Cigar-crowned Mike Ditka outfits. A snow-glittered Soldier Field. A Caleb Williams miracle. Chicago Bears bedlam. Chicago Bears heartbreak. It was emotion-strangling NFL playoff football at its quintessential box office best.

Trailing 17-10, staring at fourth-and-four from the Los Angeles Rams 14-yard line with 18 seconds left, Williams plunged elbow deep into his bag of magic. The Bears quarterback found himself back-peddling in desperate, doomed retreat as three pass rushers stalked with game-ending intentions, Williams, his vision almost entirely impaired, somehow summoning the arm strength to launch the ball to the back of the end zone, where Cole Kmet had evaded corner Cobie Durant to cradle a game-tying touchdown. Overtime.

What was a 14-yard touchdown pass had in fact travelled 51 yards, such was the extent of Williams’ escape. The camera smartly panned to Rams head coach Sean McVay, whose wide eyes were glued open in a state of disbelief.

A dormant football giant had awoken, Chicago erupting to more of the last-gasp chaos that has fuelled their return to contention under Williams and first-year head coach Ben Johnson. But such is football, such is the Chicago Bears experience, ecstasy became despair when Williams was intercepted in overtime to tee up Harrison Mevis’ game-icing 42-yard field goal as the Rams escaped with a 20-17 win.

“I had the response ‘What are you doing?!’ and then boom,” said Sky Sports NFL’s Jeff Reinebold. “That guy is so special. He’s like Patrick Mahomes x2 with the stuff he does.

“There was one ball he threw, an incompletion that he threw sidearm as he’s running to his right down the sideline. And I have no idea how he threw that ball that way and that far. And it was an incompletion, but it was like an incredible, incredible athletic act.

“He is a special, special guy. So Bears, after all these years, you have your quarterback.

As the Rams advance to the NFC Championship Game, the Bears face the bittersweet assessment of a gut-wrenching end to an otherwise sparkling, fresh chapter-opening campaign.

“It’s a frustration. It’s a fire,” said Williams after the game. “Those are the two words that I’d go with. I’m excited, though, also. Obviously, not happy about the outcome. Obviously frustrated about the outcome. But that’s over with, and I can’t go back and change it.

“Going to go back and watch, figure out how I can be better for the near future and help this organisation get to where we want to be.”

It was a sour note to end on for Williams, who has been a consistent architect of late Bears drama while leading seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season. Just last week he led three touchdown drives in the final quarter as Chicago overturned a 21-6 deficit to stun the Green Bay Packers 31-27 in the Wild Card round.

Year one for the 2024 No 1 pick had proven a shaky menu of jaw-dropping flashes and grimacing misfires as he went 5-12 as starter while seeing both head coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron fired. Year two has been a slicker, shrewder, increasingly commanding operation amid an ascending trajectory of playmaking wizardry, albeit marred occasionally by accuracy issues, while guiding the Bears to their first NFC North title since 2018 and the No 2 seed with an 11-6 record.

“Ridiculous,” said head coach Johnson of Williams’ late touchdown pass. “That’s ridiculous. You talk about that fourth-and-eight from last week and how outstanding that was, and I think this one was probably even another level ahead of that.

“There are some things that you just can’t coach. He’s got that bottom, he’s got a knack, he’s clutch. He does so many good things. He’s an eraser. I have plenty of bad calls each and every week, and he helps make it right for me.”

Williams, his freelancing exploits and out-of-structure nous had warranted Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers comparisons upon his arrival out of college. As much was on display across a sophomore season that suggested the Bears have found their coveted, blossoming long-term quarterback-head coach marriage.

The Bears were playing in the Divisional Round for the first time since the 2010 campaign, which ended in a 21-14 loss to the Packers at the NFC Championship Game. They last reached the Super Bowl at the end of the 2006 season when they were beaten 29-17 by the Indianapolis Colts.

For the best part of a decade they have trudged through a state of quarterback and coaching purgatory, staring up at Green Bay’s familiar dominance in the division behind Aaron Rodgers while battling to keep pace with both Minnesota and Detroit.

Johnson changed the narrative this season. This was a different Bears team. A united front, undeterred by pushback or setback and bullish in attitude. They wanted to believe everybody was against them. And it got them this far.

“When you have a season like this, when you have so much fun throughout the season, when you win so many games, you can’t let all that go to waste, after one season-ending loss,” said cornerback Jaylon Johnson.

“We’ve had a hell of a ride, and each man individually has had a hell of a ride. We can really be thankful and have a lot of gratitude for what this season has done and how we’ve grown as men and grown as a team.”

For all their struggles in the modern era, the Bears remain one of the NFL’s stalwart franchises recognised globally with some of the most devoted fans in the league. Between the old-fashioned wooden stalls that still line Soldier Field’s locker rooms, the city’s ice-cold elements, 1985 nostalgia evoked through Ditka sweater vests and the Decatur Staleys roots that helped forge football as we know it, there is something that feels right and necessary about Chicago returning to prominence.

Johnson knows this is the start. The Bears, they believe, are back.

“Next season is next season,” he said. “It’s a whole different group. It’s a whole different chapter. We’ll have to write a whole brand new story.

“That’s the thing about this. You put in all this work and you sacrifice and you trust the people around you. But you can’t take any shortcuts. I wish I could say this is momentum from Year One, we’ll take it (forward). It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way.”

Watch the New England Patriots against the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game live on Sky Sports NFL from 8pm on Sunday, January 25.