Luther Burden III, the Bears’ “problem child,” says he was “Touchdown Luther” as a kid and owns the 58-yard catch that ended at the 4: “That’s on me”

Luther Burden III had a simple answer when he was asked about the nickname his Chicago Bears teammates keep giving him. “When I get the ball, it’s gonna be a problem,” the second-year receiver said in the locker room after Thursday night’s 30-24 win over the New England Patriots. “Especially with too much space, might go the distance. You never know.”

Burden caught all four passes thrown his way for 130 yards and a touchdown, and he did it all in the first half. He also revealed an older nickname that explains how he plays with the ball in his hands. “My nickname when I was a kid was Touchdown Luther,” he said, “because I just take the little stuff, the stuff you don’t think will go to the crib. It just goes to the crib.” The Bears posted the locker-room session on their YouTube channel; Burden speaks from about the 8:55 mark.

“That’s on me”

Burden’s biggest gain of the night was a 58-yard catch down the left side late in the first quarter. Safety Kevin Byard ran him down at the New England 4, and D’Andre Swift scored on the next snap. Asked whether he thought he was going to score on that play, Burden owned it. “I told my teammates, that’s on me. I suck for that,” he said. “So I gotta get you back. I got you.” He also gave Byard credit: “That was a good tackle by KB.”

He got them back before halftime. With 14 seconds left in the second quarter and the Bears facing third-and-17 from the New England 24, Caleb Williams threw a screen to Burden on the right side. Burden followed a wall of blockers and scored to put Chicago ahead 20-7. Tight end Colston Loveland said most of the Patriots’ defensive backs were playing deep, so the blockers had room to leak out. “We had a whole convoy, couple of linemen got out, and then Lou, when he has the ball in his hands, it’s fun to watch, and he’s a problem child,” Loveland said. “So he did what he had to do.”

Williams, who called Burden a “problem child” earlier in the week, repeated it in his postgame news conference. “Luther’s a problem child, and we want to keep getting the ball in his hands,” he said. “I heard that he’s 17 for 17 when the ball is thrown to him so far this season.” In the two games since Williams returned from his hamstring injury, Burden has caught all 12 passes thrown to him, eight for 95 yards in Atlanta and four for 130 on Thursday.

“You gotta be the engine”

Burden said the Bears coaches have given him a specific job. “Coach told me the other day, you gotta be the engine,” he said. “So I gotta get everybody going with my play, because everybody feeds off me.” Asked which coach said it, he answered: “All of them.” Asked why he thinks the team feeds off him, he pointed to “the passion I bring to the game, the energy, the will, the want-to, the fire.”

A reporter told him he is now up to 250 yards after the catch this season and asked what goes through his mind when he catches a short pass and sees open field. Burden laughed. “Oh, yeah. Feed my fam,” he said.

From point guard to slot receiver

Burden also said his basketball background helps explain how shifty he is in the open field. “My coach, his name Coach Pat, told me basketball is gonna translate to football. I didn’t know what it meant, but now I do,” he said. He played point guard, and he said his friends compared him to Russell Westbrook “because I was super fast” and liked to get to the basket and “just play super hard.”

Passing the baton to Rome Odunze

Chicago’s game-winning drive in the fourth quarter belonged to Rome Odunze, who caught passes of 21 yards on third-and-9 and 21 more on the next set of downs before Cairo Santos made a 58-yard field goal. Odunze had been flagged for offensive pass interference on an incompletion in the red zone in the second quarter, and Burden said he went to him after that play. “I told him, you know, stay with it. We’re gonna come back to you,” Burden said. “He lived up to it, and he did it.” Williams said he gave Odunze the same message.

Burden has 35 catches for 491 yards and two touchdowns in seven games this season, and his 130 yards on Thursday were a season high. The Bears, now 5-2, have extra time off before they visit the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, November 2, at 8:15 p.m. ET (3:15 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo).