Santos Appears to Try to Trip Golden After He Flattened a Bears Coach

A kicker tried to trip a returner on Sunday, and the returner had just run over a coach. Late in the first half at Lambeau Field, Matthew Golden returned a punt 17 yards for Green Bay, ran out of bounds along the Chicago sideline and flattened a Bears coach who never saw him coming, the New York Post reports. Seconds later, as Golden jogged back onto the field, Bears kicker Cairo Santos stuck out a leg in an apparent attempt to trip him. The Packers beat the Bears 31-7, but the 10 seconds of sideline chaos are what travelled.

What exactly happened on the sideline?

Two collisions, one after the other. Golden fielded the punt toward the end of the first half and finished his 17-yard return on the Chicago side of the field, still running at full speed as he crossed into the bench area, Fox News reports. He crashed straight into an unsuspecting Bears coach, who went tumbling to the ground. Golden did not stop. As he turned back toward the field, he and Santos exchanged words, and the kicker extended his leg toward the receiver as he passed. The leg missed, Golden kept jogging, and play moved on.

Why was there no flag for either act?

Because nobody in stripes saw enough of it, or chose to act on it. No penalty was called on Golden for the contact with the coach, and none on Santos for the leg, Fox News reports. That is the detail that turned a routine rivalry scuffle into a rules story. Tripping is illegal under the NFL rulebook and draws a penalty when officials spot it, and running through a member of the opposing staff in the bench area is the sort of act that usually draws attention from the officiating crew and the league office alike. Both happened inside a few seconds, in front of the Chicago bench, and the broadcast caught the whole sequence, which is why the clip, rather than the scoreline, led the coverage of a 31-7 game.

Why did the clip spread so fast?

Because it compresses the whole Bears-Packers rivalry into one shot. The NFL’s oldest rivalry rarely needs help producing grievance, and this sequence hands each fanbase its own villain: Packers fans see a kicker trying to trip a returner who was jogging away, Bears fans see a returner who levelled a coach and never looked back. The edits that travelled furthest on social media tended to show only one half of the sequence, Heavy reports, which is why the argument split so cleanly along team lines. It also landed on a weekend when sideline conduct was already the league’s running story, a day after Dre Greenlaw was ejected for headbutting a helmetless Ernest Jones and on the same afternoon two players were sent off on the opening kickoff in London. The same Sunday produced a gentler viral sideline moment, when Mike Evans checked the name on Stefon Diggs’ jersey before realising who he was arguing with.

What did Golden say afterwards?

He confirmed the attempt and refused the feud. Asked about it postgame, Golden said Santos did try to trip him, then shut the topic down, saying it was all good and he had nothing to say to the kicker, the New York Post reports. Golden could afford the shrug. The 23-year-old, a first-round pick in 2025 and now in his second season, caught six passes for a career-high 123 yards, including a 50-yard reception, in a game Green Bay controlled from the second quarter on. Santos’s afternoon went the other way: one made extra point, and a missed 43-yard field goal in the second half that ended Chicago’s last realistic chance to get within 10, Heavy reports.

What happens next?

The league office decides whether the clip is worth a fine. The NFL reviews game footage each week and regularly fines players for acts the officials missed on the field, the same postgame process that rescinded Kyle Juszczyk’s juice-box fine and rewrote the celebration rules, and an attempted trip by a kicker standing outside the play is exactly the sort of isolated, clearly filmed act that process is built to catch after the fact. No fine, statement or comment from either club appears in the reporting so far. The return fixture in Chicago later this season gives the sequence a second life either way, and the pair share a job description quirk that guarantees a reunion: Golden returns punts, and Santos kicks them.