Chicago Bears surprise Green Bay Packers in Monday Night Football contest

The Chicago Bears punished the Green Bay Packers for their undisciplined play with a 20-17 upset on Monday to join the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers as the NFL’s only unbeaten teams.

Robbie Gould booted a 19-yard field goal with four seconds left to clinch the victory in front of a soldout crowd at Soldier Field and keep the surprising Bears at the top of the NFC North standings with a perfect 3-0 mark.

Devin Hester returned a punt 62 yards for a touchdown while Jay Cutler passed for another but the Packers were the architects of their own demise.

Green Bay committed a franchise record 18 penalties for 152 yards in the 180th meeting between the NFL’s two most storied franchises.

While the Packers had been widely tipped as Super Bowl contenders since training camp, not much had been expected of the Bears.

“They had the early momentum but the guys just kept fighting through,” said Bears coach Lovie Smith. “We hung in there. All of the guys contributed and made big plays.

”We came through in a big type of way at the end. We’re 3-0 right now, feel real good about that, we’re the only NFC team that is undefeated.“

The Packers scored on their first possession, Rodgers engineering a 60-yard drive capped off by a seven-yard touchdown strike to Greg Jennings.

Green Bay added a 38-yard Mason Crosby field goal in the second quarter before the Bears offence finally got going, Cutler finding Greg Olsen with a nine-yard touchdown pass to slice the Packers lead to 10-7 entering the intermission.

The Bears took their first lead of the game in explosive style when Hester took a punt and blasted up the sideline to put Chicago up 14-10 just seconds into the fourth quarter.

Green Bay came right back, Rodgers diving over from three yards out for the touchdown to retake the lead 17-14.

But the Packers then fell off the penalty tightrope they had been walking all night as the Bears worked the ball deep into the Green Bay end with the help of two unnecessary roughness penalties setting up a Gould 25-yard field goal to level the contest.

With just over two minutes to play, Rodgers had Green Bay were on the move but the Packers again shot themselves in the foot when James Jones fumbled and Chicago recovered on the 46.

The Bears took over and with the help of a pass interference penalty moved down to the Packers nine-yard line setting up Gould’s game winning chip shot.

”We didn’t play out best game and we won, that’s got to be a good sign,“ said Cutler, who completed 16 of 27 passes for 221-yards. ”We’ve got to play better, I’ve got to play a lot better.

“We’re winning ball games, we’re still learning as an offence. We’re doing enough to win but we can get better.”