Windy City Gridiron
The Chicago Bears find themselves riding high after a 38-0 blowout win at home against the Super Bowl-contending Buffalo Bills. As always, any measured thoughts about a preseason game should be labeled with “I know it’s just preseason, but…” There was plenty to like about their Sunday night performance in front of a national audience. The starting offense got two drives and made the most of a 93-yard opening drive to get the fan base excited. The defense played lights out in all three levels of the depth chart. In short, there was plenty to like on Sunday night. For more on Sunday night’s impressive performance, let’s dive into our Five Bears Takes.
1. I’m not sure you could have drawn up a better result for the Bears’ starting offense.
Outside of the holding call on Drew Dalman around midfield, the offense was near-perfect on their opening drive that saw a 93-yard scoring drive end with Olamide Zaccheaus racing 36 yards for the touchdown. It’s something that Bears fans didn’t see at all last year in 17 games. Again, it’s just the preseason, but you have to like what you saw on that opening drive.
Second-year quarterback Caleb Williams looked poised, decisive, and accurate. No. 10 overall pick Colston Loveland had a pair of catches. The offensive line held up well. The list goes on, and almost all of it was positive.
Most importantly, Bears fans needed this. It’s been an uneven camp for the offense, and Williams has been the subject of many headlines around sports talk television and radio. The first week of camp brought plenty of concern. Williams looked like a fish out of water, and the defense was dominating each practice. Without context, it was cause for concern. Then it came out that Ben Johnson and his staff were loading up the offense with everything involved in a complex offense. After 12 installs, things started to slow down for Williams, just as Johnson had predicted. Although the results have still been a mixed bag, there’s been plenty more good than bad over the last two weeks. That all came to a head on Sunday night when Williams went 6 of 7 for 97 yards and a touchdown on the opening drive. Even if the second drive wasn’t as promising, it’s worth noting that there’s little game-planning that goes into preseason games, so this was all about going out and simply executing the offense.
There’s still a long way to go for this group, including establishing their left tackle (more on that in a bit), but Sunday’s performance was a strong step in the right direction and should give fans all the hope they need until they close out Week 1 on Monday Night Football.
2. With just eight days until the NFL’s mandated cut-down to 53 players, there were a few injuries that could alter the team’s projection for their final roster.
Each preseason, we see a handful of injuries for each team that change the...
