Ninety-six points, a Week 1 record
Chicago won 59-37 in Charlotte on Sunday night. Ninety-six points between them. No opening-week game in NFL history had ever produced that many.
Caleb Williams accounted for four touchdowns himself, two through the air and two on the ground. He went 21 of 29 for 269 yards and ran for 65. A clean night, though nowhere near the eye-watering line a 59-point game usually implies.
The real damage came on the ground. D’Andre Swift ran for three touchdowns and 124 yards on 18 carries. Kyle Monangai put up 100 yards on 10 runs, one of them a 61-yard score. Two 100-yard rushers in the same game is rare. Five rushing touchdowns turns it into a mugging.
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It was 31-31 in the third quarter
The final score flattens what was, for a while, a real game. Carolina tied it at 31 on a two-yard Chuba Hubbard run with 9:02 left in the third. Anybody’s night at that point.
Chicago then took the next three touchdowns. Swift from a yard out, Monangai, then a one-yard throw from Williams to Jahdae Walker. Swift shut it with a 28-yard run.
Bryce Young did plenty right. The Carolina quarterback threw for 361 yards and three touchdowns, two of them to Jalen Coker, with a single interception. Coker caught eight for 138. Hubbard scored on the ground and through the air.
Three hundred and sixty-one passing yards, 37 points, and a 22-point loss. That is a defense going missing, not an offense failing.
Charlotte has a problem it cannot practice away
Chicago wanted a quarterback who could run a modern offense. The answer arrived sideways: Williams was efficient, and the running game tore the doors off.
Carolina’s night is harder to file away. Giving up 59 points in Week 1 raises questions a week of practice will not touch.
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