The New England Patriots will not enter the NFL playoffs until Sunday night, but they already played a role on Saturday as well — at least indirectly. As Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson said after
his team’s come-from-behind win over the Green Bay Packers, the Patriots served as inspiration.
“The one thing that we had done during training camp was, we had shown the film of the Atlanta and New England game, the Super Bowl from 2016,” Johnson said after the Bears’ 31-27 victory. “We have two players on our roster that were part of both those teams. Grady [Jarrett] was with Atlanta, and Joe Thuney was with New England. It was just great to get perspective from both of those players of how that game went down.”
Back in Super Bowl LI between the Patriots and Falcons, New England fell behind 28-3 in the third quarter before a frantic comeback over the game’s final 20 minutes. The game eventually reached overtime, where Thuney and company went straight down the field to score the winning touchdown in a 34-28 win.
The Bears’ comeback on Saturday did not go to extra time, but it was similarly dramatic. Chicago was down 21-3 at the half and 27-16 with five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter. A pair of touchdown passes from quarterback Caleb Williams, however, helped lead the team to an improbable victory.
As a consequence, the 2025 Bears are joining the 2016 Patriots as the only ever NFL teams to score 25-plus points from a fourth quarter on to overcome a deficit of more than 15 points in a playoff win.
“I think it’s just a good lesson to be learned that it’s 28-3 in the middle of the third quarter and yet the game still being played, and there’s a lot of time left,” said Johnson. “That was my message to the group. It was just reminding them that this has been done before and rather than saying, ‘Woe is me’ and ‘Oh crap, we’re in a hole’ it’s more, ‘This is a great opportunity for us to turn this thing around into a game that we’ll never forget. And that’s what they did.”
