Sports Americana

The Night the Chicago Bears Won a Football Game Without Scoring an Offensive Touchdown

October 16, 2006 — Twenty years ago, the Chicago Bears pulled off one of the most ridiculous comebacks in Monday Night Football history. And somehow, that wasn’t even the most memorable part of the evening.

There are football games you remember because of the quarterback.

There are games you remember because of the final play.

And then there are games like October 16, 2006, when the Chicago Bears spent most of the evening trying to lose a football game in every conceivable way before discovering that their defense and special teams apparently had other plans.

It was Monday Night Football. The Bears were undefeated. The Arizona Cardinals were waiting in the desert.

And by halftime, Chicago was getting its football-loving rear end handed to it.

The Bears trailed 20–0 at halftime.

Their offense looked lost. Quarterback Rex Grossman was having a night that should probably have come with a warning label. Arizona was forcing turnovers, controlling the game, and making the supposedly mighty Bears look like a team that had accidentally wandered onto the wrong airplane.

Then things got worse.

By late in the third quarter, Arizona led 23–3.

Twenty points.

On national television.

Against a team that had entered the evening 5–0.

If you were a Bears fan, you were probably looking at the television the way a man looks at a car that has just made a noise he cannot afford to investigate.

This one was over.

Except it wasn’t.

THE DEFENSE DECIDES IT HAS HAD ENOUGH

With the Cardinals seemingly in control, Chicago’s defense decided it was tired of watching the offense participate in its own personal turnover festival.

Late in the third quarter, Bears defensive end Mark Anderson got to rookie Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart and forced a fumble. Safety Mike Brown scooped up the loose ball and returned it for a touchdown.

Suddenly, it was 23–10.

Interesting.

Not believe in miracles interesting. More like well, that was unexpected interesting.

But the Bears were still down 13, and the offense wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence.

Then came the fourth quarter.

With Arizona attempting to protect its lead, linebacker Brian Urlacher ripped the football away from running back Edgerrin James. Cornerback Charles Tillman—better known to Bears fans as Peanut—grabbed the loose ball and ran it 40 yards for another touchdown.

Twenty-three to seventeen.

The Bears had scored two touchdowns without their offense doing anything particularly useful.

And if you were watching from Arizona, you could feel the game beginning to slip away.

ENTER DEVIN HESTER

There are moments in sports when the universe seems to be setting something up.

A rookie return specialist named Devin Hester was about to receive a punt.

Hester had already developed a reputation as one of the most dangerous return men in football. He had that rare quality that makes an entire stadium hold its breath when the ball is in the air.

Arizona punted.

Hester caught it.

And then he did what Devin Hester did.

He found a seam, hit the accelerator, and raced 83 yards into the end zone.

Touchdown, Chicago.

The Bears had their first lead of the night.

Bears 24. Cardinals 23.

Let that sink in.

Chicago had scored 21 unanswered points in the second half. Two touchdowns came on defense. The third came on special teams.

The offense had contributed a field goal and an impressive collection of reasons for its fans to cover their eyes.

It was one of the most remarkable victories in franchise history, and it happened on a night when the Bears’ offense never scored a touchdown.

THE RANT THAT BECAME SPORTS HISTORY

Of course, the game itself wasn’t the only thing people remembered.

After the final whistle, Cardinals head coach Dennis Green walked into his postgame press conference and delivered one of the most legendary rants in NFL history.

Green was furious. His team had blown a commanding lead against an undefeated opponent, and he was not interested in politely discussing the finer points of the evening.

He pounded the podium and delivered the line that would live forever:

“The Bears are who we thought they were!”

And then came the kicker.

“…and we let them off the hook!”

Green’s eruption became an instant sports-media classic. It was the kind of press conference that made you wonder whether anyone had ever told a head coach that the microphones were, in fact, turned on.

For football fans, the rant became inseparable from the game itself.

You couldn’t remember the comeback without remembering Green losing his mind.

And honestly? It was understandable. His team had been minutes away from a major upset before the Bears turned the entire evening upside down.

A VERY 2006 KIND OF FOOTBALL NIGHT

Part of what makes this game so memorable is the era in which it happened.

This was Monday Night Football as a weekly event. You planned around it. You sat down, watched the whole thing, and spent the next morning talking about it at work, at school, or wherever football fans gathered to argue.

There was no need to manufacture a debate about whether the game mattered.

It was Monday night. The Bears were undefeated. The Cardinals had them on the ropes. And a rookie returner was about to deliver one of the signature plays of the season.

There were no social-media highlight clips arriving seconds after the play. No endless stream of instant reactions. You watched the game unfold, and if you were lucky enough to see it live, you witnessed something you would remember for years.

And if you missed it?

You probably heard about it the next day.

Possibly from someone who had stayed up too late watching Dennis Green explain exactly what had happened.

THE BEARS WERE FOR REAL—AND HEADED FOR SOMETHING BIGGER

The victory moved Chicago to 6–0 and helped propel the team toward an NFC North title and an appearance in Super Bowl XLI.

That Bears team was built around a ferocious defense, opportunistic playmakers, and the ability to turn a mistake into a catastrophe for the opposition.

On October 16, 2006, all of those qualities showed up at once.

The Bears didn’t win because everything went according to plan.

They won because, when the game looked hopeless, their defense kept swinging, their special teams found a way, and Devin Hester reminded everyone that a punt return can change an entire season.

It was football at its most chaotic and entertaining.

And it gave us a game that could be summarized in a single sentence:

The Bears played terribly, came back from 20 points down, scored no offensive touchdowns, and somehow won.

Only in football.

TWENTY YEARS LATER, WE STILL REMEMBER

October 16, 2006, deserves its place in the Sports Americana archives because it captures everything we love about sports.

The absurdity. The drama. The comeback nobody expected. The rookie who became the hero. The coach whose postgame rant became nearly as famous as the game itself.

Somewhere, a Bears fan still remembers exactly where he was when Hester caught that punt.

Somewhere, a Cardinals fan is still trying to forget.

And somewhere, Dennis Green’s immortal words are still echoing through the sports universe.

The Bears were who we thought they were.

And on that Monday night, they were also a team that refused to lose.

Final score: Chicago Bears 24, Arizona Cardinals 23.

Twenty years later, it’s still one of the wildest nights Monday Night Football ever gave us.