Bears dance to top of NFC North at 3-0
In the end, the Green Bay Packers blinked.
And the Bears didn't.
A furious comeback from a 10-0 deficit earned the Bears a 20-17 victory and a 3-0 record, good for first place in the NFC North, a game ahead of the Packers.
"Our guys got off to a rough start, but we kept fighting throughout," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "We got our passing game going with Greg Olsen and Johnny Knox."
Olsen, who supposedly wasn't going to be much of a factor in Mike Martz's offense, caught a team-best 5 passes for 64 yards. Knox led the Bears with 94 receiving yards on 4 catches. Both made big plays down the stretch.
With the seesaw game tied at 17-17 late in the fourth quarter, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers' completed a 10-yard pass to James Jones near midfield. But Brian Urlacher knocked the ball out and Tim Jennings recovered at the Packers' 46 with 2:18 remaining.
Bears quarterback Jay Cutler fired a pass over the middle that Olsen leapt and took away from two Packers defenders in a jump-ball situation for a 21-yard gain to the Green Bay 35.
Four runs and a pass-interference penalty later, Robbie Gould's 19-yard field goal with four seconds left provided the winning points.
Cutler struggled early under a heavy rush and took a variety of hits, legal and illegal, but he got up every time and finished strong, completing 16 of 27 passes for 221 yards, including a 9-yard TD toss to Olsen that started the Bears' comeback.
Rodgers, who was excellent all night, had killed the Soldier Field buzz that Devin Hester created with his first punt-return TD since 2007 early in the fourth quarter, which gave the Bears a 14-10 lead.
"That was huge," Cutler said. "If we can get him going again, it's been a little bit since Devin has really been electric back there, so to get him going again like that and get him feeling it and energized, he brings a whole new dimension to the game."
But it took eight minutes for Rodgers to quiet a raucous crowd by directing a 72-yard drive that he capped by diving into the end-zone pylon for a 3-yard TD run and a 17-14 Packers lead with 6:52 left in the game.
Cutler brought his team right back, though, completing passes of 15 yards to Matt Forte and 16 to Olsen to set up a 25-yard Robbie Gould field goal that tied the game at 17-17 with 3:59 remaining.
Along the way Cutler got drilled in the jaw by the crown of Frank Zombo's helmet, which got the Bears an additional 15 yards.
"I have a new helmet this year," Cutler said. "It's obviously working."
The Bears had dodged a couple of bullets in the third quarter. The Packers were poised to add to their 10-7 lead when they drove 66 yards with the opening possession of the second half down to the Bears' 19.
But an apparent 15-yard TD pass to Jermichael Finley was negated by a holding call on Mark Tauscher. Then, a 37-yard FG attempt by Mason Crosby was blocked by Julius Peppers, the 10th of his career.
The Bears immediately turned around the momentum when Cutler drilled a bullet deep down the middle that Knox caught in stride and turned into a 35-yard gain. An 11-yard scramble by Cutler, a 13-yard pass to Desmond Clark, and a 5-yard grab by Earl Bennett left the Bears with another fourth-and-goal situation.
Disdaining the chip-shot field goal and a chance to tie the game, Smith chose to go for the touchdown. Cutler's short flip to Clark was slightly behind him and the ball bounced off the tight end's hands.
"We thought we could get it," Smith said. "If not, we'd still have them backed up."
The missed opportunity was forgotten, and Smith's decision looked brilliant after the Bears' defense forced a three-plays-and-out.
Packers punter Tim Masthay launched a booming kick that Hester fielded at the Bears' 38 and brought the capacity crowd at Soldier Field roaring to its feet by weaving through the coverage for a 62-yard touchdown and a 14-10 Bears lead with 14:39 left in the game.
"We've been waiting for Devin to come back," Smith said. "I felt like every time he was back there tonight he had a chance to score."
After being bottled up for most of the first half while Cutler dodged the pass rush, which sacked him three times, the Bears' offense finally got moving late in the second quarter.
Trailing 10-0, Hester gave the Bears excellent field position when he returned a punt 28 yards to the Green Bay 44. Cutler, who on his previous six dropbacks had thrown 4 incompletions and been sacked twice, got hot in a hurry.
He started the series by directing a laser deep down the east sideline that was snared by Knox, who deftly got both feet inbounds 13 yards shy of the end zone.
Cutler hit Olsen for 5 yards and then as he was being knocked to the ground flipped a short toss to Forte that lost a yard but saved several more in potential sack yardage.
After a timeout, Olsen made a sliding catch at the goal line of a low pass that Cutler squeezed through coverage, and the Bears narrowed their deficit to 10-7.
• Follow Bob LeGere's Bears reports via Twitter@BobLeGere. Check out his blog, Bear Essentials at DailyHerald.com
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