Receiver Rome Odunze led the Bears offense Sunday afternoon against Baltimore, hauling in seven catches for 114 yards, marking the fourth time he's registered a 100-yard game in his young career.
It's also the second time through just seven games this season that Odunze has reached the milestone, having recorded 128 yards against the Lions Sept. 14.
Despite his individual success in the Bears' 30-16 loss, Odunze emphasized the importance of him and quarterback Caleb Williams putting together that type of performance in a victory.
"We were able to connect on a couple more today and that always feels good," Odunze said, "but at the end of the day, it doesn't feel great when you don't come out with the dub. Both of the games that we were able to connect on a very high clip, we haven't come out with a dub. So we need to find a way to do that and put one in the 'W' column."
Odunze is now tied for the fifth-most 100-yard performances by a Bears player in their first two NFL seasons. He has also been one of the NFL's best receivers so far this season – he is tied for fifth with 15.3 yards per reception, tied for third with five touchdowns and ranks 12th with 67.6 yards per game.
In their 24 games together, Williams and Odunze have routinely showed off their connection. It was apparent early on Sunday.
On the Bears' opening possession, which resulted in a 32-yard field goal by kicker Cairo Santos, Williams and Odunze connected for gains of 16, 13 and 7 yards — the last of which came on a crucial third-and-6.
The Bears' second drive was also highlighted by Odunze, who hauled in a 21-yard reception near the right sideline on first-and-10 to put the Bears in Baltimore territory. That led to another field goal from Santos from 39 yards out.
While the Bears produced 125 yards of offense between those two drives, they were unable to reach the end zone on either of them. Odunze, along with Williams and coach Ben Johnson in their postgame press conferences, identified red-zone offense as an area that needs improvement heading into next week's game in Cincinnati.
"I think definitely a majority is shooting ourselves in the foot — penalties, misalignment, missed execution on a play," Odunze said. "I don't think there's ever been an instance where we've not had a penalty or executed a play properly and not scored touchdowns in the red zone, so we've gotta get back to that."
Odunze's longest reception of the day came late in the third quarter when Williams again found his receiver on the right sideline, this time for a 27-yard gain, on third-and-6.
Odunze showed up again on third down with just under eight minutes to play, catching a comeback route before spinning out of a tackle from Ravens safety Kyle Hamilton and reaching for the first-down marker.
Just before the two-minute warning, Odunze recorded his seventh catch of the day and third of 20 or more yards to put the Bears in Baltimore territory.
Even though Odunze put together one of the best performances of his career, he also expressed frustration in not being able to help execute the plays necessary to score touchdowns instead of field goals. However, he believes the Bears offense is more than capable of making those required fixes moving forward.
"I think it's just execution and not beating ourselves," Odunze said. "We've got to continue to execute the game plan and execute the plays that are called, not have penalties, not have negative plays. I think once we do that, we'll score."
