“What a Day!!!” - Rich on the Chicago Bears’ 59-Point Output against the Carolina Panthers

The over in Chicago hit with two and a half minutes left in the first half. The final was 59-37.

At 31-31 it still looked like a normal shootout, the kind where whoever touches the ball last wins, the way Buffalo and Houston played it earlier in the day. Then, as Rich described it, the Bears decided they were done toying with anybody.

What he wanted to talk about was not the scoreboard. It was the guy who built it.

Winning a division, a conference, the whole damn shooting match, requires a head coach with the right amount of crazy. Rich was specific about what that means. It is confidence placed in you by someone who is not afraid, so that you can play unafraid. It is a refusal to give quarter to an opponent. It is also the coach who tells you on Wednesday exactly what will happen on Sunday, hands you the game plan, and convinces you that you are already better than the other team before kickoff. All you have to do is execute.

Ben Johnson has the right amount of crazy.

The evidence includes a June press conference where a reporter's phone was not on do not disturb, which was enough to set Johnson off in the middle of the spring. It also includes what happened at 58 points.

Rich was in the NFL Network screening room with his 15 year old son and about a dozen other people, and when that 58th point went up, every person in the room had the same thought at the same time.

Was he going for two to get a 60 burger?

"I'm wondering if it wasn't just us in the screening room," Rich said. "We were all as football observers attached like the Matrix."

The room held its breath waiting to see whether the placekicker would jog out, because the alternative would have produced a genuinely fascinating postgame handshake with Dave Canales. Johnson sent the kicker.

The reason everyone thought it was live is that Johnson's stated goal is the highest scoring offense in NFL history. He wants blowouts and shutouts. He got the blowout and nearly doubled Carolina up, which is arguably the same thing, and he left a point on the field by not going for two.

"He wants to snatch your soul," Rich said. "Certainly the ones that are up there in Wisconsin."

Johnson was asked about it afterward and did not soften anything.

"That'll always be the goal. We want to be the highest scoring. We want to have the most wins. We want to win Super Bowls," he said. "We didn't get into this profession trying to be mediocre or average. And that's every NFL team. We make decisions over the course of a week what's best for our football team to win the game. That's the most important thing."

The numbers underneath are historic. The 59 points are the fourth most in any game in Bears history and tied for the second most in a season opening game in NFL history. The only bigger opener was the Falcons putting up 62 in 1973. Carolina, for its part, scored the most points in a season opening game in franchise history and was never close.

Caleb Williams is the part Rich kept circling. A year ago at this time the Bears blew a game to Minnesota in the fourth quarter, then got run out of Detroit the following week giving up 50. The question then was what a quarterback who drank from a fire hose all summer would become.

Both of his passing touchdowns Sunday came off play action, which tells you two things. The run game is working, and Williams is under center. That means turning his back to the defense and turning around expecting to know what he is looking at, which is exactly why so many quarterbacks in year three live in the shotgun with everything in front of them.

It was his 14th passing touchdown off play action since the start of last season, tied with Dak Prescott for the second most in that span. The leader is Matthew Stafford, who is damn near 40. Williams is doing it at this stage of his career.

He also ran for two scores, the first game of his career with multiple rushing touchdowns.

DeAndre Swift scored three times and became the first Bears player with 120 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns since Rashaan Salaam in 1995. The last time Chicago had two players with at least two rushing touchdowns in the same game, it was Neal Anderson and the punky QB himself, Jim McMahon, in the opener of the 1988 season.

Which got Rich projecting, because of course it did. A Bears and Bills Super Bowl, up the road on ESPN and ABC next year, with both fan bases chasing the same ticket.

"That would be insane," he said. Chris was ready to take the over on that one, and Rich suggested setting it around 80.

The confession came at the end. Rich has been putting the Cowboys in his top five all offseason, and he called this stretch his mea culpa hour. He wanted to see it again from the Bears before committing.

He saw it.

"I'm sold," he said, over objections that the show does not overreact. "I'm sold."

New power rankings land Wednesday, and the old ones are not surviving contact with the weekend. The Rams lost. Seattle won. The Patriots at six lost. The Eagles at seven did not look great. The Chargers sat eighth and the Texans ninth, and neither of those aged well either.

"Good, better, best does not describe my power rankings from last week," Rich said, "which is why I don't want to do them."

It is Week 1. The deck is getting shuffled. And Rich sounded a little like the coach he had just spent 10 minutes admiring.

"I want to win. I want to be the best at it."

Blowouts and shutouts.