Bear Digest

Caleb Williams Goes Downfield for Big Game in 36-10 Rout of Panthers

The passing game finally opened up for the Bears as did just about anything else they tried on offense in an easy victory over the Carolina Panthers.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams lets loose with a throw en route to a 304-yard passing day in the Bears' 36-10 win over the Carolina Panthers.
Caleb Williams lets loose with a throw en route to a 304-yard passing day in the Bears' 36-10 win over the Carolina Panthers. / Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images
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This was exactly what Caleb Williams and the Bears offense needed, even if they might have had a better game facing their own practice squad.

Williams and the offense had a confidence booster before heading over to London by burying the Carolina Panthers Sunday 36-10, their eighth straight win at Soldier Field.

"That's what it's supposed to look like," safety Kevin Byard said.

The defense took the ball away three times. The offense had no problem scoring at will. The win gave the Bears (3-2) a winning record for the first time since Week 3 of 2022 and the key was getting their struggling offense moving. They did it from the start.

Williams completed 20 of 29 passes for 304 yards and two touchdowns and the game was decided early.

"He’s learning and growing," coach Matt Eberflus said. "You can see that in the course of these games that we’ve had. He needs it to continue."

Williams threw touchdown passes of 34 and 30 yards to DJ Moore as two of the players who were acquired as a result of the famed trade with Carolina in 2023 came back to bite them. Moore had five catches for 105 yards, his best day this season.

"It took five weeks to get the downfield passing game going and when it hits it hits, and it was good today," Moore said.

The Panthers actually led the game at the outset 7-0 when Chuba Hubbard broke a 38-yard TD run straight up the middle but it didn't take Williams long or Swift long to turn it around.

The Bears scored 30 straight points, 27 on four of their next five possessions.

"When you're able to be efficient down the field and obviously we had Cole (Kmet) down the sideline, a couple screens and things like that, playing well with each other on short passes, good runs, checkdowns and then obviously opening it up and being able to hit a couple deep balls, I think, one, it limits kind of what defenses can do in a sense of when you're hitting on different things the defense is just trying to scramble and trying to figure it out," Williams said. 

They weren't all passes. They ran for 120 yards on 19 carries, including 73 yards on 21 rushes by D'Andre Swift.

"When you're being consistent, how we were with the run game and obviously with the pass game, and you hit some explosive plays it does good for the whole football team," Williams said.

Moore caught a 15-yard pass and turned it upfield for a 34-yard TD, then Roschon Johnson plowed in from a yard out for the go-ahead points in the second quarter to finish an 80-yard drive, the longest of the season for the Bears.

Swift scored on a 1-yard run in the second quarter after Gervon Dexter recovered a fumble at Carolina's 44. Just before halftime, Williams found Moore on a picture-perfect 30-yard strike in the end zone for a 28-7 lead. Moore finished with five catches for 105 yards.



Cairo Santos added a 33-yard field goal and Johnson another 1-yard TD run in the second half.

Safety Kevin Byard came away with his 29th career interception and Kyler Gordon and Gervon Dexter recovered fumbles, while the defense sacked Andy Dalton and Bryce Young four times.

Even a fight at the back of the end zone after the last Bears touchdown and the ejection of guard Matt Pryor for shoving someone in retaliation didn't detract from the win.

"Matt Pryor got ejected," Eberflus said. "He knows he can’t do that. Obviously we have to keep our water temperature to lukewarm-to-hot and not boiling. Sometimes that happens in the game."

As a whole, it was a day of complementary football like the Bears have displayed possibly only once before under Eberflus—their rout of Atlanta last year at Soldier Field.

"It builds confidence," Byard said. "It's stiil early in the season. We were definitely still in that process of trying to get better but this is a great example of what the Chicago Bears should look like."

The Bears will go to London next and play Jacksonville Sunday, seeking to do something they haven't done yet under Eberflus.

That's win three straight.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher 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.