Caleb Williams, Jake Moody embody Bears' newfound resilience in 'Monday Night Football' win over Commanders

LANDOVER, Md. -- Any frequent traveler can relate to the issues Jake Moody faced Sunday night in his hotel room.

Shower water temperature impossible to control -- he eventually settled on "ice cold" over "burning hot."

Bed too small -- he prefers to spread out.

As if kicking in an NFL game the next night wasn't going to be difficult enough.

Cairo Santos had dealt with a thigh injury all week, and Moody, on the Bears' practice squad for the past month after an unceremonious release from San Francisco, found out he'd be called up shortly before the team left for the nation's capital. Monday, he banged through 47- and 48-yarders in the first quarter and a 41-yarder in the third before having a 48-yarder blocked early in the fourth quarter.

Much like his uncomfortable conditions the night before and the Bears as a team on Monday night, nothing came easy, especially considering rainy conditions and his past struggles. So when he nailed the game-winning 38-yarder as time expired to beat the Commanders, 25-24, it seemed to symbolize a resilience he and his current franchise have struggled to find but just might be finding this season.

Not bad for a guy who was introducing himself to teammates earlier in the game. Practice squad kickers, apparently, aren't the center of attention ... until they become heroes.

"It feels amazing, obviously," Moody said. "Hitting the game winner is always a good time. Doing it for a new team in my first game, it's huge. ... Glad to be a part of a team like this, and we're gonna keep moving forward." 

The ice water in his shower crept into his veins, too. Moody joked it might become his pregame habit going forward. More importantly, the Bears are starting to make it a habit of winning games they might have previously lost. Scratch "might have." These are the games the Bears have lost for the better past of the last decade.

After blocking a field goal to beat the Raiders 25-24 in Week 4 and doing this in Week 6 -- sandwiched around a bye week -- Chicago has won consecutive games by exactly one point for just the second time in the franchise's history. The other time? Back in 1962, the days of Halas and Ditka.

In fact, the Bears lost a game similar to this one last season, infamously giving up a Jayden Daniels "Hail Mary" to Noah Brown to lose 18-15. So when Daniels fumbled a snap on third and 1 with just over three minutes to go, Chicago's offense had just one thing in mind.

"Time to go win the game and not give the ball back to them again," Caleb Williams said, a knowing smirk on his face. "We've seen they can be explosive in those moments, and I think the defense would've [done] a great job again, but the mindset was be able to hold the ball, run the ball, run the ball, make them use their timeouts, stay inbounds, play smart situational football at the end of the game and go win."

On a night when very little went to plan, this drive did. D'Andre Swift ripped off a pair of big runs. Williams, playing the smart situational football he wanted to, slid down inbounds to take a short loss, rather than running out of bounds or throwing the ball away or forcing a throw.

"Finding ways to win tough games, close games, even when we're not playing, necessarily, good throughout all four quarters but still finding a way to come out with these wins, that's big for us right now," Swift said.

The Bears seemingly won this game in spite of themselves. In the second quarter, Chicago failed to convert a fourth and 1. On the final play of the third quarter, Williams mishandled a snap on third and 1 to lose 5 yards, leading to the Moody kick that got blocked. Even after a 55-yard touchdown pass to Swift, the Bears failed on a two-point conversion. They had nine penalties for 84 yards and several crucial drops.

And yet they kept coming back, staying in the fight. Nahshon Wright pouncing on the loose ball to set up the game-winning drive showed the resilience was worth it.

"It breeds confidence, knowing that we can pull out these close games," Wright said. "[I try to] just stay into the game, knowing that the game's not over."

That confidence is no accident. In fact, it can be traced back to the Johnson hire. His arrival was at times a rude awakening during training camp, with reports of Williams' up-and-down performance and of Luther Burden's getting kicked out of a drill garnering headlines. Those trials and tribulations formed a better, more composed, more committed team.

"It's definitely different in the locker room" Jaquan Brisker said. "It starts in practice. You can feel it. The energy's different in practice, the way guys are getting closer and closer, the way we meet without the coaches and things like that, and then the way we communicate on and off the field, it's amazing. You can things are tuning up, and guys are believing."

Brisker even admitted this "possibly" was a game previous Bears teams don't win.

"I think [the win] says a lot about our locker room right now," Johnson said. "They're not just believing, but now they're starting to understand that, man, if this thing's close in the fourth quarter, then someone's going to step up and make a play for us. And we had a number of guys here in this fourth quarter that did that. I think these wins can go a longer way for your program than those blowouts do."

Swift was one of those players. On Swift's 55-yard touchdown, Williams admitted he botched the play call, but Swift proved sometimes it's players and not plays that matter most, making Quan Martin miss before speeding to the end zone to stun a raucous crowd. He finished with 108 rushing yards, which was 45 more than his previous season high, and 175 yards from scrimmage, tied for the second most in his career.

"Really felt an attitude with him," Johnson said. "He did a great job finding a little crease and stepping on the gas as we talked about, played a physical style. Not only that, I mean the 55-yard touchdown was really a game changer for us. There was a time in the game where we needed a little spark. We're kind of faltering just a little biut s a team, and all it takes is one guy to make a big play like that and really ignite us again."

If Swift was the igniter, Williams was the one hanging in there when previous versions might have gone off the tracks, both on and off the field.

"I think it's something that I worked on, that's been something important for me, because everybody's looking at me from my body language and how I'm moving on the sideline, my energy, because in those moments, we don't have time for we don't have time for that." Williams said. "... I think being able to stay strong in those moments mentally is most important, and that's what I did -- that's what we did. We stayed steady though all the ups and downs that we had, adversity throughout this game. We stayed steady as a team mentally. We didn't flinch, and we kept going."

Culture alone doesn't win football games, of course. Execution helps. The Bears ran the ball better than they have all season and stopped the run better than they have all season. Chicago allowed 6.1 yards per carry through five weeks, worst in the NFL. It allowed just 4.0 to Washington. There were times they struggled with Daniels but other times they stymied him, including an early Brisker interception. They forced three turnovers; Washington had committed three all season entering the game.

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The Bears, of course, are tiny margins from being 1-4. There's plenty to improve, and Monday night showed both the promise and the inconsistencies. But perhaps that just proves the point.

"Do I think you need the 'W' just to claim the culture? Nah, I don't think the 'W' is needed," said Shemar Turner, a rookie defensive lineman who was a key part of the run defense. "Just showing that we're gonna fight until the very end of the game, each and every game, tooth and nail, shows culture enough. We're building on it, so dubs will come with it."

The ideas of "culture wins" and "statement wins" can be overrated until those wins start piling up. The Bears have won three straight and are starting to reap the benefits of not only improved play, but improved belief.

"We say, 'We love this [shit]," Williams said. "We love it. The hard work, the effort, everything that pays off, we love it. At the end of the day, we're itching for wins, we're itching to get back out there and practice, things like that, because all the hard work is paying off, and that feeling is really, really, really, really good. It feels really good that hard work does pay off, and it always does. It always pays back."

Monday night, a year removed from being on the wrong end of a game winner, the Bears indeed got some payback, too.