GREEN BAY, Wis. — The slow-motion replay aired again and again on the video board and TVs around Lambeau Field.
On fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line with the Chicago Bears trailing the Green Bay Packers by two touchdowns, Bears quarterback Justin Fields caught a shotgun snap and clawed his way toward the goal line. A wall of Packers players stopped his progress, and officials ruled him short.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus threw the challenge flag, but after several minutes of looking at the replay, the call stood.
The Bears could not make it a one-score game, and they couldn’t recover. The Packers pulled off a 27-10 win, their seventh straight in the rivalry.
One play earlier, Fields was ruled to have scrambled for a 6-yard touchdown, but that replay showed his knee was down before he hit the pylon with the football. That set up the fourth-and-1 play, a big moment after a rough start.
The Bears’ offensive production dried up in the first half after they scored on their opening drive. But they found momentum in the second half behind running backs David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert.
Montgomery topped 100 rushing yards for the eighth time in his career, totaling 122 yards on 15 carries. That total included carries of 9 and 11 yards on a drive that ended in Cairo Santos’ 44-yard field goal and carries of 11, 14 and 28 yards on the drive in which Fields came up short.
Fields completed just 7 of 11 passes for 70 yards with no touchdowns and an interception by cornerback Jaire Alexander with 2 minutes, 9 seconds to play.
The Bears spent the week leading up to the game talking about how they didn’t believe the idea of “gloom and doom” in Green Bay after the Packers lost their opener.
The scene at Lambeau Field was far from gloomy. After Aaron Rodgers threw his second touchdown pass to put the Packers up by 17 late in the first half, fans whipped around white towels and danced to Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!).” Late in the fourth quarter, a chant of “Bears still suck” echoed across the stadium.
All is well in Packers land, courtesy of another big Rodgers performance.
Rodgers bounced back from the Packers’ 23-7 loss to the Minnesota Vikings by completing 19 of 25 passes for 234 yards and two touchdowns. Aaron Jones rushed for 132 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries and also had a touchdown catch.
