CHICAGO — For all the promise of change, the first four games of the Bears’ season felt a little too familiar, like an old ratty sweatshirt you thought you threw away.
And then, on Sunday, the future arrived.
Maybe you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand up when DJ Moore was wide open on a crossing route that he took to the house. Maybe you felt a tingle somewhere when rookie quarterback Caleb Williams threw “a dot” 30 yards to the end zone that only Moore could catch.
Maybe you’re old school and you get your football jollies watching the Bears run the dang ball and create takeaways.
There was a little bit of everything on display at Soldier Field. Offense and defense came together in a beautiful way as the Bears (3-2) dominated their visitors, 36-10, at Soldier Field.
Sure it was the Panthers, but this isn’t college. The Bears didn’t schedule them.
“This is a great example of what the Chicago Bears should look like, and that should be the standard going forward,” Bears safety Kevin Byard III said. “That’s the floor.”
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The Bears compiled 424 net yards, had a 3-0 turnover advantage and scored 30 unanswered points after the Panthers’ first and only touchdown. The defense picked off Andy Dalton once, sacked him three times and recovered two fumbles. In the first half, Carolina had just five first downs to the Bears’ 16. Chicago had a comfortable, 27-7 lead.
It was a perfect day on the lakefront with old Chicago sporting heroes (Derrick Rose) and new (Angel Reese) on hand, along with the usual 50,000-some Grabowskis who needed this kind of win maybe even more than the actual Bears did.
“I’m sure they’re pumped, I’m sure saying the ‘Bears are back’ thing,” said tight end and Chicago native Cole Kmet, who caught three passes for 57 yards. “But we can’t feed into that and we don’t feed into that.”
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“Shoot, I needed a blowout win just because at the NFL level it’s hard to come by,” said rookie receiver Rome Odunze, who is apparently already a wizened vet. “This definitely felt more college-like with the point differential.”
“I always say Bears fans can fan however they want,” Kmet said. But since his family and friends would all be Bears fans even without him, he knows how crazed this fan base can get during the ups and downs of a season, and how the media feeds the beast. The guy hosts a Bears podcast, so he really gets the drill.
If news reporters covered natural disasters and local politics like the Bears media ecosystem dissects every game, if our citizens paid such close attention to their city, state and country like Bears fans do every game, well, we’d be a better-informed country.
Given the amount of hours that are devoted to Bears football 52 weeks a year in this town, Chicago needed a Williams’ 300-yard game and a 26-point win like a sunny day in January.
“I know they want a W, that’s all they care about,” Odunze said. “We got that for them today. There’s probably a little more beers and a little more hot dogs in the stands and not as much as nervous anxiety.”
On Monday, fans will actually be excited to wake up and tune into sports radio. Sons and daughters will actually want to talk to their parents and grandparents about Williams.
Fewer Bears fans will look at Jayden Daniels’ box score with intense jealousy and feelings of regret.
For the record: Daniels went 14-for-25 for 238 yards, one touchdown and one interception, along with 82 rushing yards in a lopsided Washington Commanders win against the lowly Cleveland Browns.
Meanwhile, Williams had his best game as a pro, going 20-for-29 for 304 yards, two touchdowns and no picks. He was only sacked once and had 34 rushing yards. He looked in control, on time and explosive — like a player who is developing in his first year in the NFL.
Williams showed glimpses in the first four games, but he hadn’t been lighting up the league like Daniels. That naturally brought up the kinds of negative comparisons that Mitch Trubisky endured here with Patrick Mahomes and (now washed) Deshaun Watson.
Daniels versus Williams was making the rounds on the national talk shows. We can shelve that debate for a few weeks until they play each other after the Bears’ bye week. (We can also spare Williams’ offensive coordinator Shane Waldron his ritual lashings this week.)
I don’t know if Williams needed this breakout game, but after a decent showing last week, he finally found his deep ball on a day when the wind was swirling. His second touchdown throw to Moore, a 30-yard bomb up the middle, was a rare thing of beauty in a town where quarterbacking goes to die.
Enjoy pic.twitter.com/W0350iBFUG
— Olin kreutz (@olin_kreutz) October 6, 2024
“I’ve been wanting to hit one of those,” Williams said. “DJ is such a special player and y’all saw it today.”
“It was just a dot, we worked that in practice,” Moore said. “When he threw it, I was like, man, it’s a touchdown because I knew … there was nobody in the middle of the field. I was like it’s my ball or nobody’s, and 99 percent of the time, it’s my ball.”
No one had to monitor Moore’s body language Sunday. He had five catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns in the first half.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “What’s this, Week 5? Took five weeks to get the down-the-field pass game going and when it hits, it hits, and it was good today.”
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As for Kmet’s “Bears are back” quip, like most jokes, there’s a lot of truth in there. There’s a tendency to see a deeper, hopeful meaning in a football game against a lousy opponent. But in this case, it was also proof that all those offseason hopes were more than the usual fantasies.
Fans will always tune in and turn out for the Bears, but this year, there’s even more focus on them — if that’s possible. The Cubs were mediocre again and their offseason doesn’t look promising. The White Sox are a national punchline. The Bulls are going to be bad and boring. And the Blackhawks aren’t close.
The most important non-Bears story in town is the new regional sports network showing Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games and how most of the city can’t figure out how to watch. Anyone have a spare pair of rabbit ears?
So, yes, instead of complaining about the shortcomings of another Jerry Reinsdorf team, it would be a nice change of pace to focus on a Bears team that makes people feel good about themselves on a weekly basis. It would be a nice change of pace for everyone to watch a competent Bears team. It doesn’t happen often and there’s no guarantee this year will be any different. It’s only been five games.
But on Sunday, we all saw the show we’ve been waiting for since Williams was selected No. 1. The fans, the media and the players.
“With fun comes a lot of wins,” Moore said, “and with a lot of wins comes a lot of fun.”
That’s the goal. That’s the dream.
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
