Bears overcome Caleb Williams' career-high 4 interceptions, but Bucs give Ben Johnson's team, QB heat check

CHICAGO — Caleb Williams was having his way until he got in his own way on Sunday night at Soldier Field. In his words, the Bears quarterback "got greedy," forcing the issue in the red zone, resulting in a second-quarter interception against the Buccaneers. It was a heat check. So was the whole night, really — not only for Williams, who wound up throwing a career-high four picks after entering with a 0.6% interception rate, but also for a Chicago team that was on top of the football world in the wake of its statement-making Monday night victory over the Seattle Seahawks. Williams went from toying with the Buccaneers' defense to floundering against its unrelenting pressure. The Bears committed five turnovers and were responsible for a collection of special teams mishaps. "And, yet, we still found a way," second-year head coach Ben Johnson said at the podium in the aftermath of a 27-24 win that bumped Chicago to 7-2. A Bears defense that continues to evolve in the presence of recently acquired defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons picked up the slack. Plus, when it mattered most — with the game tied 24-24 and less than three minutes remaining — Williams delivered. He capitalized on Tampa Bay's blown coverage, connecting with tight end Colston Loveland for a 38-yard gain that set the stage for a game-winning 38-yard Cairo Santos field goal . "I'm gonna throw until I can't throw anymore," Williams said postgame. "That's how I live. I work my tail off to be in this position. I'll never not throw the ball. "I could throw 100 picks in one game. If it comes down to it, I'm going to throw that pass that I threw to Colston, or if it's a tighter window, I'm going to rip it in there." Williams, who piled up 279 passing yards on 22-of-37 passing — to go along with two touchdowns and his bounty of picks — emphasized that he doesn't get gun-shy. He called back to his three-interception game when he was in high school. He also had three picks versus Notre Dame amid his final go-around at USC. "The other two times, we didn't win the games," the 24-year-old Williams noted. "This time, it's a 'W.' So, uncharted territory in that sense." Williams is used to being an eraser: 'Today I wasn't' Early in Sunday night's game, Williams' only kryptonite was himself. A week removed from authoring a 17-play, 80-yard touchdown drive on their first possession versus the Seahawks, the Bears' opening script resulted in another TD. Williams picked up where he left off, continuing his heater by flashing his ability to fire from any arm slot on a 13-yard rip to rookie wideout Zavion Thomas. He capped the 10-play series by throwing on the run, as he did repeatedly against a characteristically blitz-happy Todd Bowles defense. Williams hooked up with a sliding Rome Odunze, as the wideout made a redemptive scoring grab after bobbling himself out of one moments prior. On the next drive, Williams gave Luther Burden III a runner's ball. The speedy receiver hauled it on his slant and teleported in space, breaking a pair of Buccaneers tackles during his 56-yard catch-and-run touchdown that put Chicago up 14-0 with six minutes left in the opening frame. Williams was escaping from the duress Tampa Bay was creating, slicing their blitz calls with precision passing, going 6 of 8 for 105 yards and two TDs over those first two drives. His two incompletions in that stretch were the byproduct of drops. Then, what began as arguably his best series yet ended with the first of his several mistakes. After Williams converted his signature jump pass — perhaps a foreboding one in hindsight — and connected with Odunze once more, that time on a fadeaway, he drove the ball into coverage. That ill-advised pass followed a Thomas unnecessary roughness penalty on first-and-goal that backed the Bears up. Williams was aiming for Odunze again, except Tampa Bay standout cornerback Jacob Parrish was there, and soon was safety Tykee Smith, too. Smith swooped in for the pick. One snap after Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield was denied a chains-moving sneak on fourth-and-1 from the Buccaneers' 35-yard line midway through the second quarter, Williams unleashed a pass while retreating and just before he was hit. The ball hung in the air for what felt like a minute. Tampa Bay cornerback Zyon McCollum came down with it, toe-tapping to secure the first of his two interceptions. "Just tried to get the ball out and tried to be the big eraser," Williams said of that giveaway. "That's what I've been. That's what I will be. Yeah, keep doing that, keep being the big eraser, and today I wasn't." That means covering up flubs, whether that be by throwing the ball out of bounds, making something out of nothing with his Houdini-like scramble ability. Doing so calls for walking a fine line. The 2024 No. 1 overall pick usually does. Against the Buccaneers, he unraveled. McCollum picked him off again late in the second quarter, immediately after Bears safety Cam Lewis intercepted Mayfield in a game that featured a total of six INTs and seven turnovers. With pressure in his face, Williams dialed up one of his jump passes. It fluttered well beyond wideout Kalif Raymond and was ultimately cradled by a diving McCollum. Tampa Bay went on to kick a field goal to make it a 17-6 game at half, after which a 58-yard Mayfield-to-Tez Johnson completion paved the way for a 2-yard rushing touchdown from running back Bucky Irving. Fortunately for Williams, his fourth pick — the least egregious of the bunch, given that it stemmed from a deflection — was erased by someone else. Cornerback Jaylon Johnson, a two-time Pro Bowler who had a rough 2026 campaign so far, stepped in front of a Mayfield pass and ran it back for a 67-yard pick-6, in part thanks to a block from defensive end Montez Sweat that sent Mayfield pinwheeling. "I remember we all sat on the bench. We were on the sideline," Raymond explained in the locker room, when asked about Johnson's defensive TD. "We were like, 'I don't think there's anybody we could be happier for to go out there and do that,' because of how much time he has spent the last eight weeks after practice catching footballs, catching those picks. I mean, he's one of the last guys out there getting stuff done on defense." 'I believe the best is yet to come' Mayfield, still not 100 percent after returning midseason from a thumb injury on his throwing hand, finished 18 of 32 with 243 yards passing. Having completed a combined seven passes over the two previous games, he upped the ante in Chicago and nearly helped his 3-6 Bucs pull off a stunning comeback. Burden suffered a seismic blow from Tampa Bay edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr., fumbling the ball and now dealing with what Johnson described as a concussion. That final Bears turnover gifted the Buccaneers a short field. Irving scampered in for his second TD to knot things up. Williams and Loveland, as well as Santos, prevented overtime and furthered the Bears' four-game win streak. But as Loveland said at his locker, it was a "bad display of football." Offensively, he meant. Special teams weren't much better, however. "They know that we didn't play as well as we're capable of playing," Johnson said. "But I believe the best is yet to come, in terms of our football in the back half of this season." On Sunday, the Bears still tied off their primetime sweep, an early holiday gift to a fan base starving for the franchise's first Lombardi Trophy since it won one during its fabled 1985 season under the late Mike Ditka. Chicago has won three straight standalone night games, the first two of which saw Johnson's group take down the teams that played in last season's Super Bowl. The Bears held off the New England Patriots on "Thursday Night Football" and then beat the defending champion Seattle Seahawks on "Monday Night Football." They weren't the same marvel on "Sunday Night Football." But they didn't have to be, and maybe that justifies their status as a title contender. "We obviously want to be clicking on all three, but when a side of the ball isn't clicking, we're going to step up, we're going to stand up for each other," Williams said. "Defense did that today."