Caleb Williams stood in a similar position Sunday night as he and his Chicago Bears teammates lined up near the south end zone at Levi’s Stadium.

Once again, the Bears trailed in the final minute of a game. Once again, Williams and the Bears offense had a chance to squeeze out a win in dramatic fashion.

Chicago trailed by four points with four seconds left to go in the game. All the Bears needed was two yards to pull of another stunner in a season full of them.

But when Williams received the snap, the play seemed doomed from the start. Williams faced instant pressure and scrambled to his left. Tiptoeing his way to make anything happen, Williams finally threw the ball short of wide receiver Jahdae Walker in the end zone.

There were no heroics this time around. Chicago couldn’t land the final punch in an 42-38 offensive showdown against the San Francisco 49ers.

“It’s frustrating, obviously,” Williams said afterward inside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. “You don’t want to lose a game ever and being in that position and having a shot at the end is all you can ask for in those moments. We’ve got to do a better job overall, just execution. We made too many mistakes as a team.”

It seemed inevitable that Williams and the Bears would be in that position again. If there wasn’t enough evidence throughout the season, Chicago responded every time against San Francisco on Sunday night.

So when the Bears started their final possession with 2:15 left in the game at their own 35 yard line with all three timeouts left, the message was simple.

“Go score,” running back D’Andre Swift said.

They had a strong start. Chicago picked up a couple first downs and reached the San Francisco 45 yard line when the Bears started to make plays where it seemed inevitable the Bears would score.

The first came when they faced third-and-10. Williams looked to his right and hit rookie wide receiver Luther Burden III with a short pass. Burden then stopped and turned to his left to pick up 14 yards and a first down.

“Somebody got to step up and make a play,” Burden, who caught a career-high 138 yards, said. “So I got confidence in everybody. Whoever did get the ball was gonna make a play.”

Williams completed a few more passes, including one to rookie tight end Colston Loveland on fourth down, that moved the ball down to the 49ers 13 with 21 seconds left. That’s when Bears head coach Ben Johnson decided to bring out the tricks.

Williams completed a short pass to Loveland, who then threw a lateral to Swift. But the 49ers defense didn’t bite enough on the play for the Bears to score. San Francisco brought Swift down at the 2 and Chicago scrambled to clock the ball with four seconds left in the game.

“The corner stayed out, so there was nowhere for me to go outside, so I tried to get vertical and get as much as I can,” Swift said. “But good call by [Johnson] in that situation.”

That led to the game-deciding play.

There was some miscommunication from the outset. The Bears didn’t fully line up on the line of scrimmage until there was five seconds left on the play clock and they didn’t have any timeouts left.

Williams said after the game that the Bears were misaligned at some spots and he tried to get it corrected as much as possible before the clock ran out. Once Williams faced a rusher on the onset, he escaped to his left and tried to make something out of nothing.

He bid his time but couldn’t find an open look in the end zone. Once the 49ers defenders got to him, he threw the ball toward Walker, but it fell short of the rookie.

“We just had to try to make something out of nothing in that situation,” Williams said. “Like I said, we had a shot with all of that going on, timing running down, us misaligned and things like that. We had a shot.”

Johnson took responsibility after the game. He told reporters that he didn’t get the play call in quick enough and Williams was forced to piece together what he wanted. the Bears didn’t align in the correct formation and the play quickly became a scramble.

“I got to do a better job on that,” Johnson said.

The shortcoming came on a day when Williams and the offense gave their team a chance to win Sunday. Chicago’s defense had no answer for San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy and running back Christian McCaffrey.

But after going three-and-out on their first two possessions, Williams responded by putting together one his best games of the season. He threw for a season-high 330 yards to go along with two touchdowns.

“We can hang with anybody,” Williams said. “If our guys on the other side of the ball maybe is having a tough day or so, we’ll be right there with them having their back, just as they’ve done for us in a multitude of games.”

Many players after the game compared the loss to the one the Bears suffered against the Green Bay Packers in Week 14. Williams had a chance to win or tie the game in the game in final minute before he threw an interception.

“It’s frustrating, obviously. You don’t want to lose a game ever and being in that position and having a shot at the end is all you can ask for in those moments. We’ve got to do a better job overall, just execution. We made too many mistakes as a team.”

—  Caleb Williams, Bears quarterback

But the Bears weren’t discouraged by Sunday’s results. There will likely be another big-time situation again as they open the playoffs in a couple weeks.

The Bears don’t doubt they’ll make the play when it matters.

“Yeah we’ve fallen short in that situation but we’ve been on the other side of it,” Williams said. “We know we can be better here coming up.”