CHICAGO — As the Chicago Bears began their penultimate drive Sunday at Soldier Field, offensive coordinator Thomas Brown piped into quarterback Caleb Williams’ helmet headset with a familiar message.

It’s time, kid. Go be Superman.

With the Bears trailing the Minnesota Vikings by 11 points and less than 2 minutes remaining in another astoundingly sloppy performance, it felt like a huge ask for a 23-year-old rookie to rescue his team from its current freefall. But Williams, never one to shy away from a challenge, eagerly ducked into the phone booth.

During the next 1 minute and 47 seconds over a span of 10 offensive snaps, Williams somehow turned the Bears’ 27-16 deficit into an overtime opportunity. He led two scoring drives that sandwiched a recovered onsides kick and added a 2-point conversion throw.

The first of those scoring drives — eight plays and 40 yards — culminated with an extended-play 1-yard touchdown pass from Williams to Keenan Allen. The second required only one completion, an absolute laser over the middle to DJ Moore for 27 yards to set up Cairo Santos’ game-tying 48-yard field goal as time expired.

That moment felt magical. It seemed significant.

“You definitely think something special is about to happen,” Moore said. “When we got to overtime, you’re just thinking, ‘Man, we’re about to win the game.'”

But, alas, because these are the 2024 Bears and every setback seemingly has to come with a deep stab and a twist of the knife, Williams and his teammates won the overtime coin toss and had the ball with a chance to end the game but ultimately left Soldier Field with a jaw-dropping 30-27 loss. Because of course.

It was the Bears’ fifth consecutive defeat and their third during this skid that came on the final play. This time it was Vikings’ kicker Parker Romo making a 29-yard walk-off overtime field goal that shoved the bug-eyed Bears into their quick-turnaround Thanksgiving week with a new level of disbelief.

“I’m never going to get used to this feeling,” receiver Rome Odunze said. “I’m never going to come into this locker room and feel regular after a loss. I’m really not wrapping my head around this honestly.”

During a wild afternoon on the lakefront, the Bears once again sloppied their way to another disheartening loss characterized by stunning breakdowns across all three phases. This is what a last-place football team with clumsy leadership looks like. Yet folded into this unsightly horror show is an apparent superhero arrival.

Williams was brilliant for much of Sunday against an aggressive and confusing Minnesota defense. The Vikings arrived in Chicago with the NFL’s best run defense and more interceptions than any other team in the league. Coordinator Brian Flores marched into Soldier Field hoping to give Williams headaches with all the rookie quarterback had to see and decipher before and after the snap.

Instead? Williams threw for 340 yards, rushed for 33 more, fired two fourth-quarter touchdown passes and went turnover-free for the fourth consecutive start. His passing yardage total registered as the second-highest posted against the Vikings this season. His 103.1 passer rating was the third-highest versus Minnesota.

“He’s growing right before our eyes,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said.

In his second game working with Brown as his play-caller, Williams felt prepared, consistently understanding where his hot routes were and what his alerts and checks needed to be.

“The biggest thing,” Williams said, “was being able to be decisive.”

Williams has also felt another energy spike this week from Brown’s presence and guidance.

“He has a certain aura to him where he just allows you to play free,” Williams said. “He knows what he wants. You know what he wants.”

To be clear, Sunday’s performance was far from flawless. Williams and the Bears will spend the next 24 hours kicking themselves for a squandered opportunity early in the second half when confusion reigned before a critical fourth-and-4 play. During that sequence, with the Bears discombobulated with their communication on whether they’d be going on fourth down or attempting a field goal, the call was not only late coming in but confused Williams, who ultimately barked out the wrong play. The quarterback was rushing to get everything aligned before the play clock expired and then missed Allen by a hair on an out route near the sticks.

“We got to the huddle trying to scramble,” Williams said. “I ended up mishearing what (Brown) said. From there it went downhill. It was an incomplete pass on a play I didn’t necessarily want to run.”

Williams also malfunctioned badly on the Bears’ overtime drive, taking a 12-yard sack on second down after holding the ball inside the pocket for more than 9 seconds.

“I should have just thrown the ball out of bounds and lived to fight another down,” Williams said.

Still, there were so many dazzling highlights added to the reel Sunday it was hard not to retain optimism about the quarterback’s growth trajectory. His final completion of regulation, that 27-yard missile to Moore, was a big-time play when his team needed it most.

Added Moore: “He threw a nice layered ball with some oomph on it. I just had to catch it.”

In the first half, Williams also scrambled himself out of a mistake when he left linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel unaccounted for on a free rush, but then broke the pocket and lofted a gorgeous on-the-move ball to D’Andre Swift down the right sideline for a gain of 30.

“D’Andre made — no pun intended — a swift move upfield,” Williams said. “I triggered it knowing how much space I had (to work with). I just wanted to give him a shot to kind of make up for my little mess-up right there at the beginning of the play.”

That dot to Swift came two plays after Williams threw a high-risk fastball into traffic to Allen for a gain of 40 yards.

“There’s no defense,” tight end Cole Kmet said, “for the perfect throw.”

And those two game-on-the-line scoring drives in the final 2 minutes of the fourth quarter?

“Just true grit,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. “He really inspired the whole football team. And it was really good execution.”

“His confidence is through the roof,” Moore said. “He’s understanding all these game plans through and through. To see him go out there and be able to play quarterback the way he wants to, it’s amazing to see.”

It’s no wonder Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell was among those who admired Williams’ performance. Right after Sunday’s game ended, O’Connell found Williams near midfield, pulled him close and spoke directly into the quarterback’s right ear.

The message, Williams said, was appreciative with O’Connell encouraging him to keep grinding through his team’s current mind-boggling losing streak. Williams said O’Connell also expressed concern that he is now in line to face the talented young quarterback twice per season inside the NFC North.

“I think the world of him,” O’Connell said. “He just continues to get better and better.”

For the Bears, that’s a big deal as the organization tries to find its way out of its most recent failure-filled funk. Perhaps one of these days, Superman’s contributions can produce a winning result.

In the meantime, the Bears are left to sort through confusion and frustration, wondering how to process this newest winless slump — 42 days and counting — while also taking inventory of the emergence of its young quarterback.

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