GREEN BAY, Wis. — Jaylon Johnson was in the visitors’ locker room Sunday at Lambeau Field when the Bears’ offense furiously pushed into field-goal range with less than a minute left against the rival Packers.

Chicago’s star cornerback, while receiving treatment on his ailing quadriceps, stared at the television as Cairo Santos lined up to attempt a game-winning field goal.

“I was in here panicking,” Johnson said. “I’m glad it ended different from last time.”

RELATED CONTENT:

• NFL Draft: Bears will pick in the top 10 yet again
• NFL schedule 2025: Chicago Bears future opponents, games, road trips
• Instant analysis: How Bears fared in a Week 18 win over Green Bay

Santos had a game-winning field-goal attempt blocked as time expired the last time Chicago and Green Bay matched up, on Nov. 17 at Soldier Field. For the Bears, it was a devastating turn that extended the Packers’ dominance in the NFC North rivalry.

The block hung over Santos for weeks and added another sad chapter to a prolonged losing streak.

That ratcheted up the tension in the moment Sunday, even though it was just Johnson and a few Bears staffers in the room. Johnson went from panicked to overjoyed when Santos sent a 51-yard field goal through the uprights for a 24-22 win.

Then the rest of Johnson’s teammates starting pouring into the locker room to conclude a brutal 2024 season on a high note.

“It was so crazy,” safety Kevin Byard III said. “You’re kind of just thinking about the last time and you’re just hoping it goes in. At first, I was hoping it didn’t get blocked. Once it didn’t get blocked, I knew it was going to go in. Like I said, he’s a slit-your-throat kind of guy. That’s what he did today.”

Santos hoped he would have the opportunity. In fact, he prayed for it.

“I don’t think I could’ve written a cooler script for myself,” Santos said. “Obviously, that kick at home against Green Bay bothered us, how we finished that game. We feel like they got us on that play. You could argue whatever it was, we didn’t like how it was done to us. It was a taste that was in my mouth leading up to this. …

“To have that happen and everything that I’ve gone through the weeks following up to that, it gave me strength to be ready for a moment like this. So, I was super confident (heading into it).”

Santos knocked the ball straight, true and through the goal posts to complete a Bears comeback victory that had been elusive all season. Players were quick (and right) to dismiss any carryover from this win to next season, but it was a bit if a palette cleanser at the end of a mentally taxing 5-12 campaign in which so much went so wrong.

It was an opportunity to eliminate reminders of poor play. They won’t hear about the Packers’ 11-game winning streak in the rivalry. They won’t hear about how insanely long it had been since the Bears won a Sunday road game (since 2021), how they can’t get it done in one-score games, or how they hadn’t won at all since Oct. 13.

The Bears enjoyed the heck out of the moment, with a massive speaker blasting music through the locker room.

“You couldn’t ask for a better way to end the season through all of what’s going on, through all of coaches being fired, not playing well myself and us losing many, many games in a row. 12? What was it? 10? 11? Some crazy number,” quarterback Caleb Williams said in his postgame press conference. ”Being able to put Cairo in that same situation that we put him last game, him being able to relive that moment and not just relive it but obviously put it through the uprights. Being able to have that moment was great.”

It brought some joy to a run of futility that demanded more change. There will be time to discuss head coaches and coordinators and draft picks and how the Bears will use significant salary-cap space.

That’s for the future. Sunday night was time to celebrate a win.

“It was straight excitement,” Bears rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze said. “It was a party in here. We were feeling good. We deserved this one.”