Bears, QB Caleb Williams come up just short on final play in 42-38 loss to 49ers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — If this is what the playoffs are going to be like for the Bears with quarterback Caleb Williams, it’s going to be thrilling.

It has felt for weeks like he’s on the brink of turning the corner, and he might have done it Sunday against the 49ers. He was at his best in a prime-time, pivotal game and came within inches of pulling off the most dazzling comeback of his career before his final pass fell just short, and the 49ers survived 42-38 at Levi’s Stadium.

“We know who we are,” Williams said. “We know exactly what we need to do to be able to win games. We’re going to give ourselves the best shot. Our confidence has grown for these types of moments. We fell short in this one, but we’ve been on the other side of it and we know we can be better.

“We can hang with anybody. … We know in all these ballgames, we’ve got a real shot to win.”

The Bears’ pursuit of the No. 1 playoff seed in the NFC ended with the loss. The 49ers and Seahawks will play for that this week, and the Bears need to beat the Lions or get an Eagles loss to the Commanders to secure the No. 2 seed.

If the Bears drop to third in the conference, their most likely opponent is the Rams. If they stay at No. 2, they’ll open with a home game against the Packers in the wild-card round.

The NFL announced late Sunday the Bears’ home game against the Lions to close the regular season will be Sunday at 3:25 p.m.

When asked about the importance of claiming the No. 2 seed by beating the Lions, Williams said, “We’ll get ready for this game like any other game. We want to bring it to them.”

The Bears went took a 38-35 lead over the 49ers on Cairo Santos’ 29-yard field goal with six minutes left, then the 49ers answered with Brock Purdy’s 38-yard touchdown pass to Jauan Jennings to go back ahead 42-35 and leave Williams one last shot with 2:15 left from his own 35-yard line.

He pushed the Bears to the 49ers’ 13-yard line, and they ran a trick play in which he fired a short pass to the right to tight end Colston Loveland, who pitched it to running back D’Andre Swift. Swift nearly got to the end zone, but the 49ers’ Deommodore Lenoir and Ji’Ayir Brown stopped him at the 2-yard line. The Bears spiked the ball with five seconds left to get one last play.

Williams was in trouble immediately upon the snap and scrambled as time expired. Rolling to his left, he threw to wide receiver Jahdae Walker in the end zone, but the ball skipped off the ground just before it got to him.

Nonetheless, in the closest thing to an NFL playoff game he’s ever encountered, Williams was more than ready.

Without top wide receiver Rome Odunze and with illness hindering some of his other offensive teammates, Williams completed 25 of 42 passes for a season-high 330 yards with two touchdown passes for a 100.3 passer rating.

Both of his touchdown passes were brilliant — one a 35-yarder over the top to wide receiver Luther Burden and the other leading Loveland into open space for a 36-yard score.

“He knew he needed to come out here and make some plays for us,” coach Ben Johnson said. “At times we were able to answer that call.”

Williams was every bit on Purdy’s level as they traded touchdowns throughout the game. Purdy threw a pick-six on the very first play, but stormed back to finish 24-for-33 passing for 303 yards and three touchdown passes for a 118.6 passer rating. He also rushed for two touchdowns.

With three consecutive strong games, Williams exceeded his rookie passing yardage total and gave himself a shot at becoming the Bears’ first 4,000-yard passer. He is at 3,730 with one game remaining.

And he’s still getting better.

He’ll go into the playoffs with nearly a year in the bank working with coach Ben Johnson, and the results have started coming.

He has spent that time in a sensible offense that constantly springs receivers open, effectively uses play action to loosen up the secondary and has no shortage of pivots when something is ineffective. He’s also playing behind one of the sturdiest offensive lines in the league, another big change from his rookie season.

Last season, Williams faced not only everything the rest of the NFL threw at him, but hindrances from within as the Bears fumbled the infrastructure for his arrival. Imagine how much further along he might be if they’d had Johnson and put in this type of offensive line from the start.

There’s little use in fixating on that hypothetical now, though. It’s all about what’s next as Williams and the Bears dive into what looks like a wide-open playoff field.

In a sharp departure from their recent history, the Bears don’t look like they’d be outmatched against anyone. Williams still has a lot of work to do, but he’s a big part of that.

If there’s one thing he’s demonstrated without a doubt early in his career, it’s his resilience. He rarely goes down in the pocket, and the Bears rarely feel like they’re out of a game because it always seems like he could propel them back into it.

He simply never goes down, and that’s another quality his predecessors lacked.

Johnson’s reprogramming of Williams has slowly but steadily made him better, and for a few weeks it has felt like he’s on the brink of turning the corner. He has pushed him to be more calculated without fully erasing his gunslinger mentality. He has grown into a bolder leader.

That was exactly what the Bears hired Johnson to do, though it was unknown how Williams would react to being coached significantly harder. He actually asked for that heading toward the end of his rookie season and he has embraced it because he knows the teaching he’s getting from Johnson is correct.

Teams that thrive in the playoffs do so firstly because of their head coach and quarterback, and even though it isn’t always perfect, the Bears have found a pairing that can compete against anyone.