CHICAGO — For eight minutes Sunday night, Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams tried his darndest to offer perspective, to describe his emotions, to explain the anguish that comes with heartbreak so sudden and heavy.
Williams was barely 30 minutes removed from the final game of his second NFL season, a 20-17 overtime playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Sunday’s game swung the wrong direction, in part, because of the quarterback’s three turnovers. Yet with maturity and grace, Williams began his process of closure during his postgame news conference, trying to acknowledge achievement through anguish and searching for context amid his misery.
“In these moments,” Williams said, “you feel like you let your team down. You feel this or that. It’s a good lesson learned.”
As well as Williams was bottling his grief, stiff-arming his tears and the lump in his throat, it was clear his emotions were raw. When pressed to describe what he was feeling deep inside as this season-ending loss sank in, Williams nodded.
“It’s a frustration,” he said. “It’s a fire. Those are the two words I’d go with.”
Certainly, at least one other “F” word had to be ricocheting around his brain. That’s what Sunday’s ending felt like at Soldier Field and across the city.
Just … Effff!
Hence, when Rams kicker Harrison Mevis booted his walk-off 42-yard field goal with 3:19 remaining in overtime to send Los Angeles to the NFC Championship Game, the instant hush that smothered the stadium was equal parts stunning and sobering.
“It’s the NFL, right?” Bears coach Ben Johnson said. “We knew we had to win four in a row to actually feel good at the end of this thing. And we didn’t get that done.
“This is what happens. It ends abruptly.”
Just like that, a remarkable run of belief for a united team had ended.
“It’s tough,” Williams said.
The final throw of Williams’ season may require a little deeper scrutiny in the days and weeks ahead. With sudden death activated after a clutch defensive stop by the Bears to start overtime, Williams seemed prepared to write an eighth extraordinary chapter into his game-winning drive log for this season.
The Bears marched 34 yards to the frost-covered “C” at midfield with Williams completing four passes and twice moving the chains with runs, including a 3-yard sneak on fourth-and-1.
Anyone who had followed this season felt confident the Bears were positioned to finish the job, especially with Williams holding the football and destiny seemingly swirling amid all those January snow flurries. But on second-and-8, as Williams scanned the field from inside a spotless pocket, he and receiver DJ Moore got their wires crossed.
Through Williams’ lens, he had expected Moore to flatten his route as he sprinted across the field and sought open space toward the right sideline. But Moore stayed more vertical than the quarterback anticipated. And when Williams let that pass fly, it was clear from the release that the football was in danger.
Rams safety Kam Curl had it tracked, making a diving interception at the 22-yard line, the takeaway that set up Los Angeles’ game-winning field goal drive.
Moore did not stick around the Bears’ locker room after the game to answer questions or share his vantage point.
“Just a miscommunication between him and I,” Williams said.
That was the last offensive play the Bears would run this season, the last throw of a night on which Williams went 23-for-42 for 257 yards with two touchdown passes and three picks.
Throughout the night, Williams provided flashes of how uber-talented he is, as well as reminders of how young and unpolished he remains.
If Williams’ final throw stung the most — Sunday marked the first time in his career that he threw three interceptions in a game — his last pass of regulation has already been added to the “Legendary” reel and will be replayed until it’s worn out.
The Bears were trailing 17-10. The clock had ticked inside 30 seconds. And naturally, sticking with the theme of this season, on fourth-and-4 from the Rams’ 14, the play the Bears called was doomed from the start. Rams edge rusher Jared Verse won off the snap with power, invading the pocket and sending Williams in a frantic dash in the wrong direction.
Just to put the ball in play, Williams first had to create space. So he sprinted with his back turned to everything.
“Just break ankles and slow those guys down,” he said, “so that when I do turn around, I can have a little bit more time to possibly find somebody. They did a good job containing me. So I just gained a little bit more depth.”
Sure, generally speaking, Williams certainly gained “a little more depth.” But for those who care about specifics, he retreated more than 26 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
An entire city sensed its season slipping away. Until Williams, with three Rams closing in and Verse and Josaiah Stewart knocking him over as he threw, launched a missile into Soldier Field’s north end zone.
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The Bears quarterback had spotted tight end Cole Kmet one-on-one with cornerback Cobie Durant on the left side of the field. Kmet had an obvious size advantage — by 7 inches and 76 pounds. But he needed a ball to make a play on. So Williams delivered. Because of course he did.
His prayer into the Chicago sky — perhaps blessed by Pope Leo XIV? — whistled through the winter chill and dropped into Kmet’s baseball mitt-sized hands as Durant corkscrewed himself out of the play.
Bedlam again at Soldier Field.
“I kind of felt like it was in slow motion,” Kmet said. “Can’t believe Caleb. Again.”
Safety Kevin Byard called it “the most special throw I’ve ever seen.”
“That was insane,” he added. “Left us speechless on the sidelines, for sure.”
Added Williams: “It felt cool in the moment.”
Eight nights after the quarterback’s fourth-and-8 magic trick to receiver Rome Odunze had become a signature moment in an unforgettable playoff win, Williams had struck again with jaws dropping from the last row of Section 447 all the way to the Bears sideline, where Johnson was done trying to make sense of such things.
“Ridiculous,” Johnson said. “That’s ridiculous. You talk about that fourth-and-8 from last week and how outstanding that was. I think this one was probably even another level ahead of that.”
Next Gen Stats calculated a completion probability of 17.8 percent. Williams’ 51.2 air yards on the throw marked the longest ever for a completed red zone pass since Next Gen Stats began tracking such things 10 years ago.
“There are some things you just can’t coach,” Johnson said. “He’s got that about him. He’s got a knack. He’s clutch.”
That felt like the “meant to be” moment of all “meant to be” moments. Until it wasn’t.
This league, man. So cruel. And sooooo difficult.
That had been made abundantly clear Saturday night with the emotions that spilled out of a visiting locker room in Denver. It was there that reigning NFL MVP Josh Allen and his Buffalo Bills watched their season end — also in overtime — in a 33-30 loss to the Broncos.
Over the past seven seasons, Allen has propelled Buffalo to 83 regular-season wins and eight more victories in the playoffs. But the Bills have yet to reach the Super Bowl and have watched their season end three times with gut-wrenching overtime playoff defeats.
Allen is so much deeper into his career than Williams. But he provides one of many apt cautionary tales for the Bears as they remind themselves how treacherous this climb up football’s version of Everest remains. In so many ways, the trek starts anew every season, with 2026 likely presenting an even more difficult journey and requiring at least as much energy as the Bears invested this year.
Said Johnson: “Next season is next season. It’s a whole different group. It’s a whole different chapter. We’ll have to write a whole brand new story.
“That’s the thing about this. You put in all this work and you sacrifice and you trust the people around you. But you can’t take any shortcuts. I wish I could say this is momentum from Year 1, we’ll take it (forward). It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t work that way.”
Williams understands that much and seems hyper-aware of how unrelenting his grind will be. When his frustration from Sunday night’s loss recedes, he’ll be able to take pride in all the growth he made this season and all that he and the Bears accomplished.
Perhaps most significantly, his bond with Johnson has strengthened exponentially, evident when the two men exchanged a strong embrace just outside the news conference room Sunday night.
The trust established within that relationship this season is undeniable.
“That’s something that was very important for me,” Williams said. “Because I want to be here for a while. And I know he wants to be here for a while.”
Johnson made it clear he is encouraged with the direction of Williams’ development. Williams talked openly and confidently about doing his part to put the Bears “in this position many times in the future.”
There’s little reason to doubt that’s possible. Yet late Sunday night, for Williams, for Johnson, for an entire locker room of crestfallen Bears, that stomach-dropping feeling of having no football left to play provided the heaviest feeling.
“It ends quickly,” Johnson said. “That’s life in this league.”