Sports

Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has shown a knack for dramatic finishes in his second NFL season.

Four of the team's six wins have come via game-winning drives in the fourth quarter, including Sunday's 24-20 win over the Giants. The Bears trailed 20-10 after a Younghoe Koo field goal in the fourth quarter, but Williams led a pair of touchdown drives to make the team a winner for the sixth time in their last seven games.

Williams' ability to make plays with his feet loomed large on both drives. Williams had a 29-yard scramble to set up a touchdown pass to Rome Odunze and he scored the game-winner on a 17-yard run on the next possession. Williams ran for 52 yards in the fourth quarter and head coach Ben Johnson compared the quarterback to a famous escape artist in his postgame press conference.

"He looks like a Houdini back there in the backfield, because that's a really good pass-rushing front," Johnson said. "They've given a lot of teams fits. I think [Brian] Burns is leading the NFL in sacks. There were times where he's trying to escape and making some things happen. He had a couple throws down the field, but over 50 yards again rushing for the second week in a row, and I thought in the fourth quarter there we really needed that as a shot in the arm to end up winning that ballgame. So, credit to him."

Both Williams and Johnson said they'd like to see the team avoid the need for so many late-game heroics, but the confidence that comes with knowing that games aren't over even if you're trailing in the fourth quarter should serve the Bears well as they try to find their way into the playoffs come January.

The Seahawks are in a groove right now.

Sunday's 44-22 win over the Cardinals was their fourth in a row and the last two have both come by more than 20 points as the team has put together back-to-back games where they raced out to big early leads before cruising to the finish line. They have now outscored their opponents by 103 points this season — only the Colts have a bigger point differential — and wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba credited their success on Sundays to all the work they do the rest of the week.

"Preparation," Smith-Njigba said, via the team's website. "Our culture in the building. The guys that we have in this locker room, doing whatever it takes to win. That's from Monday to Sunday. What we're building here, we all feel like we have something special and we just want to keep it going and protect what we have."

Edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence returned two fumbles for touchdowns on Sunday and then agreed with Smith-Njigba about the team "building something special" with their play in recent weeks. They aren't the only team on a hot streak right now, however, and next weekend will bring a date with another one.

The 7-2 Seahawks will be in Los Angeles to face the 7-2 Rams in a matchup with major implications for the NFC West and NFC in general. Should they prevail in that one, the "something special" bandwagon will get bigger in Seattle.

It's not often that a coach is happy to see his quarterback throw interceptions. But Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said after Sunday's game that he was happy with both of the interceptions thrown by Tua Tagovailoa.

That's because both of them were deep balls on third-and-long that served as arm punts: Interceptions that were better for the offense than throwing an incompletion and then punting on fourth down.

Tagovailoa's first interception came on third-and-11. The pass was picked off 41 yards downfield, and the Bills didn't gain any yardage on the return. So it was the same as an incompletion followed by a punt with a net of 41 yards.

Tagovailoa's second interception came on third-and-9. The pass was picked off 43 yards downfield, and the Bills actually lost 11 yards from there thanks to a penalty on the return. So it was the same as an incompletion followed by a punt with a net of 54 yards.

Effectively, Tagovailoa's two interceptions were two arm punts with a net average of 47.5 yards. Across the NFL, the average punt nets 40.9 yards. So Tagovailoa's interceptions were both actually better than an average punt.

McDaniel explained after the game why he liked seeing that.

"I was actually really pumped. I told Tua on some third down calls to let it rip down the field and operate it as an opportunity ball to act as a punt," McDaniel said.

Both interceptions did act as punts, pinning the Bills in their own territory on a day when the Dolphins controlled the game and pulled off a big upset.