The momentum built up by the Chicago Bears from a strong week of practice and shutout victory over the Buffalo Bills quickly vanished Friday night during the team's third preseason game in Kansas City.
A game that ended with a dramatic walk-off touchdown when the Bears' backups thundered back from a 17-point second-half deficit to beat the Chiefs 29-27 started in a way that irked coach Ben Johnson.
"Offensively, the first two possessions was really sloppy football that has plagued us in and out of camp so far, and unfortunately that's what we got here tonight," Johnson said.
Quarterback Caleb Williams and the offensive starters played 27 snaps over two full quarters in the Bears' preseason finale at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
Chicago's first two drives netted 22 total yards and ended with consecutive punts. On the Bears' first play of their first drive, Williams fumbled an exchange with wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus on a jet sweep. On the next play, tight end Colston Loveland was flagged for a false start. The Bears faced second-and-19 from their own 21-yard line and could not gain any momentum.
On the offense's next drive, Williams held onto the ball for nearly six seconds before being sacked by Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones as he attempted to escape the pocket. That turned a second-and-3 from near midfield into third-and-8, and the drive's progress quickly dissipated.
Johnson said he felt that the Bears were moving past routine issues that had hindered the offense earlier in training camp.
"It is disappointing to me offensively for sure," Johnson said. "I thought that we had worked our way out of that.
"If the first quarter was really any indication, it's not good enough, so we got to get better in a hurry. Good news is we will be able to look at this tape and coach it up with our guys and I think it's out of our system hopefully for us going into the regular season. We got to make sure that we start faster on offense and on defense."
The Bears didn't begin to find their groove until the offense's third drive resulted in a 28-yard field goal by Cairo Santos. Nearing the end of the second quarter, Williams and the starters had their chance at redemption and to test their situational football skills with a 78-yard drive that was capped off with a 3-yard touchdown to wide receiver Rome Odunze. The former first-rounder caught three consecutive passes to help the Bears cut into Kansas City's lead and trail 20-10 at halftime.
Williams, who finished 11-of-15 for 113 yards and a touchdown while completing 73.3% of his passes, acknowledged that Friday spotlighted how much work has to be done with the Bears' offense.
"We all see it in the sense of we all see what we can be," Williams said. "We all see these flashes and there's often some pretty good moments in practice and in games that we've had so far."
Williams and the starters came out of the locker room in street clothes for the second half as backup quarterback Tyson Bagent entered the game. Two days after signing a two-year, $10 million contract extension, Bagent went 20-of-28 for 212 yards and three touchdowns, including the game winner he threw to rookie undrafted free agent Jahdae Walker.
Operating with 1:29 on the clock and no timeouts, Bagent targeted his receivers near or at the sideline so they could preserve the clock while continuing to move the ball downfield. He targeted Walker four times during the team's final drive, which ended with a 6-yard touchdown.
With just over two weeks until the Bears host the Minnesota Vikings on Sept. 8, Johnson said he will have to assess the direction the offense has been going in over the past few weeks to determine whether he needs to scale back what he has been asking of players based on the type of progress he is seeing.
"And to be honest with you, we might have to ebb and flow a little bit after that opening game," Johnson said. "Usually it'll take up until the bye week. I think it's placed at just the right time (Week 5) to really identify who we are and what we're going to be for the rest of the season."