Entering the season, the Bears’ motto was to get Caleb Williams to trust his teammates to do their jobs, and he did.

In the opening game against the Tennessee Titans, no one else managed this task for half a game, including Williams.

Then, suddenly, it happened after a 31-yard touchdown on a blocked punt return by Jonathan Owens provided a spark, and the Bears managed a 24-17 victory with 148 net yards of offense and just 93 yards on passes from Williams.

“I would say on offense, we obviously didn’t play the way we wanted to,” Williams said. “We want to be the most efficient team out there, myself included. I didn’t play the way I wanted to. I missed a couple of passes that I don’t normally make.”

It was reminiscent of the classic win over Arizona in 2006, when the Bears were “who they thought they were,” except there was no Denny Green to regret letting the Bears get away. With the win, Williams became the first quarterback drafted No. 1 since 2002 to win his debut in the starting lineup.

Chicago was able to overcome a 17-0 deficit in the first half and 17-3 in the third quarter primarily through pass defense, pass rush and turnovers after the defense fell behind against Tennessee’s running game throughout the first half.

They held the Titans to 65 total yards in the second half and the Bears started to take the ball away from them.

The comeback began after Cairo Santos made it 17-3 with a field goal in the second quarter. Daniel Hardy, one of the last players on the roster, blocked Ryan Stonehouse’s punt from the Titans’ 33-yard line and the ball bounced right in front of Owens, who picked it up and scored. It was their first blocked punt return TD in ten years.

“We pretty much had a rush going on and I was charging up and getting ready to cover a guy and I heard the ball get blocked so I just looked and the ball bounced and there were guys all around me,” Owens said. “God has mysterious ways. It was a perfect rebound right into my hands.”

They cut the deficit to 17-13 early in the fourth quarter with Santos’ 50-yard field goal, and five minutes later he kicked a 48-yard pass with 9:57 left after Darrell Taylor’s strip sack led to a fumble recovery by TJ Edwards at the Titans’ 31-yard line.

Levis then threw an ill-advised flip while in the grasp of DeMarcus Walker for what looked like a third down sack, and the ball went right to Tyrique Stevenson on the sideline, and he returned it 43 yards for the winning points. Williams threw a two-point conversion pass after Stevenson’s return.

Jaylon Johnson sealed the win with an interception on fourth down with one minute to go.

“The guys did a good job in the second half,” coach Matt Eberflus said. “Blocking the punt was obviously a big kicker. Hardy did a great job of that and JO took the ball away, really a great play. And then the defense caused three turnovers in the fourth quarter, a great job, so one of them led to a touchdown.”

“I thought the defense didn’t play as well as we’re used to in the first half, but I thought we made some good adjustments in the second half and did a good job that way.”

Still, it left a bit of a bad taste in their mouth that the offense was so stagnant for most of the game. They scored no offensive touchdowns, just the PAT and the three field goals. Williams completed 16 of 27 passes, but only 93 yards. They were lucky that the defense limited Levis to 19 of 32 passes and only 127 yards.

“Yeah, I don’t care about stats,” Williams said. “I feel great. I’ll be honest with you, I feel great. I understand that obviously the stats weren’t where I wanted them to be and things like that because I want to go out there and do my best. I didn’t do that today.”

“We’ll be better tomorrow. We have this little period where we’ll take the next 15 hours or so, then we’ll recover and get ready for Houston next week. We’ll enjoy this win.”

They were able to recover from Velus Jones Jr. botching a kickoff and kicking it right back to the Titans in the first half, resulting in a field goal.

The defense allowed Tony Pollard’s 26-yard touchdown run and also a huge 8:23 run in the second quarter in which Chig Okonkwo caught a 17-yard touchdown pass, but after that, it got the job done.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about momentum,” Jaylon Johnson said. “They struck quickly and took a 17-0 lead.”

However, the Bears’ defense and special teams finished it off.

Now the offense has to find a way to prevent something bad from happening next Sunday night in Houston.

“This is the NFL,” Williams said. “It’s hard to win in this league. To have a team like this, an offense, defense, special teams, players, coaches, all these players here, this is the NFL. It’s hard to win in this league.”

“We’re excited, but there’s still a lot of improvement to be made, a lot of progress to be made. Get ready for this week.”

Twitter: BearsOnSI