The Chicago Bears defensive line has been a sore spot all season. They haven’t rushed the passer well, and the run defense isn’t much better. So you can imagine the last thing they needed was injury setbacks. Sadly, as has been the case this season, the bad luck followed like clockwork. Multiple players left the game on Sunday in Baltimore. The updates are not good. Shemar Turner, the team’s 2nd round pick out of Texas A&M, has torn his ACL. He will miss the rest of the season. If that weren’t enough, Dominique Robinson also suffered a high ankle sprain. He will likely miss a few weeks.

This is exactly what the Bears couldn’t afford. Their depth was already questionable on the edges. Now it’s alarmingly thin. Their only source of good news is that Austin Booker is finally coming off Injured Reserve. He should be ready to go for Sunday in Cincinnati. Either way, it’s a virtual certainty the Bears will be adding to their defensive line room at some point in the near future. The only question is whether it will come strictly from free agency or perhaps a trade ahead of the November 4th deadline.

The Chicago Bears have limited options on the free agent market.

They could bring back Tanoh Kpassagnon after releasing him from the practice squad. DeMarcus Walker is available. Bringing him back might give the room some juice. They could also try luring Shaq Barrett out of retirement. Barring that, their only viable course of action is the trade market. Both the Dolphins and Jets appear to be potential sellers based on their current records. It comes down to how much they’re demanding for top names like Bradley Chubb, Jermaine Johnson, and Jaelan Phillips. The Chicago Bears might be desperate at this point, knowing it’s been a challenge to pressure the quarterback this year. GM Ryan Poles and head coach Ben Johnson will likely converse with defensive coordinator Dennis Allen about it in the coming days.

The Chicago Bears pass rush has been a mess this season. Montez Sweat has been fine. Everybody else? Not so much. Dayo Odeyingbo was completely ineffective in Baltimore, which is pretty much what it’s been like all year. Grady Jarrett hasn’t stayed healthy. Gervon Dexter has had a rollercoaster year, running hot and cold. They can’t get to the quarterback nearly enough. Frustrations are made even worse by the puzzling absence of Austin Booker. The former 5th round pick had a terrific start to the preseason. Sadly, a knee injury landed him on Injured Reserve, meaning he was out for a month.

His practice window opened almost three weeks ago and he’s been listed as a full participant since last week. Yet Booker remains MIA. It’s led many to wonder if the knee isn’t responding as hoped. If the Bears don’t activate him by Tuesday, he must stay on IR for the rest of the season. The deadline is almost at hand. Thankfully, Brad Biggs provided an update. It appears Booker will be activated within the next 24 hours, rejoining the team in advance of their trip to Cincinnati.

Austin Booker is expected to finally rejoin the 53-man roster before Tuesday’s deadline.

He’s coming back at a potential time of need. Defensive ends Shemar Turner (knee) and Dominique Robinson (ankle) both left the game and did not return. Turner and Robinson have been regulars in the rotation and once they were out, Daniel Hardy got a little more run. Now, Booker, who suffered a knee injury in preseason, can jump back in and likely get action.

Austin Booker has a chance to establish himself.

One fortunate part of the Bears’ pass rush woes is that it kept the door open for him to get a serious opportunity. Whether he does something with it remains to be seen. The Bears loved his progress in the summer. He looked stronger and more explosive. His high motor feels like something they need. Whether it matters is up to him. Austin Booker didn’t have much of an impact last season, collecting 10 pressures and 1.5 sacks in 154 snaps. How he performs over the remaining ten games will go a long way in determining what the Bears do next offseason. Right now, pass rusher must be at the top of their needs list. A strong performance from him might shift their focus elsewhere. Either way, his return could be a missing ingredient they’ve lacked.

A 30–16 loss to the Baltimore Ravens has left the Chicago Bears with plenty of questions and even more frustration. Let’s break down the winners and losers from this rough outing.

Winners

Joe Thuney

Not much to say here—Thuney is just awesome. He’s the definition of consistency and deserves some recognition.

Jake Moody

Cairo Santos can’t be the Bears kicker moving forward. His weak leg cost them three points, and that 58-yard attempt falling short was flat-out embarrassing. Even if Santos is a team captain, I’d go back to Jake Moody. In 2025, you need a kicker who can drill 58-yarders with ease.

Rome Odunze

Rome caught 7 of 10 targets for 114 yards. Yes, he had another drop—something that’s becoming a bit of a theme—but his connection with Caleb Williams continues to stand out. The interception came when Williams stared him down, but overall, that chemistry is very real and promising.

Losers

Caleb Williams

That’s now three rough games in a row for Caleb. He hasn’t looked good, plain and simple. The pressure in Chicago is mounting fast, and he needs to respond next week in a big way.

Ben Johnson

Not Johnson’s best game as a play-caller. He went away from the run game for most of the first half and large parts of the third quarter. Johnson is still an elite offensive mind, but this wasn’t one of his better performances.

Bears Pass Rush

Montez Sweat picked up a sack, but outside of that, the Bears couldn’t generate consistent pressure. They let the quarterback get way too comfortable all game long.

Theo Benedet

Rough day for Benedet. The Bears still have a legitimate question mark at left tackle, and this game didn’t do much to ease those concerns.

Richard Hightower

The special teams unit continues to struggle. Kickoff coverage was bad again, and sticking with Santos proved costly. Hightower should’ve known better—this group needs a shake-up and maybe a new voice.

The Chicago Bears lost 30–16 on Sunday in a brutal, yet all too familiar fashion that fans have seen time and time again. Here are my biggest takeaways from the tough loss.

Caleb Williams Needs to Play Better

I know it’s not popular to criticize the quarterback right now, but Caleb Williams was billed as a generational talent — and I just haven’t seen that since he arrived in Chicago. Sure, we’re only seven games into the Ben Johnson era, but I expected things to look different by now.

At this point, Williams doesn’t really have one thing he does at an elite level. I still believe he can turn it around, but if I’m being honest, my gut says he might never live up to the lofty expectations he carried as a college prospect. Time will tell — fingers crossed.

The Bears Are Undisciplined

I can’t remember the last time I saw a more undisciplined Bears team. The penalties are out of control. They currently lead the league in false starts, which is comical, but it’s also killing them. Chicago continues to shoot itself in the foot week after week, and they’re not good enough to overcome that — no team is.

I don’t know why this team can’t get through a game without 10 penalties, but something has to change — and fast.

Turnovers Hid a Lot of These Issues

During their four-game win streak, the Bears racked up 15 turnovers — an insane number — and I think that masked a lot of their problems. Those takeaways covered up offensive struggles and sloppy play that we’re now seeing front and center.

Special teams haven’t helped much either. Outside of Tory Taylor, the coverage on kickoffs has been rough all season, and it was especially bad against the Ravens. Don’t get me started about Cairo Santos. It’s time to turn back to Jake Moody. Also, the defense wasn’t great, but given all the injuries, they did enough to win if the offense had shown up. Since it didn’t, the whole thing fell apart.

Final Takeaways

It’s gut-check time for Chicago. At 4–3, their margin for error is shrinking fast. Next week’s matchup with the Bengals — one of the league’s worst defenses — will be telling. Can this team finally move the ball and find the end zone?

A win to get to 5–3 would calm some nerves, but nothing comes easy in the NFL. Losing in Baltimore just made next week feel like a must-win.

The Chicago Bears had a problem with their pass rush last year. GM Ryan Poles knew this. If he wanted the defense to take a step forward in 2025, he’d have to find it some help. There were plenty of options in both free agency and the draft. Ultimately, the Bears opted to sign veteran defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo to a three-year contract worth $48 million. That works out to $16 million per year. It felt like a lot of money considering Odeyingbo had never really been known as a sack artist, even during his high points in Indianapolis.

Sure enough, that investment appears to be another colossal whiff for Poles. Going into Baltimore on Sunday, the defensive end had nine pressures and one sack in six games. For context, Josh Sweat signed with Arizona, and he has 22 pressures and five sacks. By the end of the game against the Ravens, the Bears defense had three pressures total. Odeyingbo was all but invisible. Keep in mind the team gave up a pretty solid player in DeMarcus Walker to make this move. At some point, you have to wonder what compelled Chicago to let Poles keep his job.

Ryan Poles’ free agency track record is brutal.

There are some high points, to be fair. T.J. Edwards, Tremaine Edmunds, and Kevin Byard have all made quality contributions to the team. However, that is outweighed by some ugly misses. Lucas Patrick in 2022. Nate Davis in 2023. Gerald Everett last year. Now Odeyingbo. It is beyond obvious that Ryan Poles is not great at scouting veteran talent. This also extends to trade acquisitions, such as Chase Claypool and Ryan Bates.

The fact is, this roster is not well-constructed in too many areas. Yes, injuries have played a part, but Ryan Poles has too many misses, such as Odeyingbo, on his resume. It doesn’t help that his hand-picked quarterback is still struggling with basic things halfway through his second season. The Bears extended the GM this offseason because they wanted to keep him in lockstep with Ben Johnson.

It is time to wonder if that was a mistake. Nothing he’s done to this point has justified such a move. If anything, the longer this season goes on, the worse it looks.

For an offense to function at a high level, there must be complete trust between the quarterback and the play caller. That is why the relationship between Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams was always the central focus of this season. Would they be able to mesh? Early signs were promising. Williams started the season with seven touchdowns and one interception in his first four games. However, things have taken a wrong turn since then. After Sunday’s loss in Baltimore, the quarterback has two touchdowns and three interceptions.

What’s worse is that he exhibits many of the bad habits that haunted him last year. He still isn’t comfortable handling pressure, holds the ball too often looking for big plays, and can’t complete passes with any regularity. One can’t help but wonder what this is doing to their relationship. Adam Jahns of CHGO picked up on something noteworthy after the game. It sounded like Williams and Johnson were not on the same page regarding the quarterback’s biggest mistake of the game, leading one to wonder if a disconnect exists between them.

Williams had time after a play fake to running back Kyle Monangai. He bounced between the “L” and “T” in Baltimore in the end zone before firing a pass over the middle to receiver Rome Odunze.

And then cornerback Nate Wiggins undercut his pass and intercepted it.

“It was a good read: Rome man-to-man with the guy that caught the pick,” Williams said after the Ravens’ 30-16 victory at M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday. “I just didn’t give a good ball to Rome.”

Another review of the film might change Johnson’s mind but he didn’t see the play similarly.

“Just in my mind, there might have been another option that we could have gotten to,” Johnson said.

Ben Johnson isn’t throwing Williams under the bus, but he’s coming close.

You can clearly see on the play that Kyle Monangai is wide open as an outlet option. All Williams had to do was check it down for easy yards. There was no need to force the throw to Odunze, especially when it was still only 16-13. The game was still very much winnable. That interception led to a Ravens touchdown, and basically derailed everything. It didn’t help that the penalty issues persisted. Ben Johnson didn’t call out Williams by name, but it was clear from his description of the offense’s problems that he wasn’t happy with the quarterback.

“You see flashes of some explosive plays and some really good things happening, but the penalties, to me, is what stands out, first and foremost,” Johnson said. “We still have some of the pre-snap issues. There is the occasional not getting lined up quite right. There is the occasional not getting the motion quite right. That stuff adds up, and it hurts us. We get away with it occasionally, but it’s just not the way you win in this league.”

The quarterback is the one who gets everybody lined up. He is the one who calls for motions. It wasn’t a coincidence that Johnson mentioned those two things. They are Williams’ responsibility. The head coach knows he can’t come right out and say the quarterback is the problem. It would look really bad. Yet those comments are impossible to misconstrue. Williams was the primary reason for the offensive issues on Sunday. That is not to say the two are at odds, but it’s clear they aren’t on the same page right now.