For the Chicago Bears and their fans, Saturday night was a moment of welcome catharsis.
In a huge game with control of the NFC North on the line, an ice-cold Caleb Williams and friends delivered an all-time win in an all-time comeback at home that the city of Chicago may never forget. (Which, by the way, Tom Brady was a welcome addition to the scene!) With said comeback win coming at the expense of the Bears’ archrival, the Green Bay Packers, who have broken the Bears’ hearts in a similar way for most of the past 30 years or so, the victory is probably that much more memorable to the Bears and their fans.
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Talk about exorcising your demons.
For the Packers and their fans, the loss and collapse will also be memorable … in a bad way.
Even worse, the defeat to Chicago may have opened an old wound from one of the worst, most infamous losses in Green Bay. Let me explain. You see, there will be three distinct plays that people remember from the Bears’ victory, where they were down by two scores with five minutes remaining.
There was Josh Blackwell recovering an onside kick after a Packers player bobbled it, which opened the door for the Bears:
There was the absurd throw and catch on fourth down to an unlikely hero, rookie undrafted free agent Jahdae Walker, in his first action as a receiver all year, to tie the game and send it to overtime:
Then, with the Packers reeling and the Bears on the verge of breaking through in extra time, Williams uncorked a beautiful moon ball to D.J. Moore for the walk-off win:
If you’re a diehard Packers fan, you know exactly why I bring up these fourth-quarter and overtime plays in sequence. It is, more or less, the same exact three types of plays, in more or less the same exact moments of a game, that led to the Packers losing the 2015 NFC title game to the Seattle Seahawks … where they held a 12-point lead with fewer than four minutes remaining.
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A botched onside kick recovery.
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A wild “gotta have it” throw into the end zone from an athletic quarterback making magic happen.
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A picturesque deep bomb over the top that beats tight coverage for the walk-off win.
In a word: Oof.
Of course, that 2015 game did have bigger stakes for the Packers than Saturday night. A trip to the Super Bowl will always dwarf late-season control of a division on paper. But this was a monumental rivalry game between Chicago and Green Bay that may have far-reaching ramifications on what happens in this January’s postseason. Given the dramatic late-season context between two good football teams with a history, it still had a playoff atmosphere, too.
It meant so much to everyone involved. Don’t get it twisted.
And the Packers lost on both occasions with a brutal pattern of plays that somehow repeated itself.
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This article originally appeared on For The Win: Packers lost to Bears in identical way to infamous playoff loss