Bears safety Kevin Byard has played a lot of NFL games, but none of them looked quite like the one he was part of in Cincinnati on Sunday.
The Bears took a 14-point lead on the Bengals with under five minutes left and then picked off Joe Flacco on the ensuing drive, so it looked like they would be moving to 5-3 with a road win. A three-and-out sent the ball back to the Bengals and Flacco sandwiched a pair of touchdown passes around a successful onside kick to push the Bengals to a one-point lead with 54 seconds left to play.
That proved to be enough time for quarterback Caleb Williams to connect with tight end Colston Loveland for a 58-yard touchdown and the Bears sealed their 47-42 win by picking Flacco’s Hail Mary off as time expired. When it was all over, Byard said the game was “taking years off my life” and that he’s been around long enough to know that you never look down your nose at a victory.
“We’ll never apologize for winning in this league. It’s very hard to do,” Byard said, via ESPN.com.
The Bears were on the wrong side of some heartbreakers last season and that helps underscore Byard’s point that you have to celebrate wins however they come in the NFL.
After their third day of surrendering more than 500 yards to the opposing offense, Cincinnati’s defensive players weren’t in the mood to discuss their performance.
Via Marshall Kramsky of the WCPO, most of the Bengals’ defensive players declined to speak to reporters following the 47-42 loss to the Bears.
Per Kramsky, two players — defensive end Shemar Stewart and defensive tackle T.J. Slaton — laughed and said, “Catch y’all Monday.”
League rules require all players to be available to the media after each game. Usually when something like this happens, it’s one player.
With 576 yards allowed to the Bears on Sunday, the Bengals are now giving up an average of 426.6 yards per game. That’s the worst in the NFL.
The Bengals blew a 14-point lead in the final minutes of the fourth quarter in their Week 8 loss to the Jets and it looked for a moment on Sunday like they might pull off a comeback of their own against the Bears this week.
Joe Flacco threw touchdown passes to Noah Fant and Andrei Iosivas in less than a minute to put the Bengals up 42-41 with 54 seconds left to play. A defensive stop would have gotten the Bengals a much-needed win, but they gave up a 14-yard run to Caleb Williams on a third down and then let tight end Colston Loveland break free for a 58-yard game-winning touchdown one play later.
After the game, Bengals running back Chase Brown was asked what he was thinking while the Bears were going down to win the game.
“They played really well at the start of the season, they were carrying us on their back. So now that we’re stepping up, we just got to play complementary football,” Brown said, via James Rapien of SI.com. “We put the ball in the end zone and go up a point at the end, finish the f—king game. Like, just end it. That’s what we need to do. Just end the f—king game. Get us the ball back. Let us f—king go to 22 victory, and let’s end the game. That’s how I feel.”
NFL researcher Dante Koplovitz-Fleming noted that the Bengals are the first team in the Super Bowl era to allow 500-plus yards, 38-plus points and have zero takeaways in consecutive games. The Bengals made a big change on defense by hiring Al Golden as their coordinator after the unit’s disappointing 2024 season, but it looks like they’ll need to make more of them to get the team where it needs to be.
It was the wildest game of this NFL season.
The Bears and Bengals treated fans to a back-and-forth battle that featured eight lead changes, and three touchdowns and a successful onside kick in the final two minutes, with the Bears ultimately winning 47-42.
The fireworks started with the opening kickoff, which Cincinnati’s Charlie Jones returned for a touchdown, and never ended.
Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco finished with a career-high 470 passing yards, but that wasn’t enough.
First-year Chicago head coach Ben Johnson got the best all-around performance from his offense to date, with Caleb Williams throwing for 280 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, and Kyle Monangai running for 176 yards. Late in the fourth quarter, when D.J. Moore ran for a 17-yard touchdown to give the Bears a 41-27 lead, it appeared to be over.
But Flacco threw a touchdown pass to Noah Fant with 1:43 remaining, then hit Tee Higgins in the end zone for the two-point conversion, to bring the Bengals to within 41-35. The Bengals then recovered an onside kick and Flacco got right back to work, marching the Bengals down the field and hitting Andrei Iosivas for a nine-yard touchdown. The extra point made it 42-41, Bengals.
And then Williams marched the Bears down the field and hit Colston Loveland for a 58-yard touchdown with 17 seconds left. After that Flacco’s last-gasp desperation pass was intercepted, and the Bears held on.
At 5-3, the Bears are right in the thick of the NFC North race after the Packers and Lions both lost today. If they’re in the playoffs in two months, this game will be remembered as a big reason why.
Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins caught a spectacular 44-yard touchdown pass from Joe Flacco late in the second quarter today, and at this point Higgins scoring touchdowns in Cincinnati is to be expected.
It’s the ninth straight home game in which Higgins has caught a touchdown pass. Jerry Rice and Cris Carter are the only two other players in NFL history who have caught touchdown passes in nine straight home games.
The Bengals got the game started with Charlie Jones’ 98-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff, and the Bengals have also had two Evan McPherson field goals.
The Bears got a touchdown pass on a trick play from receiver D.J. Moore to quarterback Caleb Williams, and they also got a touchdown pass from Williams to Olaminde Zaccheaus. The Bengals lead 20-17 at halftime
