The Patriots and Bears arrive at Thursday’s Week 7 prime-time game at Soldier Field tied at 4-2, and the matchup now carries real weight for both teams. New England has won three straight, while Chicago can climb to 5-2 for the first time since 2020 if it handles the night.
That is why Patriots Vs Bears is drawing so much attention: it pairs Drake Maye and Caleb Williams, the 2024 NFL Draft classmates who have known each other since high school and last met in a game the Patriots won 19-3 in 2024. Maye is coming in hot. Over the past three weeks, he has thrown an NFL-best 10 touchdown passes, posted a 119.3 passer rating and produced 0.38 EPA per dropback, all while cutting down the mistakes that defined his first three games, when he threw six interceptions.
Williams has answered in kind. He returned from injury last week and helped Chicago beat the Falcons on the road, completing 83.3% of his passes for 305 yards and a touchdown. He also entered the game with the league’s best 2026 completion rate among passers with at least 75 attempts, a sharp jump from his 58.1% mark in 2025. For a Bears team that has led the NFL in takeaways since the start of last season with 42, the question is whether that defense can keep being the engine or whether this run is becoming something sturdier than a turnover chase.
New England’s defense gives the game a different shape. It ranks among the top six in points allowed and yards allowed, which means Maye is not the only part of the Patriots that has looked credible during the winning streak. That is also why the passing game carries an edge of uncertainty. A.J. Brown had three catches for 27 yards on 10 targets against the Jets last Sunday, the fewest receptions in any of his 30 career games with 10 or more targets, and he did not catch any of his three throws that traveled 10 or more air yards. After that kind of return, the optimism around New England’s offense is real, but it is not yet settled.
So Thursday night is less a postcard from two rising teams than a test of whether both can keep the form that got them here. If Maye keeps playing at this level and Williams builds on his return, the game could say as much about where the Patriots and Bears are headed as about what they have already done.
