Tempers flared during the third quarter of Sunday night’s matchup between the Chicago Bears and the Houston Texans.

After quarterback Caleb Williams took a shot from Texans’ linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair as he was trying to get out of bounds while scrambling, a scrum broke out between Bears’ players who took exception to the hit and Al-Shaair.

When Al-Shaair came up from the ground, he threw a punch at Bears’ Roschon Johnson, who was on the sideline but was not active on the play.

There was no flag assessed when Al-Shaair tackled Williams, nor was there a penalty given after the play despite all the extracurricular activity on the sideline.

The game was intense enough even before the incident. The Bears and Texans were locked into a second-half defensive battle as the two teams looked to remain undefeated. Houston and Chicago traded field goals in the first quarter with the Texans taking a 10-point lead to make it 13-3. The Bears scored late in the first half but Houston answered with a field goal to make it 16-10 heading into the break.

The third quarter resulted in little offense, but nine penalties and lots of emotion, which boiled over when Al-Shaair threw a punch.

Sunday’s contest marks the only meeting between the Bears and Texans this season, but there was no shortage of drama. It’s likely the two sides will remember how their 2024 matchup went down, and it could lead to an interesting rivalry moving forward.