Rookies Colston Loveland, Kyle Monangai clean up Bears' massive mess in breakout performances in Cincy

On the first play of the rest of his life, Bears rookie tight end Colston Loveland welcomed a spiral into his manhole-cover-sized hands 20-plus yards down the field, bounced off 215-pound Bengals safety Jordan Battle like Battle wasn’t even there, spun off 210-pound safety Geno Stone like Stone was made of feathers, eyeballed the end zone still 30-plus yards away and made a run for it.

Legs churning. Arms pumping. Defenders desperately chasing.

Clock ticking, the Bears out of timeouts with under 20 seconds to go.

Victory getting closer. Defeat, his mind screamed at him, if he got caught.

Can a first-round pick go from question mark to breakout star in a moment such as this? Asking for a few million friends.

It must be sports magic, what happened at the end of the Bears’ 47-42 win in Cincinnati. Why did the Bears take a tight end at No. 10 overall? Why Loveland and not Tyler Warren? Why isn’t Loveland getting the ball? Why, why? All the questions ceased to exist Sunday — poof — when Bears fans and the world saw what the 6-6, 243-pound Loveland looks like in full effect.

More importantly, the Bears are 5-3.

“We got the win,” Loveland said. “We made it out. So that was big.”

Also, if Loveland doesn’t score again until 2027, this column never happened.

“Colston made a great play for us,” quarterback Caleb Williams said. “That’s why he’s here.”

The Bears came into this game “on a mission,” according to coach Ben Johnson, to clean up a weeks-long mess of self-inflicted mistakes. Instead, they replaced the usual parade of penalties with some of the worst pass defense and most egregious special-teams play in memory. Guess they’re going to need a bigger mission.

Out-bungling the Bengals, though, would be no small task for any opponent. If the Bears zigged ineptly, the Bengals zagged outrageously. Somehow, the Bears managed to dominate the first half but still head to the locker room trailing 20-17. Uncannily, though, the Bengals returned all favors. The Bengals committed dumb penalties to ruin their own drives (thanks, Orlando Brown Jr.) and extend Bears ones (here’s to you, DJ Ivey) and even had receiver Andrei Iosivas — a Princeton man — run out of the back of the end zone before catching what should have been a layup of a touchdown.

The Bears would’ve lost to a team that couldn’t beat the winless Jets the week before if not for a motley crew of contributors. In his first action of the season, defensive end Austin Booker had a sack that forced a fumble and led to a score. Fresh off the practice squad, running back Brittain Brown flew over the line for a first down before scampering for his first career touchdown. Punter Tory Taylor, a special teamer who actually did his job in exemplary fashion, flipped the field with a 69-yarder.

And hello, rookie Kyle Monangai. Where have you been all our lives?

Monangai, a seventh-round pick from Rutgers, has been the Bears’ No. 2 running back most of the way and shown flashes of NFL-caliber competence. With D’Andre Swift out of action, though, Monangai shouldered a heavy load and was sensational, piling up 176 yards on the ground — the most by a Bears back since 2011 — and 198 from scrimmage.

“He’s hard to bring down,” Johnson said. “I think that showed up.”

Showed up? Monangai — who will “own the world someday,” his college coach, Greg Schiano, once told me — left tread marks all over the Bengals’ bodies. They might even be permanent.

“Now it’s time to keep going,” Monangai said.

The mess? The rookies took care of it. Monangai carried the Bears, and then Loveland took them home.

Loveland scored his first NFL touchdown on third-and-goal in the third quarter. Cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt tried to get in the way, but Loveland bodied him away with minimal effort. Stone flew in with what looked like a hard hit as soon as Loveland caught the ball, but the tight end from Michigan just stood there, having been affected by the hit not whatsoever. Taylor-Britt played at Nebraska. Stone played at Iowa. Loveland might as well have been back in the Big Ten, a man among boys.

On a six-catch, 118-yard, two-touchdown day, Loveland arrived on the big stage. His final effort on the winning play was as splashy as it gets.

“Caleb delivered it right on the money, right in my chest,” he said. “I happened to, like, spin around and …”

And?

“ ‘Man, I’m still up,’ ” he realized.

There was only one thing to tell himself at that point.

“ ‘May as well go try to score this thing,’ ” he recounted after.

Don’t stop now.