With their first postseason victory since 2010, the Bears (12-6) advanced to next weekend’s Divisional Round and will host the Eagles if they beat the 49ers late Sunday afternoon or the Rams if Philadelphia loses.
On Saturday night, the Bears won the coin toss, opted to receive and took a 3-0 lead on Cairo Santos’ 27-yard field goal. But the Packers responded by scoring touchdowns on their first three possessions—all on Love passes—to take a seemingly commanding 21-3 halftime lead.
In the locker room at halftime, Johnson mentioned the Patriots’ Super Bowl LI victory over the Falcons in which New England rallied from a 28-3 third-quarter lead to win 34-28 in overtime. The coach had shown tape of that game to Bears players during training camp.
“That was my message to the group,” Johnson said, “just reminding them that this has been done before and rather than saying, ‘Woe is me’ and ‘Oh [shoot], we’re in a hole,’ it’s more, ‘This is a great opportunity for us to turn this around into a game we’ll never forget,’ and that’s what they did.”
“He said when we do this, it’s going to be the biggest [comeback] in Bears [postseason] history, and we got it done,” Loveland said. “We knew it wasn’t going well, but we never skipped a beat, never lost faith in all the guys, and I’m super proud with how we bounced back.”
The Bears defense opened the second half by forcing the Packers to punt on their first four possessions, including three three-and-outs. The offense responded with two Santos field goals and a D’Andre Swift touchdown to close the gap to 21-16.
After Green Bay extended its lead to 27-16 on Love’s 23-yard TD pass to Matthew Golden with 6:36 to play, the Bears scored the game’s final 15 points. Williams threw an 8-yard TD pass to Olamide Zaccheaus and then hit Loveland with a two-point conversion pass to close the gap to 27-24 with 4:18 remaining.
