Windy City Gridiron
It was a barnburner from start to finish, but the Chicago Bears came away from Sunday with a 47-42 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, improving to 5-3 on the 2025 season.
Both defenses failed to put together solid outings, while both offenses were tremendous in the showdown in Cincinnati. The Bears moved the ball consistently with a dominant run game, and a few key plays on defense in the second half seemingly helped them create separation. But terrible special teams play, an allowed onside kick conversion, and horrible coverage kept helped the Bengals score 15 points in 49 seconds.
Then, Caleb Williams hit Colston Loveland for a 58-yard touchdown.
In genuinely one of the craziest Bears games of all time, Chicago barely came away with the victory. Here are some of the key takeaways from Sunday’s action.
When you have over 100 rushing yards in the first half, you know you’re having yourself a good game. That’s the scenario Kyle Monangai found himself in with his stellar debut as an NFL starting running back.
With D’Andre Swift injured, Monangai took on a massive workload on Sunday, and it paid off for the Bears. He demonstrated impressive contact balance, aggression, agility, and ball-carrier vision to explode through the open running lane and churn through contact to pick up extra yardage. A lot of kudos belongs to the Bears’ offensive line for paving the way up front, as well.
As the final score would indicate, the Bengals’ offense had their way with Chicago’s secondary on Sunday. C.J. Gardner-Johnson deserves credit for his solid game in his Bears debut with little time to digest the playbook, but the defensive backs as a whole struggled to slow down the passing attack. Lapses from the likes of Nahshon Wright and Tyrique Stevenson saw multiple receivers get open for big gains.
That’s not to say the coverage was consistently bad, as there were a few completions where the Bears were pretty tight in coverage. Still, the Bengals’ receivers still managed to come down with multiple grabs in contested-catch situations. Cincinnati spent a lot of money on their receiver room, and it showed on Sunday.
The Bears’ offense was a well-oiled machine on Sunday. Having such a strong run game helped make life easier, as Ben Johnson was able to get his offense moving down the field with ease against a passive Bengals defense. But another factor that played into Chicago’s strong offense was Johnson bringing out some of his special tricks.
Cole Kmet, DJ Moore, and Tyson Bagent all threw passes in trick plays on Sunday. Two of those passes were completed, as Moore hit Caleb Williams in the end zone on a Philly Special, and Bagent hit Williams on a double pass for a 20-yard gain. Kmet’s pass would’ve been complete, had Rome Odunze not bobbled the catch and fell to the ground without possession. Johnson’s...
