Butler Keeps Bears Alive and Kicking : NFC: Chicago stays unbeaten. Margin is 52-yard field goal with four seconds left against Vikings, who are 1-2 and may have lost quarterback Wilson.

By virtue of Kevin Butler’s 52-yard field goal with four seconds remaining, which defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 19-16, Sunday at Soldier Field, the Chicago Bears will be bringing an unbeaten team to next Sunday’s game with the Raiders at the Coliseum.

The Raiders are unbeaten, too.

And the Vikings?

Just beaten.

Beaten-up and broken-spirited. Their record is a distressing 1-2. Worse yet, their quarterback, Wade Wilson, left the field in the final minute with a sprained thumb on his passing hand that looks serious enough to keep him out of next week’s game with Tampa Bay, and might even require surgery.

“There’s no way I can grip a ball,” Wilson said.

Then there was Viking punter Harry Newsome, who was near tears as he discussed the snap he dropped with 25 seconds to play that put Chicago in position to win the game.

“I let down 47 guys and all the coaches,” Newsome said, choking back sobs. “All I had to do is catch the ball and get it off and the game goes into overtime.

“I can’t explain this. This will stick in my mind the rest of my life. This is about the worst thing that can happen to a guy.”

Not necessarily.

Viking linebacker Scott Studwell could have covered for Newsome’s mistake with 15 seconds remaining by catching a tipped Jim Harbaugh pass that floated right to him. Studwell, too, let this game slip through his fingers.

Studwell had nothing to say about anything, but tackle Keith Millard said: “It’s a pretty big downer. We just gave it away. We’re 1-2 and we’re depressed.”

Dominated by a Bear ball-control offense that completed only five passes all day, the Vikings were behind from beginning to near-end until Wilson found Hassan Jones with a 17-yard touchdown pass with 1:55 to play.

Less than a minute later, Minnesota got the ball back. It advanced to the Chicago 48.

But when Wilson suffered two incompletions and then a sack during which he jammed his thumb on a Bear’s face mask, the Vikings were forced to punt. In came Newsome, who has been in this line of work for six NFL seasons.

Adam Schreiber’s snap was wobbly, but catchable. Newsome didn’t catch it. He fumbled it and fell on it at the Viking 39, where the Bears took possession.

“The punting game drives you nuts,” said Viking Coach Jerry Burns, who endured a Newsome 14-yarder earlier in the game.

“You get a block, a bad snap, a guy returning the ball--a million problems involving the punting game. All day long our punting wasn’t big-league. Finally, it spelled our doom.”

Butler did so with his 52-yard field goal, tying a Soldier Field record he shares with two others. He also kicked one 51 yards, after not having been successful from 50 or more since 1987.

Butler had four field goals in all. The rest of Chicago’s offense belonged to Neal Anderson, who rushed for 91 yards that included an eight-yard touchdown, and Brad Muster, with a career-high 90.

The Bears rarely passed, trying none in the third period.

Anderson played with a painful rib injury that concerns Coach Mike Ditka with regard to next week’s game--especially so because Anderson’s backup at tailback, Mark Green from Riverside, injured his left knee Sunday and might be out for a month.

In giving Chicago a record of 3-0, Butler found himself looking forward to playing “a pretty tough L.A. Raider team that pretty much manhandled us when they were here.” The Raiders beat the Bears, 20-3, in a preseason game Aug. 24.

Butler also made reference to football fans possibly being “in for a treat” because, should a thigh injury keep nagging him during kickoffs, he might temporarily relinquish that responsibility to 315-pound Refrigerator Perry.

As if California didn’t have enough tremors already.

Butler doesn’t feel as much pain during field goals as on kickoffs because of the leg extension involved, but he was hurting plenty with 8:29 to play after Ken Johnson blocked his 36-yard field-goal try, keeping Minnesota in the game.

Donald Igwebuike’s three field goals and Herschel Walker’s 72 rushing yards accounted for most of the Viking offense. Wilson’s passing was unimpressive. Of his first seven passes, four were incomplete, two were intercepted and the seventh went to Walker for minus-two yards.

An 80-yard drive capped by the scoring pass to Jones late in the game overcame Wilson’s poor start, at least until the butterfingered Vikings handed back the game.

Not that Ditka cared how his Bears won.

“There’s no place on that scoreboard that says: ‘Description,’ ” Ditka said.