CHICAGO — Caleb Williams felt a little bit empty as he drove home from Soldier Field on Sunday night.

Yes, the 20-17 divisional playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams weighed on him. And, sure, the overtime interception he threw was probably in the back of his mind.

But at the forefront was the fact his Monday schedule was practically empty.

“You’re expecting to wake up the next day and come into the facility, watch the film and do all these different things,” Williams said. “You get into such a routine.”

And then it’s over.

Instead of wrapping up film review of the Rams game and looking ahead to the next opponent, Williams and his teammates spent the morning going through exit interviews with the coaching staff at Halas Hall.

A magical, special season came to an end with a brutal overtime loss Sunday night. The Bears were driving into enemy territory in a sudden-death situation, needing just a field goal to win. Williams threw an interception deep down the right side of the field, intended for wide receiver DJ Moore.

Whatever happened, Moore and Williams were clearly not on the same page. Williams on Monday suggested he saw open space short of where Moore’s original route was taking him. Moore would’ve had to adjust the angle of his route slightly to find that space.

“It was just a miscommunication,” Williams said Monday. “Trying to just flatten him off on the safety. Since the other safety was down, I felt like we had enough space over there, so I tried to flatten him off.”

Rams safety Kam Curl came down with the interception that wound up turning the tide. Los Angeles quarterback Matthew Stafford drove his offense 54 yards in the other direction to set up Harrison Mevis’ game-winning, 42-yard field goal.

It was a bitter way for the season to end. Williams threw three interceptions in the game, but he also made a game-saving play on what coach Ben Johnson called a “ridiculous” touchdown pass to Cole Kmet to send the game into overtime in the first place.

On Monday, everyone still was processing all that happened, even the players who were on the field.

What’s not up for debate, though, is how this Bears team took the city by storm. Williams called Johnson’s arrival almost exactly one year ago the “catalyst” that helped turn the team’s fortunes around. The Bears went from a five-win team to 11-6 and champions of the NFC North for the first time since 2018.

After a taste of playoff football — with both a wild comeback win and a bitter heartbreak — the Bears will be hungry for more next season.

“You get into these playoff games and you’re winning and you play these good teams and you see what you have to go against,” Williams said. “You see what (a) championship level is. You see what you need to do to be at the position that you want to be at the end of the year.”

It takes a year’s worth of work just to reach the postseason, let alone win games once a team gets there. With their current coach-quarterback pairing, the Bears don’t figure to be a team that would fall off the map next year. Sustaining any sort of success in the NFL, though, is difficult.

The Bears haven’t made back-to-back playoff appearances since 2005 and 2006. But the 2025 Bears bucked all recent trends, and the No. 1 reason for optimism is probably the heroics they saw out of their quarterback this season.

“I can’t tell you the amount of times he’s helped us out when we’ve struggled or made huge plays for the team to keep us in games or to win games,” center Drew Dalman said. “I don’t know what else you can ask for.”

Sunday night’s touchdown pass to force overtime was yet another example. Dalman snapped the ball from the 14-yard line. Williams fell under pressure and wound up backpedaling all the way to the 40 before he tossed the ball into the night. On the receiving end, Kmet shed a defender and came down with the tying touchdown.

The league’s official stat sheet read, “C. Williams pass short left to C. Kmet for 14 yards,” which might be the understatement of the year. It was one of those plays that had to be seen to be believed.

And how many times could Bears fans say that about their quarterback this season?

“Just looking at some of the plays Caleb was making out there this season, he definitely put it all out there on the line,” receiver Rome Odunze said.

Any level-headed Bears fan would admit there’s still meat on the bone, so to speak, with Williams. This was far from a perfect season for the 2024 No. 1 draft pick. It took time for this offense to jell after an 0-2 start.

Williams came up 58 passing yards shy of 4,000, and the bar for next season should be much higher. He completed 58.1% of his passes, well below Johnson’s preseason goal of 70%. This is still a young player ascending as he heads into Year 3.

The Bears are hoping it’s only the beginning.

“I’m very encouraged about where he’s at,” Johnson said after Sunday’s game. “I think we’re going to be able to watch this tape from this first year together, and I expect us to really learn from a lot of things and be better next year.”

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