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. The Bears knocked off New England 46-10 for the only Super Bowl win in franchise history.
They wasted a chance to come away with a blowout along those lines Thursday, but it was still another landmark win in their quest to establish themselves as true contenders.
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 wide receiver Rome 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 ultimately 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 take five minutes off the clock, though, which narrowed the Patriots’ path to a potential comeback.
Santos redeemed himself in a huge way at the end by hitting a career-long 58-yard field goal to seal the game with 1:34 left.
The Bears jumped to a 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 — Who else? — blitzed to sack Drake Maye. Gordon had three sacks Sunday against the Falcons in his season debut 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 eventually settled for a 43-yard field goal by Cairo 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.
Patriots quarterback Drake 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.
Rather than potentially putting the Patriots away for good, 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 in the first half alone, and the Bears opened the second half with Williams throwing a 12-yard touchdown pass to Loveland.
Tight end Cole Kmet also had three catches for 28 yards before being carted to the locker room with an apparent leg injury with 5:34 remaining.
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.
The packed crowd at Soldier Field went wild when Williams ran out of the tunnel at the end of the player introductions, marking his first time back on the field since going down with a hamstring injury Sept. 20 against the Vikings. The stadium was silent that dreary afternoon.
A lot happened in his absence, including an incredible performance by Case Keenum to beat the Eagles and a disastrous one by Tyson Bagent in a loss to the Packers, but the bottom line was the Bears stayed above .500 and very much in the thick of the NFC North race. That wasn’t easy to do considering every team in the division has a winning record going into the weekend.
Still, it’s hard to say how much their wins over struggling teams like the Jets and Falcons, both 2-4, were indicators of where they’re headed this season. A game against the Patriots, who were in the Super Bowl last season, says a lot more — as will the upcoming visit to the defending champion Seahawks on Nov. 2.
If the Bears are serious about their own Super Bowl aspirations, those are the types of teams against which they can prove it.
