You might not realize it at first, but there is something missing from this set of drive summaries from Bears-Packers:
Bears-Packers is the 2nd game in NFL history with no punts
For only the second time in the 90-plus year history of the NFL, neither team voluntarily decided to kick the ball to the other team.
There were a whole bunch of TDs, some Jay Cutler interceptions, some failed fourth-down conversions ... and there were zero punts. Not one. This wasn’t some sort of Madden thing where everybody was going crazy and going for it on fourth down, just a perfect combo of two strong offenses, two defenses that struggled and one quarterback who made sure his team didn’t get to fourth down a couple of times.
It seems like this would happen somewhat regularly, but this is only the second game in NFL history where neither punter was called upon. The previous was a Buffalo-San Francisco game from 1992, where Steve Young and Jim Kelly led their teams to over 1,000 yards of total offense.
We imagine Pat O’Donnell of the Bears and Tim Masthay of the Packers are glad their teams were successful offensively, but a bit bummed they didn’t get to play. They probably won’t complain about their game checks, though.
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