As the Chicago Bears’ offense took the field with 4:21 left in the first quarter, Caleb Williams pitched a snap to running back D’Andre Swift then squared up to assess the defense.

Williams waited for a pitch back that seemed to hang, winding up and then mailing a pass 47 air yards down the left sideline.

Rookie Luther Burden III caught the heave and powered the rest of the way to a 65-yard score.

The Bears had already scored on a wide-open, 35-yard Rome Odunze catch earlier in the quarter. Now, before the first quarter expired, Williams had thrown touchdowns of 30-plus yards on consecutive snaps. This was a game plan very much by design.

“We have gadgets up every week, I give the staff a lot of credit,” Bears head coach Ben Johnson said after Chicago’s 31-14 win that was more lopsided than the final box score suggested. “They’re going through, they’re watching the tape and they’re finding out things that may or may not fit.

“Whether it was Dallas this year or some of the stuff we were watching of Chicago’s defense from yesteryear … that was really a staff find and we worked it all week and felt really comfortable calling it this week.”

A film study of Dallas’ Week 2 overtime win against the New York Giants showed plainly: Big plays are the Cowboys defense’s Achilles heel.

New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson hadn’t dinked and dunked his way to 450 yards and three touchdowns a week prior. Wilson had scorched the Cowboys for seven completions of 20-plus yards including three scores.

Fielding a more athletic quarterback still building toward his prime, the Bears realized they could exploit that and more.

So Chicago practiced the flea-flicker deep dive all week … with mixed results.

Williams underthrew Burden on some practice reps and altogether missed him on others. Even so, quarterback told receiver to keep hauling: “You won’t outrun me in the game. Just run.”

When the time came, Burden ran. And Williams hit him.

The Cowboys shouldn’t have been surprised.