The sky is no longer falling in the Windy City, as the Chicago Bears evened their record at 2-2 with a win over the Los Angeles Rams in Week 4.
It was another strong performance by the defense, but offensively, the Bears showed signs of improvement.
That improvement didn't necessarily come right away, though, as Chicago was hampered by penalties in the first half, and rookie quarterback Caleb Williams didn't shy away from talking about it.
After the game, Williams was asked about why he thinks the offense struggled much more in the first half of this one as opposed to the second half. Although he attempted to beat around the bush just a tad, while staying as positive as he could, we knew he was far from pleased with the issue at hand.
His answer is essentially what every Bears fan was thinking during the first two quarters:
"I think this first half, we had a bit more penalties that we wanted to ... the main thing with that was the penalties.
"We were putting ourselves in advantageous positions in the second half."
He's absolutely right. The Bears had a total of seven penalties for 60 yards in that first half, which made it tough for the offense to get anything going.
"... we didn't do as well (in the first half) compared to the second half, and it shows," the quarterback said.
Caleb Williams hinted at the Bears' leadership taking more responsibility going into Week 4
Despite being disappointed with the penalties, Williams did allude to the fact that this past week felt different in terms of how they practiced and how the leadership handled things, which is a good sign.
"Our work throughout this past week was different than other weeks before. It goes to our leadership. It goes to our communication, which I've talked about multiple times," he said.
Of course, this comes after a week where some of the Bears' captains and leaders had discussions with folks like offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and how the players aren't afraid to be coached. Tight end Marcedes Lewis was very vocal this week about those discussions and it appears things are trending in the right direction.
After three games of purely despicable performances on the ground, the Bears finally started to see the light at the end of the tunnel against L.A. Running back D'Andre Swift ran it 16 times for 93 yards, including a 36-yard touchdown scamper in the second half.
In total, Chicago ran it 28 times for 131 yards on the day. They were far more consistent in that regard against the Rams.
Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come as the Bears offense starts to figure things out. Williams still seemed less confident than you'd like to see on some downs, but as a whole, this was progress.