It was choppy and certainly could’ve been more definitive, but the Bears captured their most impressive victory of the season Thursday by beating the Patriots 30-24.
It was fitting that on the night the Bears honored former coach Mike Ditka, they hosted the opponent that Ditka’s 1985 championship team beat in Super Bowl XX.
That Bears team knocked off the Patriots 46-10. This one missed a chance to come away with a blowout along those lines Thursday, but still enjoyed another landmark night in its quest to establish itself as a legitimate threat to win the title this season.
“It speaks to who we are,” wide receiver Rome Odunze said. “We believe we’re a Super Bowl contender. It takes these types of Ws to get that done.”
Quarterback Caleb Williams stayed hot in his second game back from a hamstring injury and made several big plays late on his way to completing 22 of 33 passes for 308 yards with two touchdown passes for a 116.7 passer rating.
Facing third-and-11 from his own 13-yard line with 13:10 left, Williams avoided heavy pressure in the pocket and hit Odunze downfield for 21 yards to keep the offense moving and the clock running.
Then, on fourth-and-two at the Patriots’ 43-yard line, he found tight end Colston Loveland for nine yards to extend the drive.
That possession ended with kicker Cairo Santos hitting the right goal post as he missed a 53-yard field goal with eight minutes left. The sequence did kill five minutes, though, which narrowed the Patriots’ path to a comeback.
Santos redeemed himself tremendously at the end by hitting a career-long 58-yard field goal to seal the game with 1:34 left.
“I didn’t know how far it was,” said Williams, who regretted taking a sack on the play before and felt that Santos took care of it for him with the long kick. “That’s my guy. We believe in each other.”
Johnson initially decided to punt, but reconsidered and asked if Santos wanted to try a 58-yarder. He definitely did after missing an important one from 53 and said he was “thankful that Ben trusted me on that, and I delivered a great kick down the middle.”
The Bears jumped to a quick 10-0 lead by overwhelming the Patriots on both sides of the ball.
The Patriots’ opening drive ended on fourth-and-five at the Bears’ 45-yard line when nickel cornerback Kyler Gordon blitzed to sack Drake Maye. Gordon had three sacks Sunday against the Falcons and leads all NFL defensive backs for the season.
Williams followed immediately with a 26-yard pass to Luther Burden to put the Bears in scoring position, and they settled for a 43-yard field goal by Santos. He and Burden struck again on a 58-yard pass late in the first quarter to set up D’Andre Swift’s four-yard touchdown run.
The Bears had a chance to run away with the game when Williams hit Burden on a 24-yard screen pass for a touchdown and a 20-7 lead with 14 seconds left in the first half, but squandered it with an incomprehensible defensive lapse.
Maye hit A.J. Brown for 18 yards, then called timeout at the Bears’ 48-yard line with three seconds left. The Bears were in prevent defense with safeties Dillon Thieneman and Skyler Thomas at the goal line, and Maye dumped the ball underneath, seemingly harmlessly, to running back Rhamondre Stevenson.
The Bears had five players between Stevenson and the end zone at the time he caught the pass, plus defensive back Cam Lewis chasing him from behind, but he weaved through them all the way down the field for a touchdown.
Bears coach Ben Johnson said only, “We could’ve rallied to the ball there and gotten them down.”
Rather than putting the Patriots away, the Bears allowed the game to turn into a back-and-forth in the second half.
As Williams got rolling, so did two of the Bears’ key weapons: Burden and Loveland.
Burden had four catches for 130 yards and a touchdown, and the Bears opened the second half with Williams throwing a 12-yard touchdown pass to Loveland. Loveland finished with seven catches for a season-high 69 yards and a touchdown.
Tight end Cole Kmet also had three catches for 28 yards before being carted to the locker room with a knee injury with 5:34 remaining. Johnson was grim about it afterward.
Williams and Maye got into a shootout that lived up to the hype of the Nos. 1 and 3 picks, respectively, in the 2024 draft. Maye completed 24 of 31 passes for 321 yards and two touchdowns — he threw an interception as well, with Bears linebacker D’Marco Jackson picking off a pass in the end zone in the first half — for a 117.8 passer rating.
“When the other guy [scores], you want to back there and get one,” Williams said. “You want to match … and we did just that.”
The packed crowd at Soldier Field went wild when Williams ran out of the tunnel at the end of the player introductions, his first time back on the field since going down with a hamstring injury Sept. 20. The stadium was silent that dreary afternoon.
A lot happened in his absence, including an incredible performance by Case Keenum and a disastrous one by Tyson Bagent, but the bottom line was the Bears stayed above .500 and are in the thick of the NFC North race at 5-2.
It’s hard to say how much wins over struggling teams like the Jets and
Falcons were indicators of where they’re headed this season. But a win over the Patriots, who were in the Super Bowl last season, says a lot more.