Colston Loveland celebrates after his winning touchdown with 17 seconds remaining. Michael Hickey / Getty Images
The Chicago Bears don't win shootouts. They certainly don't win games where they give up 42 points. You could write a 300-page book about the devastating losses this team has endured, week after week, season after season, and have enough left over for a sequel.
But they did win a shootout Sunday. They did not lose a game in which they gave up more than 40 points. And they wrote a new chapter in the long, not-always-storied history of the Chicago Bears.
In a 47-42 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, a game where Chicago gave up an opening kickoff return touchdown to a kid from Deerfield and lost a must-have onside kick in the fourth quarter in the midst of getting carved up by 40-year-old Joe Flacco, the Bears made history several different ways.
In a gadget-play-filled game plan from coach Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams went 20-for-34 for 280 yards and three touchdowns, ran five times for 53 yards and caught two passes for 22 yards, including a touchdown. He became the first NFL quarterback with at least 275 passing yards, 50 rushing yards and 20 receiving yards, and the first to catch two passes since Baltimore Colts trailblazer George Taliaferro did it in 1953.
But while every game is a referendum on Williams' present and future, the day really belonged to the two rookies who got game balls.
First-rounder Colston Loveland had his coming-out game, catching six passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, including the winning one, a 58-yard catch and rumble with 17 seconds left.
Seventh-rounder Kyle Monangai, starting in place of D'Andre Swift, gained 176 rushing yards and caught three passes for 22 yards. It was the second-most rushing yards ever for a Bears rookie.
Both Loveland and Monangai saw their roles increase because of injured veterans -- Swift didn't play, and Cole Kmet left the game with concussion symptoms -- and both of their performances validated the shaky draft reputation of Bears general manager Ryan Poles.
Loveland is playing in the shadow of Colts rookie phenom Tyler Warren -- the tight end everyone thought the Bears would draft in the first round -- and Monangai was picked about five rounds after mock drafters thought Poles would take a running back.
Neither had made much of a dent this season until Sunday, but you can bet Johnson trusts them a lot more now.
Throughout the ups and downs of Chicago's first eight games, one thing has been clear: Johnson knows what he's doing, even if his quarterback has been a work in progress. Against a lowly Bengals defense, Johnson was feeling plucky, as proven by Williams' two receptions.
The Bears' 576 yards were the most since Dec. 7, 1980, when Vince Evans led Chicago to a 61-7 beatdown of the Packers. Walter Payton ran for 130 yards and three scores that day, and Evans threw for 316 and three touchdowns.
"Everything was clicking," Evans told me once about that game. "It was, as they say, you're in the zone. The ball's coming off my hand like a feather. Everything was just flowing, man."
This game wasn't quite that. For one thing, the Bengals were putting up points. It wasn't a surprise that Flacco kept the Bengals in the game, but 470 passing yards and four touchdown passes were a bit much.
Flacco was supposedly nursing a bum shoulder, but he was flinging it all game and led Cincinnati to two late scores that turned a 14-point deficit with 2 minutes left into a 1-point lead with just under a minute to go. In the middle was an onside kick that bounced off the foot of Daniel Hardy and was recovered by the Bengals.
This looked like one of those games that would lead to an angry locker room and a week full of salty sports talk radio. And for all the good Johnson has done, his team sure puts up some sloppy performances. The Bears' seven penalties for 43 yards were lessened by all the ones the Bengals declined, so it seemed almost fitting that they were headed for one of their familiar ignominious losses.
But in the end, it was Williams, the hotly debated second-year quarterback, who made two plays when they needed him most.
On the Bears' final drive, Williams, after two incompletions, scrambled for 14 yards and a first down with 25 seconds left. The Bears called their final timeout, and Williams and Johnson found their play.
The quarterback dropped back and found Loveland up the seam for a first down they needed to attempt a game-winning field goal from kicker Cairo Santos. Whether Santos would've nailed this one is a moot point because he never got the chance.
Loveland caught the pass facing Williams and then bounced off a defender, burst past a tackle attempt and ran for his life into the end zone. It was a play that needed to be watched live because the context of everything that had happened before made it even more unbelievable.
It's hard to quantify what a 47-42 victory over a sub-.500 Bengals team with one of the worst defenses you've ever seen means for the 2025 Bears, but as Johnson reminded his players afterward, they had nothing to apologize for. If anything, Bears fans should be thanking these guys for allowing them to witness something so rare and unusual.
You just don't see the Bears win a game like this. Or at least you didn't until Sunday.