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I took my son to his first Bears game on Sunday and was with a group of family, so I abstained from live posting on X, for the most part, in the Bears’ 36-10 trouncing of the Carolina Panthers.

The one and only post I sent out was, “WTF are we doing here, Bears?” with a puzzled emoji. I sent that out after the offense went 3-and-out (a series that netted them minus-5 yards after a sack), and which was immediately followed by a Chuba Hubbard 38-yard touchdown run, giving the Panthers an early, 7-0 lead.

Excuse me for being a dad when I was wondering at that point, “I spent a crapload of money to bring my son to a game in which they should beat up an inferior opponent, and I get this!?

Fortunately, that angst was short lived.

On the very next series, the offense drove 70 yards on 7 plays and capped it off with a 34-yard touchdown strike from Caleb Williams to D.J. Moore — my son’s favorite player, who, fortunately, had a terrific game on Sunday.

After a Panthers punt, the Bears then went 80 yards on 13 plays, which ended with a 1-yard Roschon Johnson touchdown plunge.

The rest of the half was all Bears. The Panthers had a punt, fumble, turnover on downs, and a missed field goal to close the second quarter. The Bears added two more touchdowns, a D’Andre Swift 1-yard run — which came after a 42-yard screen pass that he nearly took to the house — and another Williams-to-Moore touchdown pass of over 30 yards.

With a 27-7 halftime lead, the Bears were firmly in control. The only thing I asked of them was not to take the foot off the gas pedal. I was hoping for 40 points, not just because that’s a fun number, but because 13 points in a half doesn’t seem like all that much to attain.

The good news is that I do believe the Bears kept the pedal to the metal in the second half. The bad news is that they made some mistakes and ultimately scored only 9 more points.

After another Bears 3-and-out to open the second half, Kevin Byard made an incredibly athletic interception on a deep pass from Andy Dalton.

That’s when the offense engineered another impressive drive, but with some disappointment at the end.

Williams led the Bears on an 11-play, 65-yard march down to the goal line. The rookie quarterback ended up scrambling out of trouble for a 1-yard touchdown run but the play was nullified by a clipping penalty — yes, that penalty still exists, if you can believe it — on Doug Kramer. Three plays later, the Bears had to kick a field goal as they couldn’t put the ball in the end zone from 15 yards out.

After a Panthers field goal and an exchange of punts, Kyler Gordon recovered a Hubbard fumble, setting up the Bears with a short field. Johnson would pound in his second score of the game and the Bears failed on the 2-point conversion attempt.

Second-year quarterback Bryce Young, the quarterback for whom the Panthers aggressively traded up with the Bears to take last year, and who got benched two weeks ago, came into the game for relief duty. He led the Panthers down the field but couldn’t get them into the end zone.

The Bears held on for the 36-10 victory.

Obviously, the Panthers are no damn good. We know this. So, some measure of perspective must be had to properly judge the outcome of Sunday’s game.

That being said, the Bears manhandled the Panthers for the better part of 60 minutes and have to be given respect for handling business. This was not a perfect game and there are certainly things the Bears can work to correct. But as it pertains to winning the games they must win if they want to compete for the playoffs this year, and as it relates to seeing growth and improvement from the most important player in the organization right now, Sunday was a terrific day.

Now, the Bears head off to London this week to face the Jaguars before returning home for their bye week. If the Bears can head into the bye with a 4-2 record and with dates against the Commanders, Cardinals, and Patriots coming up, they’ll be right where they need to be heading into the divisional battles they have slated in the back half of the season.