The Bears wake up and bring Keenan Allen into the attack

“It’s because I can’t fall asleep. And then, you know, over the course of the week, last week, I mean, yesterday I was in bed at 10:30.”

The adjustment came just in time.

Although Allen didn’t have big yards, he had five receptions for 41 yards and, more importantly, the big catches to either extend or end drives. And his five catches came on five targets. Mr. Third Down made his first appearance.

Allen had a 10 third-and-5 to extend his drive to the Jacksonville 24 en route to Cole Kmet’s second touchdown catch of the second quarter.

He caught a third-and-8 pass for an 11-yard first down.

He had a third-down TD catch from 9 yards over the middle and jumped on a rocket that Williams threw over the middle back shoulder to offset the catch he had made a play earlier for a 1 on third-and-1 -Down was destroyed. Goal from the 4 for 3 yards.

Finally, he caught the 3-yard lob pass for a TD early in the fourth quarter, ensuring a loss.

Allen had to overcome the heel injury that cost him two games, but he was delighted to be able to contribute again.

“Yeah, it’s pretty sweet, pretty awesome,” he said.

Williams said the two made extra throws after practice to reestablish their combination.

“So we practiced all week,” Williams said. “We had different throws that we practiced. You know, the extra reps I think help, like I mentioned before.”

“We get it done, you know, sometimes we get a few extra reps in individual exercises or, you know, after practice and things like that.”

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“And I think it definitely helped, you know, all the hard work and extra work that we put in.”

Williams says Allen’s years of patience have paid off.

“And having someone like Keenan, you know, his patience and things like that, and we’re six games in and he’s just getting his first two touchdowns,” Williams said. “I think his patience is without anything like that, you know, he’s such a great player and things like that.”

“He was great. So we manage to give him those two back shoulder throws. It’s like I said, it’s something that we kind of practiced with the same ball that we practiced this week and that I threw earlier this week. So, you know,” he did a great job and was super excited.

Allen’s TD catch sparked a mock tea party celebration among receivers in the end zone. Allen appeared to be taking the lead, but it wasn’t his idea to pay tribute to the Bears’ British hosts. It was D’Andre Swift’s idea.

“The tea drinking, when we talked about it during that drive, was like whoever scores, we’re going to have the little tea party,” Allen said. “And that was kind of the only thing. We also played the brass band at the end.”

Allen credits Swift’s contribution, which ran for 91 yards on the day, with paving the way for receptions for him and all of the Bears’ pass catchers.

“Oh, it was a huge running game, it came alive,” Allen said. “We had problems in the first few weeks. A lot has come to life.”

Screen play, a lot coming, a lot alive.

And now Allen and the Bears are continuing that gradual activation of their offense that seemed to begin in Week 3 in Indianapolis.

Twitter: BearsOnSI