The pass of the century then brutal reality: the football gods won’t let the Bears have nice things
Caleb Williams pulled off a miracle against the Rams and Chicago looked destined for the Super Bowl. The hope wouldn’t last long. Picture: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images
A playoff game often pivots on a single moment. The Bears thought they had theirs. Down a score, driving to keep the game alive, the Bears had the ball on the Rams’ 14-yard line. Fourth down. Four yards to pick up a fresh set of downs. A play to keep their season alive. The ball in Caleb Williams’s hands.
And then it happened.
NO WAY. CALEB WILLIAMS HEAVES IT ON 4TH DOWN.
— NFL (@NFL) January 19, 2026
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It may be the throw of the century. Williams gathered the snap, surveyed the landscape. His receivers were covered, the pocket collapsing. As the pressure arrived, he turned his back to the line of scrimmage and sprinted a full 10 yards in the wrong direction before turning around and unleashing a throw almost blind. The ball looped over the head of Rams corner Cobie Durant and into the hands of tight end Cole Kmet.
A week after authoring one of the all-time greatest postseason plays against the Packers, Williams topped it. He threw the ball from 26 yards behind the line of scrimmage, the ball travelling 51 yards in the air. There are maybe two or three humans on Earth who could even attempt the throw, let alone complete it.
The cameras cut to Rams coach Sean McVay on the sideline, who stood frozen for five seconds. Williams had done it again; the Cardiac Bears had done it again, coming from behind to tie up a game late. In that moment, the Team of Destiny stuff felt real.
But it wasn’t enough. The Bears, like the Bills, cannot have nice things. Even greatness has to be wrapped in misery. What should have been the moment, the knockout blow to push the Bears to the NFC title game, was not enough. Eventually, the live-on-the-edge luck ran out.
The Williams touchdown tied the game up at 17-17, forcing overtime. After the Bears stuffed the Rams on their opening overtime possession, Williams spun more magic to keep Chicago on the field, before spraying a throw into the hands of Rams safety Cam Curl. It was his third interception of the day and a costly mistake too many.
It was time for Matthew Stafford’s moment, a holy bleep throw of his own: drilling a pass to Davante Adams into a tight window along the sidelines. In a grubby, disheveled performance for the veteran, Stafford was finally at his best. He raised his game on a must-have-it drive, dictating things from the line of scrimmage and marching the Rams into field-goal range, where a man knows as the Thiccer Kicker would boot the game-winning score.
Stafford to Davante. What a completion!
— NFL (@NFL) January 19, 2026
LARvsCHI on NBC
Stream on @NFLPlus + Peacock pic.twitter.com/URAajRUqBW
It was a cruel ending for Chicago. Their much-maligned defense came alive against the league’s No 1 offense, disorienting Stafford with a battery of blitzes and clamping down the Rams’ star receivers. But the Bears left too many plays on the field. On Williams’ final interception, DJ Moore ramped down his route, loafing on the team’s biggest play of the season and guiding the Rams’ safety to Williams’ throw. They dropped too many balls, struggled to convert in short-yardage and picked up three of six fourth-down efforts.
McVay will know he got away with one. It was one of the most befuddling games of his coaching career. McVay had little feel for the flow of the game or a grasp of its snowy conditions. Late in the fourth quarter, the Rams had 34 pass dropbacks to 10 runs against one of the league’s worst run defenses in a driving snowstorm. It smacked of a coach overthinking things, going down with his gameplan rather than assessing the situation.
Still, the Rams found a way. No matter how gnarly the performance, they are a win away from the Super Bowl. It will be a slog against the Seahawks. The Bears showed fresh ways to stifle the Rams’ passing game, and they were forced to play a fifth quarter in overtime on Sunday, while the Seahawks had their feet up after three quarters against the Niners on Saturday.
The Bears will look back with regret. They got the magical moment from the magical player. They’ve ridden close game luck all season. There’s no guarantee they’ll stick around at this level next season – and championship windows are never as long as teams think. But they head into the offseason with one certainty: they have one of the league’s best quarterbacks. And they haven’t been able to say that since the 1940s.
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