- The Chicago Bears defeated the Dallas Cowboys 31-14, giving head coach Ben Johnson his first win.
- Quarterback Caleb Williams matched his career high with four touchdowns and posted his best QB rating yet.
- Chicago’s defense forced four turnovers, including three interceptions on Dallas’ final three drives.
CHICAGO — This game is exactly what the Chicago Bears, and their fans, hoped for when they drafted Caleb Williams and hired Ben Johnson.
An explosive offense. An offense that’s fun to watch. An offense that can grind opposing defenses into submission. A defense that’s opportunistic. A defense that doesn’t beat itself.
Most of all, a team that can win.
“We have so many guys that care,” Williams said after Sunday’s 31-14 thrashing of the Dallas Cowboys.
“We always felt that our hard work, our preparation, the long-drive drill, the two-minutes, the moments, the four-minute, situational third downs — all those things, those are going to come,” Williams said. “I know we started off 0-2, but the belief was still there. The trust was still there. It’s just being able to go out there and do it.”
One game is not enough to revive a franchise or declare Williams the quarterback the Bears have been searching for since before he was born. This was against the Cowboys, after all, a team that has given up a whopping 891 yards — 720 of them in the air — and eight touchdowns in the last two games and doesn’t yet have Jadeveon Clowney.
Still, for a team and a fan base starved for any sign of progress, this was a game they desperately needed.
Williams matched his career high with four touchdowns, earning fans free hot dogs Tuesday from The Wieners Circle, while posting his best QB rating (142.6) yet. He finished a game without a sack for the first time since the Bears made him the overall No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft, and Chicago did not have any turnovers or pre-snap penalties.
While Rome Odunze remains Williams’ favorite target, he threw to eight different receivers. Williams was able to get rid of the ball quickly — that he was able to pull off the flea flicker that resulted in a 65-yard touchdown to Luther Burden III is a miracle — and his footwork looked better. He made better decisions and, unlike previous games, most of his misses were to the right area.
The defense, meanwhile, set the tone on Dallas’ first possession. Javonte Williams had rushed for 22 yards and was trying to get out of bounds when Tyrique Stevenson ripped the ball from his hands.
Tom Brady still causing headaches for the NFL a decade after Deflategate | Opinion
The Bears D finished the game with interceptions on each of Dallas’ last three drives, two by Tremaine Edmunds.
“It builds confidence for us, as a team and an organization, to be able to go out here and win these games and feel confident about who we’ve got on this field,” Williams said.
Chicago fans have been punked by the Bears on a regular basis since 1985. There have been some years when they resembled a real football team — Lovie Smith took the Bears to the Super Bowl in 2006 and had a winning record in five of his nine seasons — but mostly it’s been long stretches of futility.
Particularly lately.
Chicago hasn’t made the playoffs since 2020 and has had a winning record once in the last 12 years. Johnson is the fifth head coach in that time, and Williams is the third QB the Bears have drafted in the first round since 2017.
But Johnson’s success as Detroit’s offensive coordinator, coupled with Williams’ talent and savvy, gave fans optimism that the Bears had finally gotten it right.
Then the season began.
The Bears gagged up an 11-point lead in a loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the season opener, then got flattened by the Detroit Lions last weekend. Things were bad enough for a players’ only meeting before the Cowboys game.
And for The Wieners Circle, a local institution that specializes in hot dogs and sides of snark, to make its bet.
“The first two weeks had not gone the way we wanted to. It’s early, but we’ve got to get the issues fixed and I thought the guys were committed to that here this week,” said Johnson, who was given a game ball for his first win as a head coach.
Again, one game doesn’t make the Bears contenders for the Super Bowl. Or even the division title.
‘We’re behind the eight ball here,’ Johnson cautioned. ‘We’re 1-2 and we’ve got to get back to .500.’
But for one day, at least, the Bears lived up to their promise. After being so bad, for so long, that’s a huge victory.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.