CHICAGO (AP) — Caleb Williams has been the most important player for the Chicago Bears since he was selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2024 NFL draft.
Sunday was just another example of that.
Returning from a right hamstring injury, Williams led the Bears to a 31-23 win at Atlanta. The third-year quarterback was 30 of 36 for 305 yards and a touchdown.
“I think he just did a good job of taking what the defense gave,” offensive coordinator Press Taylor said Monday. “It didn’t feel like there were forces. ... You’ve watched him mature and grow in the system and he was seeing things well the other night and it just came together pretty well for him in terms of putting the ball in play and putting the ball where our guys were able to do something with it.”
It was Williams' first action since he left in the fourth quarter of a 9-3 loss to Minnesota on Sept. 20. Case Keenum led Chicago to a 27-7 victory over Philadelphia and Tyson Bagent helped the Bears to a 23-12 win against the New York Jets in the team's first two games after Williams got hurt.
But Bagent and Keenum both struggled in last weekend's 31-7 loss at Green Bay, setting the stage for Williams' return against the Falcons.
“I felt confident from the jump,” Williams said. “Let it rip ... let these guys go make plays for us. Get first downs, touchdowns, all that.”
He sure looked confident.
Williams completed his first 12 passes. According to Next Gen Stats, he was 24 of 24 for 248 yards from a clean pocket. He has completed 72.5% of his passes in three games this season after that number was 58.1% last year.
“To come back and to be on point, to be on rhythm, to be as accurate as he was in his first outing in a while, credit to him,” Taylor said, “credit to the skill guys to be able to get open, be available, be on time, and really be where they’re supposed to be when they are supposed to be there for him.”
Williams' return seemed to help Colston Loveland, who had six receptions for 65 yards and a TD in his best game of the season. The tight end had 13 catches for 110 yards over the first five games.
Special teams made two huge plays in Sunday's win. Josh Blackwell recovered a muffed punt by Zachariah Branch at the Atlanta 10 late in the first half, resulting in D’Andre Swift's 2-yard TD run. Nick McCloud recovered Branch's fumble on a kickoff in the third quarter, leading to Cairo Santos' 50-yard field goal.
Penalties were an issue once again. The Bears were flagged 12 times for a season-high 133 yards, compared to four for 31 yards by the Falcons.
“We had way too many penalties,” Taylor said. “That’s not something we want to live with.”
The Bears were penalized 20 times for 115 yards in their first two games, but they had been better of late. They were flagged three times for 20 yards in the loss at Green Bay.
Kyler Gordon had three sacks and two forced fumbles in his season debut. His late strip-sack on Michael Penix Jr. helped Chicago close out the win.
Gordon opened this season on the physically unable to perform list because of a calf injury. He became the first defensive back to record three sacks in a game for the Bears since Todd Bell on Oct. 2, 1983, against Denver.
“It was exciting to see because I think he did some things that we’ve always felt like that he could do for us,” defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said. “And so, I’ve always thought that there was a way that we could utilize him that he could really help us win games, and he was big in the game this week.”
Rome Odunze had another quiet performance, finishing with three receptions for 39 yards. The third-year wide receiver had just one catch in the second half.
The 24-year-old Odunze has 20 receptions for 312 yards in six games this season. He is looking for his first touchdown after catching six TD passes in 12 games last year.
The Bears didn't provide any substantive injury updates on Monday. Right guard Jonah Jackson left Sunday's win with a hip injury, and his status is particularly noteworthy in the short week before Thursday's game against New England.
13 — The Bears have 13 rushing touchdowns, including three against the Falcons. That is their highest total over the first six games of a season since they also had 13 in 1989.
The Bears play consecutive primetime games against last season's Super Bowl participants, beginning with the matchup with the Patriots at Soldier Field. They visit Seattle on Nov. 2.
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Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, right, hugs Atlanta Falcons cornerback Billy Bowman Jr. (33) after the Bears beat the Falcons in an NFL football game in Atlanta, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (18) scrambles as he is pressured by Atlanta Falcons defensive ends Cameron Thomas (99) and Zach Harrison (96) during the first half of an NFL football game in Atlanta, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams passes against the Atlanta Falcons during the first half of an NFL football game in Atlanta, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays will play a Suds vs. Sun World Series that will produce a first-time champion and likely baseball's first all-indoor championship.
The best-of-seven showdown between low-payroll pennant winners opens Friday night in Milwaukee. It'll be the first World Series between title-less teams since the Philadelphia Phillies defeated the Kansas City Royals in 1980.
One city is known for the television sitcom “ Laverne & Shirley," the home of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, cheeseheads and breweries that have included Miller, Pabst and Schlitz. The other is a vacation destination featuring warm weather, beaches and art museums.
Just five of the current 30 teams have never won a title, with Colorado, San Diego and Seattle also ringless.
“The city is ready. I know that the fans are ready, and I know that we’ll be ready,” said Milwaukee's Jake Bauers, MVP of the four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series.
Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski heads the pitchers with his 100 mph-plus heat, and each team features a dynamic 22-year-old anchoring the lineup: Jackson Chourio of the Brewers and Junior Caminero of the Rays. Tampa Bay's Freddy Peralta and Drew Rasmussen could pitch against their former teams.
The Brewers started as the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969, then were bought by Bud Selig's group in bankruptcy court and moved to Milwaukee for the 1970 season. The team's only Series trip was a seven-game loss to St. Louis in the 1982 Suds Series, back when the Brewers were in the American League.
Tampa Bay, which defeated Cleveland in six games for the AL pennant, launched as the expansion Devil Rays in 1998 and dropped the “Devil” ahead of the 2008 season. The team's two Series appearances ended with losses to Philadelphia in 2008 and the Dodgers in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
This will be only the sixth time since the start of the wild-card era in 1995 that teams with the top records in each league meet in the World Series after Atlanta-Cleveland (1995), New York Yankees-Braves (1999), Boston-St. Louis (2013), Dodgers-Rays (2020) and Dodgers-Yankees (2024).
Milwaukee had MLB’s 19th-highest payroll as of Aug. 31. Tampa Bay was 25th.
Not since 1991 had both pennant winners been among the bottom 50% in player spending. Minnesota was 15th among 26 teams when it beat Atlanta (19th) in seven games.
Tampa Bay’s ballpark has a fixed roof and Milwaukee’s is retractable — it probably will be closed with game-time temperatures predicted to be in the upper 40s or low 50s.
When all World Series games were played at retractable-roof ballparks in 2020 (Texas) and 2023 (Texas and Arizona), there were three open-air games each year.
The roofs of both ballparks came into play this postseason.
In the ninth inning of Milwaukee’s 3-2 win over the Padres in Game 1 of their NL Division Series, San Diego’s Ty France hit a high drive that appeared it might be headed over the left-field wall for a go-ahead homer until it struck a cable on the retractable roof in Milwaukee.
Two nights later, Yankees rookie Spencer Jones hit a flyball off a catwalk at Tropicana Field that was caught by Rays right fielder Victor Mesa Jr. for an out in the second inning of New York’s 5-2 loss in Game 2 of their AL Division Series.
Greg Vaughn, Willy Adames and Matt Garza are the most prominent players with lengthy stretches on both teams, and Bauers made his big league debut with the Rays in 2018.
Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold worked for the Rays for nine years before Milwaukee hired him as an assistant GM in October 2015.
Those 1982 Brewers were known as Harvey's Wallbangers, a nickname given by first baseman Cecil Cooper. The Brewers led the major leagues in home runs under manager Harvey Kuenn and had a roster with five future Hall of Famers: Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons and Don Sutton.
Various players over the years have claimed The Pfister Hotel, where many teams stay in Milwaukee, is haunted. Opened in 1893, the hotel has Romanesque Revival architecture, and players have claimed to hear spooky noises and footsteps.
If there is a Game 7, it would be played in Milwaukee on Halloween night.
Milwaukee's Pat Murphy, winner of the last two NL Manager of the Year awards, has two tattoos referencing Bruce Springsteen: “No Retreat No Surrender” on his left forearm and “The Boss” on his back.
He first went to a Springsteen concert in 1980 when he was in college, then another when he was coaching at Notre Dame.
“He grew up a Catholic kid in New Jersey. I was a Catholic kid from upstate New York,” the 67-year-old Murphy said. “There’s just so much that resonates with me how he speaks about things.”
The 1982 Series was played at Milwaukee County Stadium, home of the Braves from 1953-65 before they moved to Atlanta, and then the Brewers from 1970-2000. This year's championship will be played at American Family Field. Known as Miller Park from 2001-20, the ballpark is adjacent to the County Stadium site. It was host of the 2002 All-Star Game, which ended in a 7-7, 11-inning tie after both teams ran out of pitchers.
Milwaukee's ballpark is known for its Racing Sausages in the middle of the sixth inning, with the Brat, Polish, Italian, Hot Dog and Chorizo competing. It also has the Uecker Seat in the last row of section 422 in the left-field upper deck — it includes a bronze statue of Bob Uecker, the beloved funny man who broadcast Brewers games for 54 seasons until his death last year.
Tampa Bay's home, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, is on its third name. Known as the Florida Suncoast Dome from 1990-93 and the ThunderDome from 1993-96, the stadium got its current name about 18 months before the Rays' first game in 1998.
Its only prior World Series games were in 2008, when the Rays split the first two games against Philadelphia before the Phillies won three straight at home. Tampa Bay's other Series appearance was in 2020, when due to the coronavirus pandemic the entire series was played at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
The Trop reopened this season after repairs to damage caused by Hurricane Milton. The Rays plan to move to a new stadium across the bay in Tampa in 2029.
Milwaukee went 29-13 in cream uniforms during the regular season, 17-7 in pinstripes, 27-12 in navy blue, 9-6 in City Connect outfits and 21-21 in light blue. During the postseason, the Brewers are 4-0 in cream and 3-1 in navy.
Tampa Bay was 36-19 in home white, 32-33 in road navy, 8-2 in road Columbia blue, 12-3 in Devil Rays throwback jerseys, 6-4 in City Connect and 3-3 in road gray. In the playoffs, the Rays are 3-1 in home white, 1-0 in Devil Rays throwbacks and 3-1 in road gray.
Milwaukee was 32 for 128 (.250) and had a .347 on-base percentage in its NLCS sweep of the Dodgers, the exact same numbers Los Angeles batters had in their NLCS sweep of the Brewers last year.
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Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Drew Rasmussen celebrates the end of the seventh inning against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 5 of an American League Championship Series baseball game in Cleveland, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Milwaukee Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio watches from the dugout during the third inning of Game 3 of baseball's National League Championship Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jacob Misiorowski reacts to striking out Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani during the third inning of Game 1 of baseball's National League Championship Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
