Packers Were One Lateral Away from Potential Disaster

The Green Bay Packers survived a frantic final play to beat the Chicago Bears 21-13 on Sunday.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Aaron Rodgers was about 13 months from being born when California beat Stanford on a series of laterals. In one of the most famous endings in college football history, Cal's Kevin Moen ran through the Stanford band and into the end zone for the winning touchdown.

On Sunday, Rodgers - the former Cal quarterback - referenced that game after the Green Bay Packers survived the Chicago Bears’ frantic series of laterals to win 21-13.

“Stop them,” was Rodgers’ thoughts on the final play. “I think we’ve all seen the clips of the play in The Big Game. I’ve seen some college clips; obviously, the Miami against New England last year. Just finish the play. Looked like from my angle there might have been a couple guys on the right side that had some space. I’m glad that we came out of there with the ball.”

The Bears started at their 22-yard line with 36 seconds remaining but too quickly got into position for a desperation final play as Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky hit receiver Anthony Miller for 13 yards, receiver Allen Robinson for 22 yards and tight end Jesper Horsted for 9 yards and out of bounds at the 34 with nine seconds to go. After a second down bomb into the end zone was almost caught by receiver Riley Ridley, Bears coach Matt Nagy went for a more unorthodox last-gasp play.

“In that case, you expect a Hail Mary, because they’re obviously close enough to it,” defensive back Tramon Williams said.

Instead, Trubisky threw short to running back Tarik Cohen. Cohen went left and lateraled to Trubisky near the left sideline at the 21. Trubisky ran right, evaded outside linebacker Kyler Fackrell and lateraled to the right to Horsted at the 16. At that point, Chicago had the Packers’ defense outflanked. If Horsted would have lateraled to receiver Allen Robinson sooner, he almost certainly would have scored with Miller out front as a blocker.

“It looked like they had something,” Williams said. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, it looked like they had something. Everybody rallied to the ball and we were able to get the ball out and get the recovery and win the game.”

Added outside linebacker Preston Smith: “There were a couple more people over there who could've easily got a touchdown if they would've pitched the ball.”

But Horsted didn’t pitch it. He was met by defensive back Chandon Sullivan, the ball hit the turf and Williams recovered at the two.

“Almost had it,” Trubisky said. “It was kind of ad-libbed. It wasn’t all the way schemed up like that but you just can’t go down with the football and try to keep it alive. It would have been cool (to score) but it just didn’t happen.”

As the Packers celebrated, Robinson and Cohen were livid at a missed opportunity to score and potentially force overtime.

“It was moving quickly,” Horsted said. “I had my eyes on the inside where the ball was coming from. I was focused on would I be running with it or blocking, and then I got the ball and the first thing I looked downfield and I saw a little bit of daylight, but I knew that I had a guy on the outside. In hindsight, I should have gotten there a little bit earlier, but it was moving quickly and it was a little bit hard to see what exactly was going on to the right when I was focusing on straight and left.”

With that, the Packers survived and improved to 11-3 and on the cusp of the playoffs.

“I think I blacked out there for a second, there was so many laterals,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “I couldn’t tell, I was just hoping that someone was going to make the tackle, and then it looked like there at the end the ball went forward so that was a little bit of a sigh of relief and we ended up recovering the football, anyways. It was a nail-biter play, that’s for sure.”