CINCINNATI — It’s good that head coach Ben Johnson has the stomach to ride quarterback Caleb Williams’ ongoing ups and downs as the Bears wait for his breakthrough. From game to game — and even from play to play — it’s hard to know what they’re going to get.
Williams was all over the place again Sunday, but he surged at the end and rescued the Bears with a winning touchdown pass for a thrilling 47-42 victory against the Bengals. It got them past their ugly loss last week to the Ravens and, at 5-3, enabled them to match their victory total from last season.
This was no masterpiece, but the Bears saw the details as problems for another day.
They emerged from the madness of taking a 14-point lead with five minutes left, then falling behind 42-41 in the final minute after the Bengals cashed in on an onside-kick recovery when Williams put them back on top with a 58-yard touchdown pass to tight end Colston Loveland.
Nothing mattered more.
‘‘Here’s what I know: He threw some touchdowns, he didn’t throw any interceptions and he used his legs to help us extend drives,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘So I was pleased with that.’’
Williams steered out of a 9-for-18 lull in the middle of the game and finished 20-for-34 for 280 yards and three touchdowns for a 114.8 passer rating — his highest since Week 3 against the Cowboys. The Cowboys and Bengals have the two worst defenses in the league.
He also caught two passes — one for a touchdown — for 22 yards and ran five times for 53 yards.
Williams said he had ‘‘one moment where I was frustrated’’ early in the fourth quarter, when the Bears settled for a field goal in the red zone, but walked away happy because ‘‘we just won in a fun fashion.’’
All the usual concerns were there — a defense that allowed 40-year-old quarterback Joe Flacco to throw for a career-high 470 yards and four touchdowns with an injured shoulder, pre-snap glitches on offense, Williams’ inconsistency, red-zone slippage — but Johnson opened his library of trick plays, Williams sharpened his game in the second half and the Bears’ rushing attack was overwhelming.
The Bears don’t usually win shootouts and needed every bit of that to get past the sputtering Bengals. The last time they allowed 35 points or more and won was in 2008, and they never had won when allowing 42 or more. It also was their highest point total since 2018, and their 576 yards of offense was sixth in team history.
Williams finished strong and rookie running back Kyle Monangai ran for 176 yards, but Johnson was the star of the show and lived up to everything the Bears thought they were getting in him.
A strategist who holds his own in late-game chess matches? Check.
An offensive-minded technician who finds solutions on the fly? Check.
Creativity? Triple-check.
Johnson broke out gadgets on the Bears’ first drive after they fell behind 7-0 when Bengals returner Charlie Jones ran the opening kickoff back 98 yards for a touchdown.
The Bears ran a direct snap to tight end Cole Kmet, who threw what looked like a 14-yard pass to wide receiver Rome Odunze before it was ruled incomplete on replay review.
Cool idea, regardless.
Then, like the manager of a fireworks store asking whether you’d like to see the dangerous stuff he stashes in back, Johnson dusted off a double-reverse pass called ‘‘Hot Potato’’ to close the drive.
On fourth-and-goal from the Bengals’ 2-yard line, he called what appeared to be a designed run to the right for Williams, who pitched to Odunze running left. Odunze then tossed it to wide receiver DJ Moore running right, and he passed it to a wide-open Williams in the end zone.
Odunze said the Bears had been ‘‘cooking it up’’ for a few weeks in practice, but it hadn’t worked. Moore’s throws were unreliable and Williams dropped a few, but Moore thought, ‘‘Touchdown coming,’’ as the Bears lined up.
‘‘It was important to score and answer the call,’’ Odunze said. ‘‘And that was the trend of the game: going back and forth.’’
Johnson got craftier still at the start of the fourth quarter, when he used Williams and backup quarterback Tyson Bagent on the same play.
Bagent played wide receiver on the right, and Williams threw laterally to him. When the Bengals covered Loveland — his first read — downfield, Bagent threw across to Williams on the far left for a screen pass that went 20 yards. Center Drew Dalman helped to create space for the catch, and left guard Joe Thuney was the lead blocker.
‘‘There were some nerves because there’s a lot of risk,’’ Bagent said. ‘‘They say the throw was good. I got hit and didn’t see it. But [expletive], man, when you get one play and you execute it like that, it feels good.’’
Johnson put that doozy in the game plan Tuesday and taught it at practice the next day.
The Bengals were in man-to-man coverage on Williams’ catches and paid him little attention.
‘‘The defense typically accounts for the 10 other players and not the quarterback,’’ Williams said.
There were no tricks on the winning play, but it showed the high end of what the Johnson-Williams pairing might become.
Johnson had that play in his back pocket all day, waiting for the right coverage to exploit, and finally got it. Then Williams stepped up in a collapsing pocket and delivered a tough throw. It went 30 yards through the air to Loveland amid a triangle of defensive backs.
Passes such as that one make it hard to give up on Williams, regardless of how bleak it gets along the way. He still is looking for steady, businesslike play from start to finish, but his talent was undeniable with the game on the line Sunday.