Bears Can Win with Team Ball While Caleb Williams Learns

Analysis: The Bears special teams and defense had ways to create their own sparks when their offense and QB Caleb Williams came up without one in a 24-17 win over Tennessee.

Jonathan Owens celebrates with fans on the way to the locker room after his TD on a blocked punt return sparked a win. / David Banks-Imagn Images

Teams generally don't win this way.

Blocking a punt here and returning it for a touchdown, knocking the ball loose on a sack for a recovery to set up a field goal, 67-yard kick returns to set up a field goal, a pick-6 for the game winner and another interception to clinch for good measure.

It all sounds almost Lovie Smith-esque, the kind of thing a team too heavily weighed down on the defensive side and not enough on the offensive side would do, or would have to do.

Caleb Williams couldn't get it done in his first game but the Bears found a way as a team to come back from an abysmal start Sunday to overtake the mistake-prone Tennessee Titans 24-17.

"When you start a rookie quarterback, which we are doing, he's going to have ups and downs and good moments and other moments," coach Matt Eberflus said. "Like I said, we just have to play well around him, make sure the operation's clean, make sure we don't turn the ball over and give people short fields and free plays.

"And it's okay to end the series with a kick. So as long as we end it with a punt, end with extra point or field goal, and like I said, Cairo (Santos) did an awesome job today of doing that and making his kicks. The operation was good. We have a new long snapper (Scott Daly) and short snapper (Coleman Shelton). I thought it was a good operation today for those guys."

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Eberflus keeps talking about how they've built a close-knit team and one with high character, and how this all helps a team win. If this is what he meant, rallying from 17 down when there is no sign of a consistent offense, then maybe he's right.

Even the defense and special teams weren't special early, when Velus Jones Jr. treated a kickoff the way he used to treat punts before the Bears brought in real punt returners. He muffed it and it led to a field goal.

The defense got tore up for 115 first-half rushing yards, most of the same defensive players who comprised the No. 1 rushing defense in the league last year. Then they gave up 25 rushing yards in the second half.              

"You know in the NFL that every week's different," Eberflus said. "There will be times where the games ebb and flow, they really do. You've just got to be good as a team.

"It's never about just one side or one person. It's about us being able to figure it out during the game and figure out our winning formula for that particular day, and that could change."

Tyrique Stevenson made the 43-yard pick-6 for the winning points in the fourth quarter, his first career pick-6, and then Jaylon Johnson locked it up with another pick in the closing seconds.

"At some point it's going to be the offense helping us out," Stevenson said. "It is what it is."

No one was holding this performance against Williams on this day.

"Its the NFL, it's a long game," Owens said. "So you have to keep learning how to execute. That's the thing. And even when you are up you have to keep executing and making plays because if you don't, a team can come back and slide into the game.

"So we were just, especially defensively and special teams-wise sparking plays, sparking plays for the team."

It's something they'll need to do more of while this young quarterback and new offense are still putting things together.

Twitter: BeasOnSI