CHICAGO – Cairo Santos felt good about his field goal attempt after the ball left his foot.

The snap was perfect. The hold was good. The veteran kicker made powerful contact and the ball was on line to sail through the uprights as time expired to secure a Bears victory over the rival Packers.

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Something terrible happened right after that. The Packers got great penetration through the interior line and second-year defensive lineman Karl Brooks reached up and got a hand on it, just enough to impact Santos’ kick and secure a crushing 20-19 loss on Sunday afternoon at Solider Field.

Santos got back to the locker room and immediately reviewed the play on his phone. What he felt in the moment was right. The operation was clean. The setup was right. There was an issue up front.

“That was a comfortable range, from the left hash and with a left-to-right-wind,” Santos said. “It felt great. The line the ball was going was right down the middle. I hit it solid with my foot. The operation was good from the snap/hold. They just made a good play.”

Per ESPN, several players in the Packers locker room said they noticed that Santos was kicking with a lower trajectory, making it easier to block. They also said that they were surprised that the Bears attempted the field goal on second down instead of pushing for more yards and a shorter field goal, especially with a timeout in hand.

Santos said a kick from a few yards closer wouldn’t have changed anything from his vantage, but not pushing for more yards was asked several times in the Bears postgame availability. There was also a discussion of long snapper Scott Daly getting pushed down during the rush, which is an infraction, but ultimately there was no call.

Looking at the play, it’s clear the the left side of the Bears interior line got overwhelmed, with multiple Packers players busting through with hands outstretched.

Those were minor notes compared to the bigger picture. The Bears were on the verge of snapping a 10-game losing to the Packers and a three-game slide in this season. A previously broken offense got fixed under new play caller Thomas Brown and Caleb Williams made some fantastic plays to put the Bears in position to let Santos go win it.

There wasn’t a flaw in his execution. The ball came out just low enough for Brooks to get a finger on it.

“I hit the same ball I always hit. It was right on target, with the line that it took,” Santos said. “(No.) 94 just made a great play and put his hand right in the trajectory from where the ball started. But, like I said, I’ll look myself in the mirror and see how can I continue to get better and hit the ball better so that, if they do make a play, I can still have enough elevation to get it clear. But, yeah, they just made a play.”

There’s a human element to this whole thing, too, and losing in such devastating fashion isn’t easy to handle in the moment.

“I wanted that kick for him so bad,” Daly said. “These put so much work throughout the week and making that kick would’ve meant so much to him and to all of us. It’s unfortunate that it didn’t go our way this time.”