Somewhere, Ray Guy was shedding a single tear.

There have been over 14,000 regular season football games played in the 94-year history of the NFL. On Sunday, the Bears and Packers did something that the league had only seen once before: They played an entire 60-minute game without kicking a single punt.

In Green Bay’s 38-17 win, neither they nor Chicago lined up for a single punt, one of the rarest feats in the history of the league. What was especially odd was that Chicago didn’t have a scoring drive after the second quarter, something that seems to suggest their punts would have been prevalent.

Robbie Gould is a kicker, but surely he was bummed about the lack of punts. (USA TODAY Sports Images)

So how do two NFL teams go through a game without a punt? It’s simple: Porous defenses giving up lots of points on long possessions, leading to late-game desperation.

Green Bay never needed to punt. The Pack scored on every possession of the game. Chicago matched them on its first three possessions, then had time expire on their drive at the end of the first half. In the second half, Chicago had another four possessions, but those ended in interception, interception, failed fourth-down and time expired.

(Getty Images)

The only previous time the NFL saw a no-punt affair was in 1992 when the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers played in Week 2. That was also a high-scoring affair, with the eventual AFC champions outlasting the Steve Young’s squad 34-31. Like Sunday’s game, that game featured a number of second-half turnovers and long drives. Three-and-outs are the lifeblood of punting.

It’s not as if the Packers and Bears had been punting averse. Through three weeks, both Pat O’Donnell and Tim Masthay were in the top half of the NFL in total punts.