfired badly — a play designed to have center Drew Dalman snap the football between the legs of tight end Cole Kmet and directly to running back Kyle Monangai. But Dalman launched the snap well over the head of his 5-foot-8 rookie teammate.
“One hundred percent on me,” Dalman said.
It resulted in a loss of 18 yards and a palpable loss of mojo across Soldier Field.
Johnson defended that play call after the game. “That was one that we felt strongly about, obviously,” he said. “And probably the last thing in my mind was that the ball was going to go over (Kyle’s) head.”
The Bears also won Saturday despite mismanaging the clock while down 10 points late in regulation. They used 37 seconds between a third-down Moore reception and Santos’ final field goal, a delay that took them under the two-minute warning, which necessitated the onside kick.
Without a recovery there, the entire night was headed into the books as a total dud, a touchdown-less loss full of mistakes that would have dropped the Bears out of first place in the division. Instead, with such a low-probability play upcoming, the Bears were somehow convinced they were both getting the ball back and going down to score.
“It’s been like this all year,” Blackwell said. “We’re never out of it. Until the clock hits zero, we’re never in doubt. It’s just a focus on trying to make the next play.
“It’s rare. It really is.”
For the record, the wind gusts mentioned earlier were messing with Santos as he set up for the onside kick, too.
“It was tricky,” he said. “The way I like to put the ball on the tee, it’s kind of laying on the ground and leaning off the tee. That way, the ball bounces the way I want it. But it was so windy, the ball wouldn’t stay. So I had to lay it still and then just get up and kick it fast.”
The Bears’ Josh Blackwell celebrates recovering an onside kick mishandled by Packers wide receiver Romeo Doubs in the fourth quarter. (Dan Powers / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
But then he hit a kick that bounced four times, hit Packers receiver Romeo Doubs in the hands and somehow squirted into a pile that Blackwell got to the bottom of.
“Probably the best I have ever hit that kick,” Santos said. “It had perfect pace to it, and it was unpredictable the way it was bouncing.”
Added Blackwell: “It’s a sequence we practice a lot. (Doubs) had it. He just dropped it. That was my opportunity to get the ball.”
From there, Williams took the Bears 53 yards on eight plays, beating a Packers blitz for the game-tying score to Walker. Naturally, the defense forced a turnover on downs in overtime with a third-down sack split by Booker and linebacker T.J. Edwards, then a bungled Green Bay play on fourth down.
For this team? Anything is possible. That’s the kind of ambition this building swell of belief creates.
“It’s rare,” Johnson said.
Added Santos: “We just know if we keep giving each other opportunities, we’re going to come through. It doesn’t matter how ugly we’re playing, what mistakes have been made. We’re just giving each other opportunities. And we have playmakers and ballhawks all over the team.”
Saturday night’s finish was, in the words of Kmet, “epic.”
“I still can’t believe it,” he said.
Added cornerback Nahshon Wright, who contributed a third-quarter forced fumble to this latest improbable triumph: “That’s the craziest game I’ve been a part of. Crazy, man. I have no words.”
When Williams’ final throw pierced the December wind and found Moore, all of Soldier Field exploded.
“Out of body,” Blackwell said.
As a mob of teammates sprinted from the Bears’ sideline toward Moore in the north end zone, Wright ran the opposite direction. And he has no idea why.
“I was just running,” Wright said. “I didn’t know what to think.”
No explanations were needed. It had all been explained with the combination of resilience, belief and clutch playmaking that they added to this season’s storybook.
“It’s rare,” Johnson said.