FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the press box at Gillette Stadium before Monday night’s game against the New England Patriots, Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles told reporters what he saw as the next step for his young team.
“For the age of our team, there have been a lot of games where we’re knocking on the door to win games,” Poles said. “The next step is learning how to finish.”
Nearly five hours later, the Bears granted his wish, scoring 23 unanswered points from late in the second quarter into the fourth quarter to pull off a 33-14 victory over the Patriots.
The game had some historical significance beyond the Bears beating the Patriots for the first time since 2000 and the first time ever in New England. It prevented Patriots coach Bill Belichick from passing Bears founder George Halas for sole possession of second place on the all-time wins list, for a week at least.
But the significance of the game for this season was that Justin Fields led the offense to 390 yards — including 243 on the ground — and a season high in points.
Fields completed 13 of 21 passes for 179 yards with a touchdown and an interception and had 14 carries for 82 yards and a touchdown.
Running back Khalil Herbert caught a short pass from Fields that he turned into a 25-yard touchdown in the second quarter. David Montgomery added a 1-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. Each rushed for 62 yards.
Bears kicker Cairo Santos made field goals from 42, 23, 38 and 50 yards to improve to 11-for-11 on the season.
The Bears defense had two first-half takeaways — rookie Jaquan Brisker’s first career interception off starting quarterback Mac Jones and Justin Jones’ fumble recovery — to help the team pull to a 20-14 halftime lead.
Patriots rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe burst into the game with two touchdown drives after replacing Jones, who started after a three-game absence due to an ankle injury. But the Bears shut out the Patriots the rest of the way.
Bears linebacker Roquan Smith and rookie cornerback Kyler Gordon added fourth-quarter interceptions of Zappe to help put the game away.
Zappe completed 14 of 22 passes for 185 yards with a touchdown and the two interceptions.
