In a high-scoring game, the Chicago Bears recorded an impressive 31-28 win over a Pittsburgh Steelers team that was playing without Aaron Rodgers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chicago’s victory was largely the byproduct of Caleb Williams’ three touchdown passes and a defense that forced two turnovers that led to 14 points. Williams out-dueled Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph, who played in place of Rodgers, who is dealing with a fractured left wrist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Steelers’ successful first half featured 10 straight completions by Rudolph, a 55-yard run by on fourth down by Kenneth Gainwell that set up Jaylen Warren’s short touchdown run, and T.J. Watt’s strip sack of Williams that was recovered in the Bears’ end zone by teammate Nick Herbig.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But after going just 10 of 21 in the first half, Williams was much sharper in in the second half, going 9 of 14 for 119 yards that included a go-ahead, 25-yard touchdown pass to DJ Moore midway through the third quarter. Chicago then extended its lead after Montez Sweat’s strip sack of Rudolph set up Kyle Monangai’s short touchdown run early in the fourth quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh battled back, as Rudolph hit Pat Freiermuth on a short touchdown pass that gave the Steelers some hope late in the fourth quarter. But the Bears’ defense sealed the win when defensive back Jaquan Brisker broke up Rudolph’s fourth down pass attempt as Pittsburgh was trying to get into field goal range in the final seconds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here’s a closer look at how the Bears improved to 9-3 while dropping the Steelers to 6-5.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Play of the game\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sweat’s second sack of Rudolph set up Kyle Monangai’s short touchdown run that proved to be the game-winning score.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sweat’s strip sack was the Bears’ 24th forced turnover of the year, an NFL high. It was Chicago’s second forced turnover of the day, as Nashon Wright started the game by recording his league-high fifth pick of the year that set up Williams’ first touchdown pass to Moore that gave the home team an early 7-0 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chicago’s defense — which played without each of its starting ilnenobackers on Sunday — also set up a touchdown after stuffing the Steelers’ fourth down attempt midway through the second quarter. Pittsburgh, ahead 14-7 at the time, decided to go for it instead of attempting a 47-yard field goal that — if successful — would have given them a 10-point lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We’d be remiss not to give a shout here to Williams, who completed a slew of big passes throughout the game. Sunday was his third game this season with at least three touchdown passes. It was also his fourth straight game without an interception.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Good, but not good enough\u00a0<\/p>\n
Statistically, Sunday was a good day for the Steelers’ offense. The unit had more first downs and total yards than the Bears and were 8 of 14 on third down. Rudolph’s efficient passing (he was 24 of 31 through the air) was complemented by a ground game that churned out 186 yards on 36 carries\u00a0<\/p>\n
While all that was good, Pittsburgh couldn’t overcome its two turnovers, the turnover on downs and an offense that couldn’t get anything going downfield. The Steelers also couldn’t overcome a penalty on Troy Fautanu on their second-to-last drive of the game that wiped out a 22-yard run by Rudolph.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Steelers’ lack of a vertical passing attack also loomed large in the loss. It was clear — following the Steelers’ first scoring drive that saw Rudolph complete each of his six pass attempts — that the Bears made the necessary adjustments to clamp down on Pittsburgh’s pass-catches while minimizing their yards after the catch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Making matters worse was DK Metcalf playing with a nagging ankle injury that was initially sustained during the first half. With Metcalf physically compromised, the Steelers’ had little threat of a deep passing attack, and the Bears took full advantage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With their passing game neutralized, Chicago’s defense bore down on the Steelers’ running game. Pittsburgh had just 61 yards on 20 carries in the second half after rumbling for 125 yards on 16 carries in the first half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh’s best offensive play was Gainwell’s 55-yard run that set up Warren’s touchdown late in the first half.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bears remain in first place; Steelers fall behind Baltimore\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the win, the Bears remain in first place in the NFC North. Conversely, the Steelers are now trailing the Ravens in the AFC North standings after having a three-game lead over Baltimore a month into the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After starting 4-1, though, the Steelers have lose four of their last six games. Pittsburgh is now 1-13 lifetime in Chicago, with its only win in the Windy City taking place 30 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin does anticipate having Rodgers back for next week’s home game against the Buffalo Bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a high-scoring game, the Chicago Bears recorded an impressive 31-28 win over a Pittsburgh Steelers team that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25567,25568,25565,25563,25566,25564,24103,22365,1418,11702,11701,11703,25388,73,75,74,1833],"class_list":["post-42733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-aaron-rodgers-injury","tag-aaron-rodgers-status","tag-bears-vs-steelers-highlights","tag-bears-vs-steelers-live","tag-bears-vs-steelers-live-stream","tag-bears-vs-steelers-score","tag-chicago-bears","tag-mason-rudolph","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-live-blog","tag-nfl-live-updates","tag-nfl-scores","tag-nfl-week-12","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}