CHICAGO (104.3 The Score) – Chances are, there will be a day when the Bears look at their 27-24 survival of the Buccaneers at Soldier Field as a struggle that only the best teams endure, the kind of sloppy victory that also can reveal resolve, a necessary reminder that nothing comes easily in the NFL.
Sunday wasn’t that day.
“Despite the displeasure that I’m displaying right now, there’s a lot of good for building this team that comes from a win like this,” a serious-looking Ben Johnson said postgame, rather unconvincingly.
This is why Chicago loves Ben Johnson, the “good, better, best” coach whose intense expression and laser focus suggests nothing really ever is good enough. Maybe with great coaches, nothing ever should be.
The Bears needed a patented Caleb Williams comeback to celebrate heading into the bye week 7-2, an outcome uncertain until Cairo Santos kicked a 38-yard field goal as time expired – though tolerate seems like a better word than celebrate. From the 400 level to the home locker room, Santos’ walk-off winner set off more relief than joy, almost as if the 60,470 in attendance shared Johnson’s obvious dissatisfaction.
About a half hour after the Bears’ fourth straight win, Johnson sounded like your co-worker who gets a raise and still complains about being underpaid, the beauty queen who sees the pimple nobody else notices. Asked about rookie receiver Zavion Thomas’ personal foul penalty in the second quarter, Johnson quickly and sternly volunteered a clarification.
"Yeah, I don't know that he played on offense after that," Johnson snapped.
And Johnson looked like a guy who needed to spend the bye week sleeping in, unshaven and overwrought, as edgy as he was antsy, in a hurry to be anywhere but where he was. Yet here Johnson and the Bears are, still with every reason to believe they can win the NFC despite a relatively disappointing overall effort in their third straight primetime game. How many Bears teams of years past would’ve loved to have celebrated a walk-off win at home on national television?
Yet this Bears team, driven by Johnson, has higher standards, having been compared in recent days and weeks to the division winners of 2010, the conference champions of 2006 and, at the risk of football blasphemy, the Super Bowl champions of 1985. And they should. They’re appropriate. Nothing about their bold ambitions are outrageous even after a losing team like the Buccaneers took the Bears down to the final snap.
Sometimes, the NFL happens. Sometimes, a bad November memory can stoke a long January run. Sometimes, teams like the Bears, who spent the six days after their victory over the Seahawks basking in the national spotlight suffer lapses. Sometimes, even the Iceman even goes cold.
Williams scuffled through his worst game since returning from a hamstring injury, completing 22 of 37 for 279 yards, two touchdowns and four interceptions. At Gonzaga Prep High School and at USC, Williams recounted games in which he had thrown three interceptions, but this was his first experience with a four-pack of picks.
"Two of them tried to be throwaways, one of them I made a dumb decision and then the last one got tipped up in the air,” he said. “You go back, look at it and see what I could have done.”
Williams’ mistakes came in bunches – his first three interceptions were in a stretch of eight offensive snaps.
The first pick came with 8:12 left in the second quarter when Williams telegraphed his throw to Rome Odunze and safety Tykee Smith read the route to make the easy interception. The second mistake came on the Bears’ next offensive snap, with 7:07 left, when Williams attempted to throw the ball away toward Luther Burden III and cornerback Zyon McCollum plucked it out of the sky and kept his feet inbounds. McCollum also benefited from Williams playing “hero ball” again on the next series when, on first down with 43 seconds left in the half, a throwaway attempt turned into the third interception in a 7 1/2-minute span.
To use a word we’ve heard before from Johnson, Williams’ interceptions were egregious.
“I'm just trying to get the ball out and try to be the big eraser,” Williams said. “That's what I've been, that's what I will be. I got to keep doing that, keep being the big eraser, and today I wasn't.”
His historic fourth interception of the game fell under the category of bad luck more than poor judgment. With 4:38 left in the third quarter, cornerback Jacob Parrish deflected a pass into the air and linebacker Alex Anzalone made the easy play.
It was as if seeing Williams show poor judgment made the Bears’ offensive mojo disappear. Little mistakes surfaced, like a holding penalty by Stephen Carlson that negated a first down on the rare Colston Loveland carry. Every aspect of the once-potent offense appeared out of sync, giving Johnson plenty to study during a bye week in which he’s likely to spend more than a few late nights at Halas Hall.
Nothing epitomized the sloppy offensive effort more than Burden’s fumble at the Bears’ 17-yard line with 3:38 left. That can’t happen. The Buccaneers quickly took advantage, with Bucky Irving scoring on a six-yard touchdown run with 2:51 left in the game. Baker Mayfield ran in the tying two-point conversion, setting the stage for the Bears’ familiar heroics on the final drive.
Somehow, Colston Loveland got wide open and Williams hit him for a 38-yard connection that set up Santos’ game-winner.
"I'm going to throw until I can't throw anymore,” Williams said of his confidence before that drive. “I could throw 100 picks in one game. If it comes down to it, I'm going to throw that pass. I don't get gun-shy. That's not me. That's not my identity.”
The name of the play was “Davy Jones,” Loveland told the Marquee Sports Network after the game, and the result was music to the Bears’ ears. Yet even Loveland told reporters at his locker that the victory came despite a “bad display of football out there.”
That didn’t apply to Dennis Allen’s defense. If there was offensive frustration, it was countered by the defense’s satisfaction. The Buccaneers only managed to score three points off Williams’ four interceptions.
Jeffery Simmons’ impact fell short of seismic in his second game as a Bear, but “Big Jeff” did contribute in a big way. Perhaps his most impressive plays came on two plays in the first half in which Simmons hustled downfield to make tackles that prevented explosive plays.
Not that the gritty Buccaneers didn’t occasionally move the ball.
They found a mismatch they liked and found ways to exploit it. In the first half, Mayfield completed an 18-yard out route to Tez Johnson, who separated himself from nickelback Kyler Gordon. But Johnson beat Gordon even worse in the third quarter on a 58-yard completion down the middle of the field, a bad play made worse by Gordon suffering an injury upon hitting the ground.
Gordon exited for several series, joining fellow cornerback Tyrique Stevenson on the sideline with injuries. Until both retuned, the Bears were forced to use backups Clark Phillips III and Elijah Hicks in the secondary. If that didn’t underscore the Bears’ most acute need at the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday – cornerback depth – nothing will. As experienced as Gordon and Stevenson are, durability is neither player’s strength.
Speaking of the secondary, nobody on the Bears defense needed a big play worse than Jaylon Johnson, who has rarely has looked like the shutdown cornerback he’s paid handsomely to be. He carries a $24.5-million salary cap hit this season. Fear exists that the core-muscle injury that caused Johnson to miss much of the 2025 season still lingers, enough to rob him of elite status. It didn’t help that the Bears’ highest-paid cornerback, in several glaring examples this season, looked like their least-willing tackler. Johnson’s inconsistency had become such a given that rookie cornerback Malik Muhammad created a stir last week by publicly grasping the obvious in a locker-room interview with Fox Chicago, saying “(Johnson) knows he’s got to play better … We all know he’s got to play better.”
As if on cue, Johnson did.
With 3:39 left in the third quarter and the Buccaneers hanging around in trailing 17-13, Mayfield eyed tight end Cade Otton on second-and-9 at the Bears’ 36-yard line. That’s when Johnson eagerly jumped the route, stepping in front of Otton and intercepting a pass that he returned 67 yards for a touchdown. It was Johnson’s first interception since Dec. 14, 2025 against the Browns – 15 long games ago.
“You could feel the momentum swing,” Ben Johnson said of that pick-six.
When the Bears defense picks up the Bears offense, it gives everyone confidence.
"It's hard to win with five turnovers,” Johnson said. “And yet we found a way to do it.”
Johnson wasn’t smiling, but he should’ve been.
Like it or not, nothing else mattered more than his team finding a way. That’s what winning teams do. And midway through this season, the Bears look like they can find a way to beat anybody.
David Haugh hosts the Haugh & Payton Show from 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays on 104.3 The Score.
