{"id":508145,"date":"2026-01-11T08:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/508145\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T08:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T08:53:09","slug":"bears-mount-incredible-comeback-to-knock-off-packers-advance-to-divisional-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/508145\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears mount incredible comeback to knock off Packers, advance to Divisional Round"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With their first postseason victory since 2010, the Bears (12-6) advanced to next weekend&#8217;s Divisional Round and will host the Eagles if they beat the 49ers late Sunday afternoon or the Rams if Philadelphia loses.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday night, the Bears won the coin toss, opted to receive and took a 3-0 lead on Cairo Santos&#8217; 27-yard field goal. But the Packers responded by scoring touchdowns on their first three possessions\u2014all on Love passes\u2014to take a seemingly commanding 21-3 halftime lead.<\/p>\n<p>In the locker room at halftime, Johnson mentioned the Patriots&#8217; 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.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That was my message to the group,&#8221; Johnson said, &#8220;just reminding them that this has been done before and rather than saying, &#8216;Woe is me&#8217; and &#8216;Oh [shoot], we&#8217;re in a hole,&#8217; it&#8217;s more, &#8216;This is a great opportunity for us to turn this around into a game we&#8217;ll never forget,&#8217; and that&#8217;s what they did.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He said when we do this, it&#8217;s going to be the biggest [comeback] in Bears [postseason] history, and we got it done,&#8221; Loveland said. &#8220;We knew it wasn&#8217;t going well, but we never skipped a beat, never lost faith in all the guys, and I&#8217;m super proud with how we bounced back.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;Andre Swift touchdown to close the gap to 21-16.<\/p>\n<p>After Green Bay extended its lead to 27-16 on Love&#8217;s 23-yard TD pass to Matthew Golden with 6:36 to play, the Bears scored the game&#8217;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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With their first postseason victory since 2010, the Bears (12-6) advanced to next weekend&#8217;s Divisional Round and will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":508146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[211183,81678,960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-508145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-2025-playoffs-content","9":"tag-article-game-recap","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115875624040245597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}