He Doinked a 53-Yarder Off the Upright. Minutes Later, He Drilled a 58-Yard Career-Long.

On the night the Chicago Bears honored Mike Ditka with a moment of silence, they nearly gave the win away. They missed a field goal off the upright. Their young quarterback took a sack that looked like it ended their night. And then Cairo Santos walked onto the field with 1:34 left, from 58 yards out, and kicked the longest field goal of his life.

Bears 30, Patriots 24.

This was Chicago’s first home game since Ditka’s death, and for three hours Soldier Field felt like a tribute. By the end it felt like a statement. The Bears are 5-2, sitting in first place in their own story, and they just beat the defending AFC champions with a kicker who refused to be defined by his worst moment of the night.

The kick that almost never happened

Let’s set the scene, because the sequence is genuinely hard to believe.

Eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. Bears up 27-21. Cairo Santos lines up from 53 yards to make it a two-score game. The kick hits the right upright and bounces away. Doink. The Patriots are still alive, and now they have decent field position to work with.

New England stalls, though, and Chicago gets the ball back with the game on the line. The Bears drive into Patriots territory. Third-and-5 at the New England 30. All they need is a first down to bleed the clock dry. Instead, Caleb Williams drops back, starts to scramble, and gets swallowed up by Patriots defensive tackle Christian Barmore for a 10-yard loss.

Just like that, the Bears have gone from trying to end the game to facing a 58-yard field goal attempt. A kick that, frankly, most coaches would not attempt. Punt it, pin them deep, trust your defense. That is the conventional call.

Ben Johnson did not make the conventional call. He sent Santos back out, and according to Bleacher Report’s postgame account, the 13-year veteran had lobbied the coaches for the chance. Trust earned, trust repaid. Santos had just watched his 53-yarder clang off the upright minutes earlier. Most kickers would be thinking about that miss. He was thinking about the next kick. Career-long. 58 yards. The Bears went up 30-21 with 1:34 remaining, and Soldier Field absolutely erupted.

New England did not go quietly. Drake Maye drove the Patriots into field goal range in a hurry, and Andy Borregales hit a 47-yarder with 37 seconds left to cut it to 30-24. The onside kick went up, the ball bounced around, and Rome Odunze fell on it for Chicago. Ballgame.

Williams vs. Maye: round two goes to Chicago

The first time these two quarterbacks met, back in November 2024, it was not much of a duel. New England beat Chicago 19-3, Williams completed 16 of 30 passes for 120 yards, and the Patriots sacked him nine times. Nine. It was a rough night for the No. 1 overall pick.

Thursday night was the rematch between the 2024 draft classmates, Williams (first overall) and Maye (third overall), and this time it was a genuine shootout between two of the league’s brightest young quarterbacks. Together they combined for 629 passing yards and five total touchdowns.

Williams was the sharper of the two when it mattered: 22 of 33 for 308 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 116.7 passer rating. This was his second game back after missing three games with a hamstring injury, and he looks completely over it. “These nights are awesome,” Williams said after the game. “You play against another good team on a primetime game in a short week, these games are awesome because you get to see who you are as a team. That’s who we are. We’re a smashmouth football team, an innovative team. And when things happen and things don’t go our way and the water is rocky, we stay steady.”

Maye was brilliant and maddening in equal measure: 24 of 31 for 321 yards, two touchdowns through the air plus one on the ground, and a 117.8 rating. But he also threw an interception that USA Today’s Nate Davis called a very poor read, the kind of mistake that costs points in a game where every point was precious. It was a frustrating echo of Maye’s early season, when he turned the ball over nine times during a 2-2 start. He had clean sheets in Weeks 5 and 6. Thursday, the turnover bug bit again.

The supporting casts deserve their flowers too:

• Luther Burden III was electric in the first half: four catches on four targets for 130 yards and a touchdown, including a 58-yard screen on third-and-17 where Colston Loveland, Kalif Raymond, and Darnell Wright threw a wall of blocks. “The whole cavalry came,” Ben Johnson said, “and it was like a wave carrying him through there.”
• Colston Loveland hauled in seven passes for 69 yards and a score, a safety valve Williams trusted all night.
• D’Andre Swift ground out 22 carries for 78 yards and a touchdown, steady work behind a line that kept Williams mostly clean.
• Rhamondre Stevenson nearly broke Chicago’s heart, slipping out of the backfield and taking a Maye lob 48 yards for a touchdown on the final play of the first half, a play that cut the Bears’ lead to 20-14 and changed the entire feel of the locker room at halftime.

On the other side, A.J. Brown had a quiet night in his second game back from an ankle injury: three catches for 48 yards. And the Patriots’ patchwork offensive line got pushed around, with New England rushing for a season-low 70 yards as a team. Maye himself was the Patriots’ leading rusher with 26 yards, which tells you everything about how the night went in the trenches.

The gut punch: Cole Kmet carted off

The win came with a cost, and it might be a significant one.

Midway through the fourth quarter, with 5:34 on the clock, tight end Cole Kmet caught an 8-yard pass and went down holding his right knee. He was carted off the field, and the reaction from his teammates said what the cameras could not. Kmet, a seventh-year veteran and one of the locker room’s most respected leaders, had missed exactly one game in his entire career before Thursday night.

“We will know more tomorrow, but I don’t think it looked very good,” Johnson said after the game. That is coach-speak for bracing for bad news. If Kmet misses real time, Chicago loses one of Williams’ most trusted targets right as the schedule gets interesting. Loveland will have to step into a bigger role fast.

Honoring Da Coach

Before any of the drama, there was the silence.

This was the Bears’ first home game since Mike Ditka died on October 10 at age 86, and Soldier Field paid its respects with a pregame moment of silence as cameras panned to fans wearing the iconic mustache Ditka was known for. Da Coach’s passing hit this franchise and this city harder than most coaching losses ever could, because Ditka was not just a coach here. He was a founding father of modern Bears identity.

NBC Sports summed it up perfectly: “The Bears honored Mike Ditka pregame. They honored him with a win, too.” You could feel it in the building all night. This was a team playing with something extra, and it showed in how they responded every time the game tried to slip away.

What this win actually means

The Bears are 5-2, and this was the first of three consecutive primetime games, a stretch that will tell us whether Chicago is a fun story or a real contender. They outgained New England 405 to 380, they protected a lead from start to finish even when it got uncomfortable, and their young quarterback went toe to toe with a fellow star and did not blink.

The Patriots fall to 4-3. They are still the defending AFC champions, and Maye is still playing at a level that would make most teams jealous, but the offensive line is held together with tape and the turnover issues are creeping back. They get a mini-bye before heading to Miami on November 1, and they will need it.

Chicago gets no such rest. The Bears head to Seattle for a Monday night game on November 2, then keep rolling through the primetime gauntlet. Thursday night proved this team does not rattle: a doinked field goal, a brutal sack, a carted-off teammate, and a six-point win over the defending conference champs.

And somewhere, you have to think, Da Coach was watching. He would have loved the smashmouth part. He definitely would have loved the kicker with guts.

For the full pregame breakdown of this matchup, read our Bears vs. Patriots Thursday Night Football preview, and catch up on all our US sports coverage here.