CHICAGO — DJ Moore heard the play call and felt a jolt of excitement.

The Bears receiver then lined up on the right side of a formation that screamed run. Chicago had tight ends of both sides of the line. Caleb Williams was under center. Kyle Monangai was the deep back, with tight end Durham Smythe as an H-back in an I-formation.

It was first-and-10 from near midfield in overtime, when a field goal would beat the Green Bay Packers, so a run made perfect sense.

Moore knew something the Packers didn’t. The ball was headed down the field. With the right coverage, it was going deep. He scanned the field and recognized favorable coverage.

“Once I saw the defense in 1-on-1, I knew Caleb was going to give me a chance,” Moore said. “Just like in practice.”

You know what happened next. Moore caught a 46-yard touchdown pass that sealed a 22-16 walk-off Bears win over the Packers on Saturday night at Soldier Field.

That fateful play hadn’t been run in practice that much. The Bears formally installed it Thursday, the last full on-field workout of the week.

The play was born just earlier in the week out of Bears head coach Ben Johnson’s mind and ideas from his offensive staff. Those coaches work on plays to expose an opponent all the time. Some of them never make it beyond the whiteboard. Others show up on the practice field. Some don’t work out in private. A few make the call sheet.

This one had promise.

“I was up watching film in his office, and we just kind of went over small details throughout the play,” Williams said in his postgame press conference. “The next day, we came out and discussed it and hit it in practice. And it ended up working out just how we thought.”

Moore got a 1-on-1 matchup with Packers cornerback Keisean Nixon, as the Bears hoped. Again, the Packers were lured by the formation and the context of the drive, where a run was expected. They also were prepared to cover Colston Loveland, the other option in the pattern. Based on the look, it always was going to Moore.

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Williams snapped the ball from under center, faked a handoff to Monangai and gave himself some space to step into the throw. Then he launched one downfield for Moore, who was all alone with Nixon.

Moore had half a step on his man and saw the ball launched his way. He had confidence in his ability. He believed in the play, but some unnerving emotions come with it.

“Scary,” Moore said. “I can track the ball, so I could speed up or slow depending on where my hand placement is. It was scary, but it was cool.”

Bears center Drew Dalman had a different perspective on the play. He was engaged in a block but saw the ball go skyward and tracked it.

“It hung in the air for 10 or 15 seconds, it felt like,” Dalman said. “I saw DJ come down with it, and I was super hyped that those guys came through.”

The entire team came through with an improbable overtime win that featured several heroes.

Victory wasn’t secure until that fateful play, where Moore was draped in coverage and ended up with a massive TD catch as pain resulted from an unforgiving fall. The always-deadpan Moore described the after-game-winning-catch emotions as only he can.

“Hurt,” Moore said. “Until my teammates picked me up off the ground. Them I’m like, ‘Cool. Now we can celebrate.’ ”

Williams and Moore connected on the play in practice, and the QB had great belief in the call and his ability to come through when it mattered most in a game. Others might have wondered about the outcome of that throw, but Williams wasn’t one despite its improbability.

“I knew it was good,” Williams said. “You’ve got that belief, you got that confidence, you got that swagger as an offense. You practice well, you hit plays like that in practice. It was pretty identical to practice, and when the play gets called and the moment comes up like that, it’s time to go hit it, it’s time to go win the game.”

Once Moore saw the coverage, he felt the exact same way.

“It was 1-on-1,” Moore said. “I really had to make the catch under the bright lights.”