Bears escape with wild 47-42 win vs. Bengals on 58-yard last-minute TD

CINCINNATI — Quarterback Caleb Williams threw a 58-yard touchdown pass to rookie tight Colston Loveland with 17 seconds to play Sunday to win a game that the Bears should have had all along.

The 47-42 win was impossibly crazy — and almost an inexcusable loss. The rookie’s catch and run saved the Bears from another end-of-game gaffe that would have been just as embarrassingly awful as last year’s Fail Mary.

With 35 seconds to play, the Bears were down one and facing third down at their 28 when Williams scrambled for a first down, forcing the team to use its last timeout. Then he found Loveland down the seam, and he bounced off defenders and sprinted into the end zone.

For a precious few moments Sunday, the Bears held a 20-point lead with 3:07 to play.

Linebacker Tremaine Edmunds had intercepted a pass at the Bears’ 4 and returned the ball 96 yards for a score when officials reviewed the play with about three minutes to go. They ruled Edmunds had been down by contact when he fell to the ground to collect the pick, and sent the Bears back to their 4.

They punted and gave up a 23-yard touchdown pass to tight end Noah Fant with 1:43 to play. The Bengals went for two points and Tee Higgins caught the ball, putting them down six with no timeouts left. The Bengals tried an onside kick, which bounced and hit defensive end Daniel Hardy in the thigh. Linebacker Oren Burks fell on the ball, giving the Bengals life. Six plays later, they were in the end zone again, when Andrei Iosivas caught a nine-yard pass. Because the Bengals had converted their two-point conversion the last time, they needed an extra point to take the lead, which they did.

The Bengals ran three plays after the Loveland touchdown, including a Hail Mary that Nahshon Wright picked off well short of the end zone.