​Keisean Nixon stirs a lot of mixed emotions among fans. Not exactly a roller coaster of conflicting feelings, but a sizable portion of the crowd—perhaps even the majority—look at Nixon, the Packers’ top cornerback, with a wary eye. Yet there’s also plenty of brightness to his story, and last season he delivered one of the most enduring images in the long-running Packers vs. Bears rivalry. Here’s our top play of 2025, the moment Nixon silenced the Bears’ late surge.
The Packers had momentum as they headed into their Week 14 showdown with the Bears, their first meeting of 2025. They stood 8-3-1, riding a three-game winning streak after handling the Lions on Thanksgiving and then turning in a strong performance on national television the week before. Everything looked click-ready: Jordan Love was on fire, Josh Jacobs was banged up yet delivering in the clutch, and Micah Parsons was thriving in the Packers’ scheme. The Bears, meanwhile, were surging too, sitting at 9-3 with a five-game win streak. After an uneven start to the season, they’d found their footing, and it appeared we were headed for a rivalry classic.
The opening quarter produced a scoreless slate, but the following three quarters became a back-and-forth dance. The Packers would scratch and claw to take the lead, only for the Bears to storm back. A long, gutsy fourth-quarter drive by Green Bay extended their advantage to 28-21, featuring one of Josh Jacobs’ standout runs of the year, and there were still more than three minutes on the clock. The Bears looked poised to tie the game with a touchdown.
Caleb Williams and the Bears began at their own 26-yard line, aiming to mount the game-tying drive. Williams opened with a connection to Luther Burden for 27 yards, putting the Bears into Packers territory right away. They didn’t slow down. A 24-yard completion two plays later moved them to the Packers’ 23, and two runs by Kyle Monangai set up a critical 3rd-and-1 from the Packers’ 14. The Packers stuffed Monangai on the third attempt, forcing a decision on fourth down with the clock ticking.
With 27 seconds left, Chicago burned a timeout to craft the perfect plan. The Packers answered with a timeout of their own, setting the stage for what could have been the most dramatic moment of Green Bay’s season so far.
It looked almost inevitable that the play would be flawless. Chicago deployed heavy motion to the right, then sent Caleb Williams on a bootleg back to the left, offering Williams a choice of short and deep routes as he aimed for the sideline. The Packers’ defense collapsed toward the flat, leaving tight end Cole Kmet seemingly unattended in the end zone.
But almost. On the opposite side, Keisean Nixon had been positioned with the rest of the Packers’ defense in a way that would become the play call’s turning point. Nixon read the situation, reacted in a split second, and closed in with a burst that erased what could have been a game-tying completion. His timing and anticipation altered the trajectory of the drive, and what looked like a finished chalk line for Chicago dissolved in an instant.
That moment—Nixon’s decisive break on the decisive fourth down—became one of the defining images of the Packers-Bears rivalry in the 2025 season. It wasn’t just a play; it was a statement that Green Bay could weather the late pressure and come out on top. Nixon’s intervention stood tall at the moment it mattered most, a testament to the kind of impact plays he can deliver when the stakes are highest.
Looking back, it wasn’t just about a single stop or a lone defensive hero. It was a microcosm of Nixon’s role with the Packers: a player capable of changing the tone of a game with one best-judgment moment, turning a tense finish into a hard-fought Green Bay victory. And for fans who follow the Packers through thick and thin, that sequence—Nixon’s decisive break on a potential scoring drive—remains one of the season’s most memorable images, emblematic of a year where the Packers continued to contend in a fierce NFC landscape.