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CINCINNATI – A Week 9 road game against the Bengals might have been marked with an “L” when the Bears’ 2025 schedule first came out.

Then the Bengals lost star quarterback Joe Burrow in Week 2 with a toe injury, didn’t have edge rusher Trey Hendrickson to anchor a bad defense, and new QB Joe Flacco was dealing with a shoulder sprain. That changed the math, making the Bears road favorites heading into Sunday’s game at Paycor Stadium.

With how the Bengals can score, though, this game still came down to the end. The Bears’ offense was efficient and explosive and kept stacking points, but things turned crazy late in the fourth quarter.

The Bears blew a 14-point lead late in the fourth quarter, then somehow regained it with 17 seconds left, earning a 47-42 win that fans will talk about for a long, long time.

Here are three takeaways from the big road win that improved the Bears’ record to 5-4 and dropped the Bengals to 3-6:

Bears (somehow) find a way

The Bears led 41-27 with 4:53 remaining in the game, then the Bengals drove into the red zone, where linebacker Tremaine Edmunds picked off a Flacco pass, seemingly locking in a Chicago victory.

But the Bears were forced to punt from their own end zone and quickly allowed a touchdown and a two-point conversion. Then the Bengals recovered an onside kick and drove right down the field to score a go-ahead TD with 54 seconds left.

That apparently was just enough time for Bears quarterback Caleb Williams to make magic happen.

And he sure did, hitting rookie tight end Colston Loveland down the seam for a shocking 58-yard catch-and-run TD with 17 seconds left.

Williams completed 20 of 34 passes for 280 yards and three TDs, and he even caught two passes for 22 yards and a score. Loveland, the No. 10 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, set career highs with six receptions for 118 yards and the first two TDs of his career.

Monangai breaks out

Rookie Kyle Monangai was set to be the Bears’ featured back for the first time Sunday, with veteran starter D’Andre Swift out because of a groin injury.

The seventh-round pick from Rutgers brings a more physical style designed to wear out a defense over time. He employed that strategy well against the Bengals’ NFL-worst rushing defense, hammering it time and again for big gains.

He had 100 rushing yards at halftime, and finished with 176 on 26 carries for a super-efficient 6.8 yards-per-carry average.

Monangai’s previous best was 81 yards on 13 carries two weeks ago against the New Orleans Saints, when he split time with Swift. This longer look and higher carry count let the Bears know what they have in Monangai, a tough runner who can fill in for Swift and deserves more carries. He looks like a great fit for head coach Ben Johnson’s system, especially working with an offensive line that regularly opened wide rushing lanes.

And, since we’re talking running backs, practice-squad elevation Brittain Brown also joined the action with a 22-yard touchdown.

Brown took the first five carries of his four-year NFL career for 37 yards, and the Bears finished with 283 on 37 carries.

Ben Johnson’s trickery pays off

The Bears’ first-year head coach and offensive play-caller is known for creative designs and a willingness to reach into his bag of tricks.

That directly led to a first-quarter touchdown, as Rome Odunze took a handoff on an end-around, then gave it to DJ Moore on the reverse. Moore found some space and threw a pass to a wide-open Williams in the end zone for the score.

Did we mention this play came on fourth down from the 2-yard line? Yeah, Johnson went big on a got-to-have-it play early in the game.

It was similar, in some ways, to a play earlier in the drive, in which Cole Kmet took a direct snap, pitched the football to Williams, who gave it back to Kmet, who then threw a pass downfield to Odunze, who dropped it.

In the fourth quarter, Johnson dialed up a backward pass from Williams to backup QB Tyson Bagent, who lined up wide alongside left tackle Theo Benedet. Bagent then passed back to Williams for a 20-yard gain. That drive only led to a field goal, which kept the score close in a shootout.

Johnson, famous for the “Stumble Bum” 2024 play against the Bears while he was the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator, has always been willing to get creative to make an impact. The trick plays don’t always work, but when they do, they can be big moments in a game.

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