Before the Green Bay Packers were able to score that touchdown with 38 seconds left to beat the Chicago Bears, they faced two fourth downs on the drive.
The first was a fourth and 1 at their own 22-yard line. After Eddie Lacy came up just short on third and 1 — on what we considered a fairly dubious spot — coach Mike McCarthy was ready to punt.
And then some of the offensive players talked him out of it.
“It was fourth and 1 and we kind of had to talk coach into letting us go for it,” guard T.J. Lang said, via the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “When we came to that first fourth down and coach was calling the punt team out, we were like, ‘No, let us get this. This is our time, this is our moment.’ We were able to come through in that moment. Later on we had another fourth down and everybody was calm. Go out there and handle your job and make some plays.”
It’s a good thing that happened. Obviously, the Packers picked up the first down, but there’s a decent chance they wouldn’t have gotten the ball back if they had punted.
The Bears were pounding the Packers on the ground in the second half and chewing up the clock. There’s no reason to believe that trend would have stopped the way the Packers defense was playing.
It was a gutsy call and the correct one… but only because it worked.