Windy City Gridiron
It feels like at the end of each game, Chicago Bears fans collectively say, “It wasn’t pretty, but they got the win.”, and it’s hard to feel differently after Sunday’s fourth consecutive win at Soldier Field. At this point, a win is a win, but at some point soon, you’d like to see the Bears be able to string together a quality performance from all three phases. No matter how they get there, in the end, this is a 4-2 team that is no longer in last place. With a pair of challenging road games upcoming, the need for good football is paramount. For now, we’ll enjoy their fourth straight win and look ahead to what’s next in Week 7’s installment of 10 Bears Takes.
1. Similar To Week 6, There Were Plenty Of Storylines Surrounding This Game. The One I Was Most Interested In: The Battle Of Two Former Oklahoma Teammates.
Week 7’s matchup at Soldier Field wasn’t short on storylines. Whether it was the battle of two first-year head coaches, Dennis Allen’s first “return” against the Saints, the Bears’ house of horrors against New Orleans, or Caleb Williams versus Spencer Rattler, there was much more than met the eye on the surface.
In the end, the Bears got the win, and that had to feel suitable for a variety of reasons, but neither former Oklahoma signal caller played well. We’ll dive into Williams’ performance more in a bit, but for now, let’s focus more on Rattler. Despite his two touchdown passes to Chris Olave, his day was overshadowed by a three-interception performance, in which he took four sacks. Some of those sacks happened to be in big spots.
Without stating the obvious, the expectations for the two quarterbacks are going to be inherently different purely based on draft position. Even so, it’s hard to imagine either quarterback felt great about their performance in Chicago. Rattler’s future in New Orleans is still debatable, with much of that depending on where they finish the season and how it relates to their draft positioning. For Williams, he is the future, and simply put, he needs to play a lot better than he did on Sunday.
Moving on to other storylines, this one had to feel good for the former Saints head coach, Dennis Allen. Outside of a few lapses on two drives, his unit dominated, and frankly, embarrassed his former team most of the day. Before New Orleans’ final offensive drive of the first half, their offense had fewer total yards (four) than the Bears’ defense did tackles for loss (five). As impressive as this unit’s ability to force takeaways every week is, they still aren’t getting after the quarterback as much as they need to, but they now lead the league with 16 through six games. It was good to see four sacks, but only one of those came from a defensive lineman (Montez Sweat).
Assuming the defense can continue to play at this level, it feels like a matter...
