In the first half, Williams threw for 196 yards and one TD with a 136.5 passer rating and ran for 52 yards and 2 TDs on six carries.
“I could tell last night we did our quarterback meeting one last time, and he was on top of it,” Johnson said, “everything he was rattling out: ‘where my eyes need to be, what I’m thinking.’ So I went to bed, I slept really well with that in mind.
“To see him on a couple plays get right to the checkdown on catch-and-runs to our backs, that always excites me because that means he’s seeing the field and he’s able to anticipate where he needs to go with the ball, and he’s not trying to hang onto it.”
After Hubbard’s 2-yard TD run tied the score 31-31 with 9:02 left in the third quarter, the Bears followed with three straight touchdowns.
Swift’s 1-yard TD burst gave the Bears a 38-31 lead with 3:05 to play in the third period. It came after a roughing-the-passer penalty on Panthers defensive tackle Derrick Brown turned what would have been third-and-20 from the 21 into an automatic first down at the 11.
