PRO FOOTBALL : THE COMEBACKS : McMahon Does Magic Again and Bears Beat Chiefs, 31-28

Jim McMahon seldom does things by design, but somehow he makes it work.

For the second straight week, McMahon brought the Chicago Bears from behind, throwing two touchdown passes to Willie Gault in the final quarter and lifting the Bears to a 31-28 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.

“It’s not what we planned,” McMahon said. “But it shows character and sends a message to the rest of the clubs in the league that you may get the Bears down but not out.”

McMahon’s second scoring pass to Gault was 38 yards with 4:44 left, completing Chicago’s comeback from a 14-point deficit.

McMahon, 24-0 as starting quarterback over the last three seasons, completed 23 of 34 for 287 yards and 3 touchdowns in his first start in nearly a year. He rallied the Bears (6-1) with a no-huddle offense in the final quarter.

“I went to the hurry-up because we know what we’re doing and and it keeps the other team off balance,” McMahon said. “I was happy because I started throwing right away. They had stopped our running so I decided to throw.”

Leading, 28-24, the Chiefs (1-6) drove deep into Bears’ territory before Chicago’s Dave Duerson recovered a fumble by Christian Okoye--who gained 93 yards in 22 carries--on the Bears’ 21 with 9:16 left.

McMahon guided the Bears 79 yards in 9 plays, capped by his second scoring pass to Gault.

“Two plays earlier, I dropped a pass that was on the exact same route,” said Gault, who caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from McMahon with 13:23 left in the game to close to 28-24. “I hope we don’t do this much more. I can’t stand these exciting Sundays.”

Last week, McMahon came off the bench to lead the Bears past Tampa Bay, 27-26.

“We’ve won a lot of games in a lot of ways and the defense has won 90% of them,” Coach Mike Ditka said. “Today we had some breakdowns on defense so you have to give credit to the offense and the special teams.”

The Bears, tagged for 21 first-half points, gave up a 43-yard touchdown pass play on a flea-flicker from Kenney to Stephone Paige with 11:43 left in the third quarter to fall behind, 28-14.

Kansas City built a 14-0 lead in touchdown passes by Kenney of 29 yards to Carlos Carson and 15 yards to Jonathan Hayes, but Chicago’s Dennis Gentry returned the kickoff 88 yards for a touchdown.

Chicago tied the score on McMahon’s 28-yard scoring pass to Cap Boso, but Kenney’s four-yard scoring pass to Larry Moriarty as the half ended gave the Chiefs a 21-14 lead and the flea-flicker made it 28-14 on the Chiefs’ first possession of the second half.

“There is no guarantee in this business,” Kansas City Coach Frank Gansz said. “We played hard and we fought hard but they have some weapons in their arsenal.”