Bear Digest

The good, bad and ugly in comeback win by Bears and Caleb Williams

Caleb Williams' fourth-quarter comeback win for the Bears Sunday included a handful of good plays, some bad and one really ugly aspect of it all.
Gene Chamberlain|
Devin Singletary keeps going up the sidelines after hurdled Tyrique Stevenson and broke a tackle attempt by Noah Sewell for a 41-yard pass play, longest in Sunday's game.
Devin Singletary keeps going up the sidelines after hurdled Tyrique Stevenson and broke a tackle attempt by Noah Sewell for a 41-yard pass play, longest in Sunday's game. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Perhaps the true measure of how comatose the Bears were through much of Sunday's game was an area they've spoken about at length for weeks.

They finally had fewer penalties than an opponent in Sunday's 24-20 comeback victory over the woeful New York Giants. 

"I see improvement," coach Ben Johnson said. "I can tell you just offensively, you talk about playing clean football, I know we made a number of mistakes.

"The drops certainly popped up, but 3-for-4 in the red zone, we only had three penalties as a team here this week, those are two areas that have really plagued us."

The 3-for-4 in the red zone was fine, their best this season. However, plagued doesn't begin to approach the way the Bears have been hit hard with penalties this season.

So committing only three penalties almost makes it seem like the officials didn't get their money's worth, or something. Actually, the Bears had six penalties but three went unaccepted. What makes it more astounding is the Giants not only had more penalties than the Bears—the first time it has happened all year to the Bears against any opponent—but New York had 10 penalties.

Yes, the Bears enjoyed a 10-3 advantage in penalties,  and they still managed to be losing 20-10 in the fourth quarter.

Now that's comatose.

There other good, bad and ugly elements to this ninth game for the Bears. Here they are.

The Good

Captain Comeback II

The Bears really haven't had a quarterback who has led numerous comebacks other than Jay Cutler. His were sporadic, but there were a lot because he was in Chicago a long time (2009-16).  Cutler had 18 fourth-quarter comebacks and 21 game-winning drives with the Bears. Williams had his fourth fourth-quarter comeback and game-winning drive of this season. He has six fourth-quarter comebacks and five game-winning drives in his career.

This one came via the run and pass.

Williams is tied with Bo Nix and Baker Mayfield for most fourth-quarter comebacks this season in the NFL.

Efficiency Expert

Although plagued by drops and occasional errant throws, Williams refused to commit the big mistake in this one. In fact, it was his 18th game since coming to the league without throwing an interception. It ties him with Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts for most games without an interception from the last two seasons.

The Sack Man II

C.J. Gardner-Johnson has three sacks in his two games so far, and their replacement slot cornerback had two Sunday. No Bears defensive back had more than one sack in a game since Danieal Manning had two in 2006, their last Super Bowl season, in Week 15 against Tampa Bay. Not only is Gardner-Johnson No. 1 for Bears DBs in sacks, he is No. 1 in the NFL for sacks by DBs and has played only two games.

Bigger Big Plays

The Bears had nine more big plays in the game, six passes and three runs. A big play is defined as passes 15 yards or longer and runs 10 yards or longer. Johnson's offense this season now has 78 of them, 10 more than any other team heading into the Sunday night and Monday games.

By the way, this happens on a day where his former boss, Dan

Campbell, took over the Detroit Lions' play calling. Are the Lions missing the big-play guy?

Two of those big plays were planned passes, but Williams turned them into scrambles -- the game-winning 17-yard TD scramble and a 29-yard scramble on their next-to-last possession when he nearly scored. They got it in one play later on Williams' pass over the middle from the 2 to Rome Odunze.

The Bad

The Whiffurdle

Russell Wilson came on at quarterback in the fourth quarter for the Giants because of the concussion suffered by Jaxson Dart, and he threw a pass out to the sideline to Devin Singletary. It broke for 41 yards but only because Bears linebacker Noah Sewell completely whiffed along the sidelines when he could have either tackled Singletary or knocked him out of bounds. Then Tyrique Stevenson had Singletary easily and came in low at his legs but was hurdled like it was the steeplechase. It was the longest play by either team.

The Bears defense allowed only 4 more total passing yards to Wilson in the fourth quarter.

The Gambler

Apparently Ben Johnson doesn't know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. He continues relying on this fourth-down, aggressive gambling reputation brought to Chicago from Detroit and chose Sunday to gamble on fourth down four times. They converted only once.

There are only three teams worse than the Bears at trying to convert fourth down and  the Bears have converted only 42.86% this season.

Two misses came on fourth-and-4 plays, one on the first drive. And those two were both inside the 34-yard line, where Cairo Santos would have had a good shot at a field goal even on this windy, cold, even snowy day.

Receiver Contagion

A week after receptions leader Rome Odunze went without a catch on three targets, DJ Moore did him one better, or one worse depending on perspective. He had four targets without a catch. Is this going around? The cynic would say Moore did make a catch. He caught this from Odunze.

It was the first time since Dec. 11, 2022 when he was with

Carolina against Seattle that he went through a game without a reception and the only other time besides those two times when he did it for is entire career was the very first game he played in 2018 against Dallas.

The Scoreboard

They were actually losing to the 2-8 Giants by 10 points, going on either 13 or 17 when the fumble lost by Dart on C.J. Gardner-Johnson's hit turned the game.

That's bad.

The Ugly

Drops

The dropped touchdown by Olamide Zaccheaus on the opening drive, drops by Kyle Monangai and D'Andre Swift and by Odunze all combined to make it look like the Bears have never played in the cold.

Depending on the definition of a drop, the Bears may have  had eight of them Sunday, and a minimum of six.

A consistent problem all year for the Bears? Not really.

According to Pro Football Focus, they had six drops.

PFF had them for only 10 dropped passes on the entire season coming into the game.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.