A 58-yard kick, two young quarterbacks dealing, and one cart ride nobody in Chicago wanted to see. Here’s how the Bears beat Patriots on Thursday night.
By Cliff Maddox — The Beat Writer, CelebnMusic247
The Chicago Bears never trailed on Thursday night at Soldier Field — and still spent the entire fourth quarter holding their breath. Chicago beat the New England Patriots 30-24 to open Week 7, improving to 5-2 and snapping New England’s three-game winning streak in a primetime duel between the top two quarterbacks of the 2024 draft class, per Reuters and NBC Sports.
Caleb Williams won the duel on the scoreboard: 22 of 33 for 308 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions, a 116.7 passer rating. Drake Maye matched him throw for throw — 24 of 31 for 321 yards, two passing touchdowns, one interception and a 7-yard rushing score — but his last chance died when Rome Odunze recovered Andy Borregales’ onside kick with 37 seconds left.
Chicago built the cushion early: a Cairo Santos 43-yard field goal and D’Andre Swift’s 4-yard touchdown run made it 10-0, and after Maye’s rushing score and another Santos kick, Williams hit Luther Burden III for a 24-yard touchdown with 14 seconds left in the half. Burden finished with four catches for 130 yards, all before halftime. New England refused to go into the locker room quietly — Maye found Rhamondre Stevenson on a 48-yard catch-and-run on the final play of the half, Stevenson slipping tackles all the way to the end zone to cut it to 20-14. The teams traded third-quarter touchdowns, Colston Loveland from 12 yards for Chicago and Eli Raridon from 30 for New England, before the kickers took over the ending.
Bears beat Patriots: A career-long kick — and a costly win
Santos missed from 53 yards off the right upright with about eight minutes left, a doink that kept New England alive. Then, after Williams took a 10-yard sack on third-and-5 at the Patriots’ 30 that looked like it had pushed Chicago out of range, head coach Ben Johnson trusted his kicker anyway. Santos drilled a career-long 58-yarder with 1:34 to play for a 30-21 lead — the kick that held up as the winner after Borregales answered from 47.
The win came at a price. Tight end Cole Kmet caught an 8-yard pass with 5:46 left, collided with cornerback Christian Gonzalez and linebacker Robert Spillane up the Bears’ sideline and immediately grabbed his right knee, according to TSN and USA Today. Kmet got up with help from trainers but could not put weight on the leg; he gave the Soldier Field crowd a thumbs-up as he was carted to the locker room and was quickly ruled out, finishing with three catches for 28 yards. “We’ll know more tomorrow,” Johnson said after the game, “but I don’t think it looked very good.” Williams was blunter about what Kmet means to him: “I don’t have the words to describe what Cole is to me, what Cole is to this team, this organization.”
The 247 Take — This is who Chicago is under Ben Johnson: creative, smashmouth, and steady when the water gets rocky, exactly as Williams put it postgame. But the standings say 5-2 while the training room may say otherwise. If Kmet’s knee costs real time, Thursday night will be remembered as the win that charged the Bears full price.
More sports news at CelebnMusic247.com
Sources: Reuters | NBC Sports | TSN | Chicago Bears
