What Caleb Williams admitted about his effort in 26-14 win over Saints

Sure, he ignited a few drives with completions to Rome Odunze, DJ Moore and Luther Burden, but overall Williams wasn't taking bows for this one. He was particularly upset again about how he threw errantly on the run while scrambling.

Here's a hint: Don't scramble. Throw from the pocket.

"You know, you're just as excited," Williams said. "The progress that we've had over on offense, especially coming off these past two weeks of being able to 'run the damn ball,' as every offensive line wants to do and says.

"There are things that I can be better at. There are things that I'm going to be better at. There are things that weren't hitting today, and you just have those days sometimes. It's nice that we have a defense, we have a special teams, a punter, kicker, that can put us ahead, that can help us win games, a run game that can control the game. We get this figured out on my side, we'll be putting up a lot of points and be very dangerous."

Ben Johnson accepted the victory from his defense and running game. The Bears are 4-2 and right where they were last year after six games under Matt Eberflus. Then the floor feel out from under them.

It could happen again if they don't start to get the passing game to work more efficiently.

"Up and down, that's what we've looked like," Johnson said. "We haven't hit our stride yet offensively. We're capable of a lot more. We have very talented individuals. I feel strongly in our coaching staff.

"But we're just not complementing our defense on a regular basis with  the number of turnovers we've had over the last four games. We should be able to turn those into more points.”

He couldn't help but see five presnap penalties surface their ugly heads, even if one actually forced them to accept a field goal and go up nine in the third quarter, setting the stage for their running game and D'Andre Swift to take over.

"I definitely don't want to make a habit of that," center Drew Dalman said of what was labeled a double-clutch snap and illegal procedure.

The line owned the day, so no sense nitpicking over one silly beneficial play. Still, Johnson searches for that attack that started to surface against Dallas, but has been elusive since that third game, the one which started the current winning streak.

“I think it's a lot of things," Johnson said. "That's something we'll look at on the tape and see what we've got to clean up. We still have the false starts. The good thing was the running game was working. The passing game wasn't nearly efficient enough, worse here today.”

The running game didn't just work, it was devastating. Once they had the lead, they started giving it to both D'Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai and the line begin moving people out with precision.

"We are clicking up front, and the receivers are doing a great job blocking on the  perimeter," Swift said. "Hats off to them, the guys up front and the receivers, I can’t say that enough. If they do their jobs up front and we get a little space as the backs, everybody in our (running back) room, we’re going to make something happen after that.

"I feel like we’ve been doing a better job this week and the past week of clicking on all cylinders and doing our jobs.”

It's not as sexy winning this way, not as exciting, and it definitely leaves questions about whether they could beat a good team with a bad record like they see next week in Baltimore.

For now, 4-2 is where they are, just like last year.

Except the difference is a coaching staff that has generated the momentum for four straight wins, their most since 2018.

X: BearsOnSI