November 5, 1989
The play: Don Majkowski completes a replay-assisted comeback with a key completion
The Packers entered their Week 9 matchup with the Chicago Bears in 1989 at 4-4.
Talent was not the problem. Quarterback Don Majkowski was having the best year of his career and had already surpassed 300 yards passing four times, including a season-high 367 the week prior in an overtime win over Detroit. He’d go on to lead the league in passing yards that year. Sterling Sharpe had found his footing in his second season and was piling up catches, well on his way to a league-leading 90 receptions. The defense, meanwhile, was led by Tim Harris, who had 7.5 sacks through eight games, and hadn’t even reached the best part of his season; he’d finish the year with a spectacular 19.5 sacks, which is still a team record as of the end of the 2025 season.
The problem was the Packers couldn’t get out of their own way. For every close win they’d eked out that year, they put up an equally close and frustrating loss. A two-point loss to the Buccaneers in Week 1. Three points to the Rams in Week 3. Three points to the Dolphins in Week 7. They’d played almost every game so close that they came into the Bears game having scored 205 points and given up 201, a .500 team in almost every sense.
And against the Bears in Week 9, a victory would come down to a single point and about six inches’ worth of Lambeau Field turf — if that. It might even have taken an act of God, at least if Packers safety Chuck Cecil had anything to say about it, seeking divine intervention as he watched late-game dramatics play out from his vantage point on the sideline.
“I think there were a lot of guys talking to the Big Fella upstairs. I know I was one of them,” he said.
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