Windy City Gridiron
After almost a whole month since playing at Soldier Field, the** Chicago Bears **faced the New Orleans Saints on Sunday and took home a win. The Bears now have a four-game winning streak for the first time since 2018. What’s more is that before today, the Bears had not beaten the Saints since 2008 under the Lovie Smith era.
With the Bears sitting at 4-2, stacking these wins is crucial for both a young head coach and a team under a new system.
Let’s get into this week’s Windy City Honors awards:
Weakest Link of the Game
The Bears’ offense, specifically the passing game, struggled yesterday. The offense had six trips to the red zone yesterday, but only scored a touchdown on two of them. The chart below, while only accounting for their first five games of the season, is consistent with how the Bears’ offense performed this week, especially in the red zone.
Sophomore QB Caleb Williams also struggled in this game, completing only 15 out of 26 passes, a 58% completion rate, for 172 yards with zero touchdowns and one interception.
While Williams had a rough game, head coach Ben Johnson has explained many times now that the trajectory of this offense and Williams will not be linear.
In his post-game press conference, Johnson said, “Up and down, that’s what we look like. We haven’t hit our stride yet offensively…we’re not complementing our defense on a regular basis. With the number of turnovers we’ve had over the last four games, we should be able to turn those into more points.”
Williams also acknowledged the issues that this offense faced this week in his post-game presser. Williams explained, “I’m going to go back, I’m going to look at the film…I am going to figure this out, especially with some of the explosive plays.”
This offense certainly needs to figure it out, and they will as they continue to take more reps together each week, but they have to get both the passing game and running game in sync.
The Bears still came out with a double-digit win this week, but their current approach of settling for field goals is not sustainable if they want to keep winning games.
Most Valuable Coach (MVC)
Ben Johnson only gave out one game ball in the locker room after the game, and it was to his defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, and for good reason.
Chicago’s defense dominated in this game. They allowed just 44 rushing yards, had four sacks, and four turnovers. They also forced six incompletions on QB Spencer Rattler’s throws, either by batting them at the line or defending them downfield.
In their last four games, they have ten sacks and are 11-for-37 on third-down conversions, which is a 29.7% rate allowed. They lead the league in interceptions with 16 total takeaways and a plus-11 turnover margin through six games due to the Week 5 bye.
Johnson complimented the defense’s performance, attributing it to Allen’s coaching. “Dennis [Allen] does a great...
