Just good enough

If Matt Forte's foot is fine, then maybe the long grind of an NFL season is finally catching up to the Bears' durable rookie running back, despite his gutsy fourth-quarter effort Monday night.

If Kyle Orton's ankle is fine, funny how most of Monday night he looked a lot like the Kyle Orton who took the field at Green Bay five weeks ago. That's when some suspected the quarterback played even though he wasn't fully recovered from an ankle injury suffered two weeks earlier, forcing him to miss one start.

Like that frigid Nov. 16 game in Green Bay, the Bears' offense looked pretty lackluster playing the Packers, this time in even more brutally cold weather at Soldier Field.

Even though the Packers had been torched for 130 points in 4 straight losses since their 37-3 rout, they played strong defensively against the Bears, before finally falling 20-17 in overtime on Robbie Gould's 38-yard field goal.

How sorry was the Bears offense for three-plus quarters?

In a game the Bears had to win in order to keep alive their slim playoff hopes - against their archrival, no less - the offense mustered just 1 first down and no points in the first quarter.

After Danieal Manning returned a second-quarter kickoff 70 yards, dragging the Packers' Jarrett Bush 30 yards to fire up the chilly home fans, the offense remained cold.

Orton completed a 16-yard pass to Brandon Lloyd on first down, putting the ball on the Green Bay 13, but the drive stalled there, with Gould kicking a 31-yard field goal to pull the Bears within 7-3.

At halftime, with the Packers leading 14-3, Orton was just 4-of-8 passing for 36 yards. Forte had 8 carries for 14 yards. That, after he gained just 34 yards on 11 carries in the Bears' previous game against New Orleans 11 days earlier, when he tweaked his foot on the Bears' first series.

"Total disappointment with how we played (in the first half)," coach Lovie Smith said.

Orton threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Greg Olsen in the third quarter to cut the Bears' deficit to 14-10, but special teams set up that score, too. This time it was Jason Davis recovering a muffed punt by Bush at the Green Bay 27.

Through three quarters, the Packers had outgained the Bears 291-92.

"Give credit to their defense. They did a great job," Olsen said. "All along we just kept fighting and fighting. We said just keep punching away and finally they'll crack. All we needed was 1 more point than them, so it doesn't matter how pretty it is. A win's a win, especially in these kind of circumstances and the situation we're in."

Despite all the Bears' offensive woes, which included Orton's 2 second-half interceptions - giving him 8 in the last four games - the Bears found a way to get the game to overtime.

As he did against New Orleans, Orton engineered a late-fourth-quarter drive to allow the Bears to tie the game.

Forte, who had 20 yards on 11 carries through three quarters but picked up 52 on 8 attempts in the fourth, scored from 3 yards out with 3:11 left, pulling the Bears even at 17-17. He helped set up his eighth touchdown with a 28-yard burst on the first play of the eight-play drive.

"Nothing to be surprised about with Matt," Orton said. "He's done it all year."

Forte finished with 73 rushing yards, putting him at 1,188 for the season on a hefty 303 carries.

"He's clutch," Olsen said. "Sometimes it's when you get the yards that matters most."

"It's how you finish," Smith said of his team, which won in OT for the second game in a row. "I'm pleased with how we finished."