The Chicago Bears’ offseason began on a positive note as the team pulled a last-second upset over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday to snap multiple losing streaks to conclude the 2024 season. Rookie quarterback Caleb Williams capped off a stellar first season in the NFL with a game-winning offensive drive that provides him immense momentum heading into his 2025 season. William’s leading the Bears to victory over the Packers, wasn’t just important because of the team snapping the losing streak, but because the quarterback exercised multiple demons that have haunted Chicago’s franchise for decades.
Caleb Williams’ game-winning drive wiped away decades of Packers’ dominance over the Bears
When the Bears defeated the Packers 24-22 via a 51-yard game-winning field goal from kicker Cairo Santos, Chicago not only snapped an active ten game losing streak, but also an 11-game losing streak to Green Bay. the Bears’ last win over the packers came in December of 2018, and their last win at Lambeau Field came in Thanksgiving of 2015. The win was engineered by Williams who oversaw a six play 47 yard offensive, that was capped with an 18-yard pass to DJ Moore to put Chicago in field goal range.
Williams leading the drive that helped set up the Bears for Santos’ game-winning field goal was the first time that Chicago defeated Green Bay on the final-play of the game on offense since 1987 when kicker Kevin Butler kicked a game-winning field goal at Lambeau Field for a 26-24 win. It also marked only the third game-winning scoring drive in a final possession that the Bears had since 2015 too. Williams became the only rookie quarterback to have a game-winning offensive drive in the team’s final possession against a divisional opponent.
The victory engineered by Williams was so satisfying, given how the 2024 season had unfolded, and how the finale nearly ended up being another last-minute loss for the team. Despite doing everything right at the quarterback position throughout the day, it was the fumble by DJ Moore that nearly cost the Bears the game that they had led in since midway through the first quarter against an 11-win team. Without Caleb Wiliams’ heroics and had the bears lost, it would have marked the seventh time this year that the team would have lost a game on the final possession of the contest.
The win also demonstrates growth on Caleb Williams’ part as the Bears’ offense failed to score what would have been a game-tying field goal against the Seattle Seahawks one week prior. Williams, leading a successful must-have scoring drive in a hostile environment such as Lambeau Field, as a rookie is even more impressive when multiple veteran quarterbacks have failed to do the same. Jay Cutler, Kordell Stewart, and Erik Kramer are all examples of previous veteran signal-callers who failed to lead the Bears to victory on the road in Green Bay during the final possession of the game.
A win for Williams and the Bears is massive for the rookie quarterback and the adversity he has faced throughout the season. Caleb Williams has been highly criticized for his struggles paired with the fact that he has been sacked a league-leading 68 times. Despite other first-round quarterbacks from the 2024 NFL Draft helping their team make the playoffs, Chicago’s rookie showed invaluable trait of being able to play in crucial moments of the game, as the team was a blocked field goal, a sack, and an inexcusable clock mismanagement from three consecutive wins over divisional opponents at the end of contests.
Caleb Williams’ late game heroics allowed him to separate himself from former Bears’ first-round quarterbacks
The game-winning drive is especially for Williams, given what has transpired with previous first-round quarterbacks that have recently played for the Bears, including Justin Fields and Mitchell Trubisky. Both Fields and Trubisky seemed to be snake bit when it came to executing game-winning drive at the end of contests that would have allowed Chicago to win. Caleb Williams was trending in the same way the previous two signal-callers had before his heroics against Green Bay on Sunday.
A reason why Williams is the starting quarterback right now for the Bears and Fields isn’t, is due to the latter’s inability to lead the Bears’ to victory in several games back in the 2022 season. The 2021 first-round selection had six games where the team was trailing by a touchdown or less on their final offensive possession and failed to score. Although games against the Vikings and Commanders involved situations where another played failed to execute, Fields could not lead the offense on game-winning scoring drives in three consecutive games against the Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons.
Trubisky, like Caleb Williams, had more instances where he did in fact lead the Bears’ offense into scoring position, but something out of his control transpired where the team couldn’t steal the victory. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, the former 2017 first-round signal-caller led Chicago’s offense on potential game-winning drives to set up a field goal only for them to be missed, including the infamous 2018 playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Williams being able to finish the season with that kind of win provides invaluable confidence and reassurance going forward that the team will win if he puts them in a position to do so.
A win to cap off a tedious rookie campaign is something that can be vital for Caleb Williams offseason motivation and his second season of 2025. For fans and the media it was a confirmation that although Williams didn’t play the best in 2024, he did enough to prove that the Bears’ a quarterback who has the potential to be an elite-level talent in the near future. It also potentially symbolizes the end to the signal-caller dominance Green Bay has had over Chicago in the last 32 years, as the rookie proved to be the difference in Sunday’s last second win.
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