Bear Digest

Cameron Dicker's Free-Kick Field Goal and a Bears-Packers Tie

Cameron Dicker's 57-yard field goal on a free kick after a Chargers fair catch Thursday night broke a record set by a Packers great against the Bears.

Gene Chamberlain

Packers running back great Paul Hornung also did his team's kicking for a while and made a free kick against the Bears.
Packers running back great Paul Hornung also did his team's kicking for a while and made a free kick against the Bears. / David Boss-Imagn Images
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The 57-yard free kick field goal by Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker against Denver Thursday night came on a rule right out of the NFL history books and it's one with a rich Bears and Packers tie.

The free kick field goal broke a record set by Paul Hornung for longest free kick field goal in 1964, a 52-yarder against the Bears.

The rule allows a team receiving a punt and calling a fair catch the option of immediately lining up to try an unchallenged free kick field goal from the line of scrimmage.

Dicker's was the first successful one in the NFL since 1976 but the rule had been used before that with more frequency and two of the most famed kicks like this involved the Bears-Packers rivalry in the 1960s.

In 1964, Hornung connected on 52-yard free kick field goal right before halftime against the defending NFL champion Bears in the season opener to spark a 23-12 Green Bay win.

The kick was the career-long field goal by Hornung at the time and he hit 3 of 5 in the game. It came from the Packers' 48-yard line, with the goal posts then being on the goal line and not 10 yards deep.

The use of the rule infuriated Bears fans at the time and even some players who weren't very familiar with it. They definitely remembered it, though.

Four years later the Bears got their revenge. With 26 seconds left in the game against the Packers, punt returner Cecil Turner called a fair catch on a short punt by Donny Anderson deep in Green Bay territory. And it resulted in a free-kick Bears field goal for the win.

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Recalling the free kick in an interview with the Tribune's Fred Mitchell in 2011, Percival said former Bears assistant and later head coach Abe Gibron had told them about the rule and told Turner to call the fair catch. Gibron no doubt recalled the game four years earlier when Hornung set the record because he was an assistant then.

Percival told Mitchell: "I swear, I don't think any of us knew the rule at the time."

But Turner called the fair catch, they lined up like it was a kickoff, except with Richie Petitbon holding the ball for placement and Percival, a straight-on style kicker, drilled it. The Bears won 13-10 in a game highlighted by Gale Sayers' 205 rushing yards, a team record at the time.

The Packers wound up with their own revenge later that same 1968 season.

That first Bears team under coach Jim Dooley got hot and made a late-season run for the playoffs with Virgil Carter and then Jack Concannon at quarterback. It was the year Sayers tore his knee up against the 49ers and was replaced by Brian Piccolo.

They needed to win the season finale against the Packers to beat out the Vikings for the NFL's Central Division title, but Green Bay and QB Don Horn beat them 28-27 at Wrigley Field and spoiled the Bears' playoff hopes.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.