The Chicago Bears already knew they had their hands full going into Washington. The Commanders are a good, well-coached team led by a dynamic quarterback. They also have one of the best rushing attacks in the NFL, which isn’t great for a Bears defense that is second-worst against the run. Sadly, as has become the case too often this year, the bad news didn’t stop this week. Defensive end Austin Booker, who’d entered his practice window after being on IR for a month, was not activated. He is out for the game. That isn’t ideal for a pass rush with only five sacks.

Somehow, it gets worse.

Kicker Cairo Santos was declared inactive for the game. He’s been suffering from a quad strain that flared up this week. That means the Bears are forced to put their kicking duties in the hands of Jake Moody. The former 3rd round pick had a promising rookie season in 2023, but saw his efficiency dip last year. After a rough start to 2025, he was cut by the San Francisco 49ers. He is 1-for-3 this season, with both misses coming inside 40 yards. It was smart of the Bears to have a backup plan for Santos, but going with Moody felt like a dangerous gamble.

The Chicago Bears must avoid putting this game on Moody.

While the young kicker possesses talent, his psyche is currently in a fragile state. Getting cut by your original team because you weren’t good enough can be difficult to deal with. The Chicago Bears probably hoped he’d be able to spend a couple of months on the practice squad working on his mechanics and regaining some composure. Santos going down now feels like unfortunate timing. Now Moody’s first appearance is primetime, on the road, against a team the Bears are tormented by due to last season. Head coach Ben Johnson doesn’t have a choice. Moody must play. However, he would be wise to do everything in his power to avoid letting this game come down to a field goal. History says that it probably won’t end well for the Bears.

Given their recent luck, we can probably predict how this will turn out. Then again, this season has been full of surprises. Best to let things play out.

The Chicago Bears looked brilliant when they traded for Montez Sweat in 2023. His impact was felt immediately on defense, turning it into one of the NFL’s best over the second half of that season. Through his first 16 games with the team, he had 9.5 sacks and 20 quarterback hits. However, something happened since then. Nobody knows for sure, but in the past 13 games, Sweat has three sacks and nine QB hits. His production dropped by two-thirds. He has one sack in four games to start this season, and fans are getting restless.

People have tried to determine the cause of the problem. Last year, Sweat was battling injuries. You can understand a dip in production for those reasons. However, by all accounts, he’s healthy now, but the numbers haven’t returned. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune went digging into the issues. He reached out to multiple executives and scouts around the NFL and asked for their assessments. The replies he got were more than a little alarming. They’re just as baffled by the regression, considering Sweat isn’t showing signs of aging yet.

That said, something is definitely missing.

“You respect a guy like that,” said a senior personnel man for another club. “Guys like that may be having a down year and then — boom — one play and he’s back at it. Speed, burst off the edge, I think all those things are still there. He doesn’t have the production, but what is he facing? What are they doing around him?”

Added a pro personnel director for another club: “Last year, you could blame the injuries and everything. It’s super interesting to me because he’s not impactful. He looks like just a guy, to be honest with you. He’s always been a stiffer guy (because of his length) but he’s been able to play with it. He’s not explosive now. After he came over in the trade, I gave him a difference-maker grade.”

Said a third source, this one a veteran pro scout: “Other than Jerry Jones, who trades elite edge rushers? No one. He’s more smooth than explosive now. He’s still got an extremely athletic body but he’s not as sudden or as explosive.”

The Bears have a tough decision on Montez Sweat if this trend continues.

If he can’t turn things around over the final 13 games of the season, GM Ryan Poles will face an uncomfortable issue. Do the Bears keep him another year in hopes he can figure it out, or do they cut their losses in the offseason and get out from under his contract? Were they to cut him, they’d be on the hook for $18 million in dead cap with $6.9 million in space. Trading him would flip those numbers, but finding a taker might prove difficult if his production remains flat. Losing him, along with Andrew Billings (who is a free agent), would create serious issues up front on defense.

The best-case scenario for the Bears is for Montez Sweat to snap out of his funk. Unfortunately, based on what the NFL execs see, he may have lost his fastball. We all knew that pass rusher was likely on top of the team’s list of priorities going into 2026. This situation merely reinforces it.

Not a single person thought the signing meant much. The Chicago Bears were in the process of trying to improve their team depth. Theo Benedet was a rare player from up in Canada who’d performed well on the All-Star game circuit. He’d done enough to earn the attention of GM Ryan Poles and his scouts, who felt the big tackle had the athleticism and nastiness they preferred. Outside of that, most felt this was a case of a player who might make the back end of the roster and become a decent backup.

Nobody in their right mind thought Benedet would end up becoming the team’s starting left tackle. Yet here we are. Braxton Jones is officially benched. His mistake-filled performance in Las Vegas sealed it. Benedet impressed head coach Ben Johnson throughout training camp, earning the spot as the team’s swing tackle. Now he has a chance to author a new chapter in his amazing story.

The craziest part? There were signs before he even got to the NFL that he was destined to play for the Bears. Adam Jahns of CHGO revealed it.

In 2023, Benedet’s position coach was Dan Dorazio, who passed away last year but was considered one of the best offensive line coaches in the entire country. Derozio coached at Washington in the 1980s under longtime Huskies head coach Don James.

“(Derozio is) a legend in Canada,” Benedet said. “His favorite quote was actually, ‘Nobody who ever gave his best ever regretted it’ — George Halas. He used to always tell us that. So it was kind of fitting that I ended up in Chicago.”

Theo Benedet has no idea of his good fortune.

That season with British Columbia was the last of Dorazio’s career in football. He’d been coaching since all the way back in 1972. He established his reputation in the American college ranks before ultimately relocating to Canada in 1998. There, he molded multiple eventual All-Stars in the CFL, winning four Grey Cup championships. It looked like he’d chosen to retire after the 2020 season. However, British Columbia managed to lure him back in 2023, the final year Theo Benedet was with the program. The timing of this is pretty wild. So many things had to happen for the young offensive lineman to hear those iconic Halas words.

Then he happens to sign with the team Halas built. Football is an amazing sport sometimes. This story could end up becoming one of the best in recent Bears history if Benedet can play well enough to secure the job long-term.

When a team hasn’t quite found its footing yet during a season, having some good luck can never be a bad thing. The Chicago Bears and head coach Ben Johnson didn’t get much of it through the first two weeks. They were beset by several injuries before the season even began, and those absences were felt in the losses to Minnesota and Detroit. However, things seemed to tilt in their direction towards the end of September. Dallas lost star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb early in their game against the Bears. The next week, Las Vegas saw injuries hamper Kolton Miller and Brock Bowers, two of their best players.

It gets crazier. Washington won’t have Terry McLaurin on Monday night. Cincinnati lost Joe Burrow for three months to turf toe. The New York Giants lost Malik Nabers to a torn ACL. Now another prominent opponent on the schedule suffered a brutal setback. The San Francisco 49ers crushed the Bears last season when the two teams met. They may have a harder time in the rematch this December. Having already lost star pass rusher Nick Bosa for the season, they watched the same happen to linebacker Fred Warner, who broke his ankle on Sunday.

Ben Johnson can and should take advantage of this.

Losing Bosa was bad enough. He was the engine of the entire 49ers defensive front. Warner is even worse. He is the heart and soul of their team, not just the defense. Not having him around will make life incredibly difficult for them moving forward. San Francisco still has a great coaching staff. They can mitigate some of the damage, but even they have limits. Ben Johnson is familiar with that team. His Lions put up 31 points on that defense with Bosa and Ward healthy. No doubt he will be eager to enact some revenge now that they’re ailing.

This is before you remember this matchup could have enormous implications for the NFC wild card race. Beating the 49ers could catapult the Bears into the postseason, presuming they’re still alive at that point. One cannot understate the magnitude of this injury. It can be season-altering.

The Chicago Bears bought Churchill Downs in 2022. It became clear they planned to build a new stadium at that point. All that was needed was arranging the necessary finances and clearing the bureaucratic red tape. Three years later, and the team still seems no closer to getting it done. While the Bears have managed to work out an agreement with Arlington Heights on property taxes, the biggest hurdle hasn’t changed. They need assistance from the state to get the necessary infrastructure done.

As we’ve seen, Governor Pritzker and his government have not budged on this issue for years. They believe the Bears are one of the most highly valued organizations in sports. They should be able to fund the project themselves without requiring any public funding. This is the issue that killed any hopes of a downtown stadium for team president Kevin Warren. That is why the Bears pivoted back to Arlington Heights. Hopes are high that something finally gets done next spring. Unfortunately, the Chicago Tribune made it sound like that might be wishful thinking.

This is because the team still hasn’t gotten the original message.

The team since has switched gears to the former Arlington Heights racetrack property it owns and says it now will finance the entire stadium construction cost. There’s just the small matter of needed “public infrastructure” work to make the project feasible.

The estimated cost of that? A whopping $855 million.

That’s according to a consultant’s report commissioned by the village of Arlington Heights and paid for by the Bears. You’ll notice that the figure is not too far below the $1 billion request that torpedoed the Bears’ lakefront dreams.

This page has supported the principle that government generally bears some responsibility to pay for legitimate infrastructure in order to support development sizable enough to generate a big number of jobs and major economic growth. But at some point, depending on the scale, that infrastructure tab begins to morph into subsidy. At $855 million — and let’s be honest, the cost likely will be higher — we think the Bears already are at that point.

The Chicago Bears might have to consider the nuclear option.

It is pretty apparent that the state government is unlikely to budge on this issue unless the team can offer clear indications of a positive return for taxpayers. Stadium projects rarely do that, even if various other events can be hosted there when the Chicago Bears aren’t playing. That means Warren and the McCaskeys have two options. Either they must find a way to foot the bill themselves, or they have to start playing dirty.

Nothing leads to more turmoil in sports than battles over new stadiums. States don’t want to pay for them. Owners don’t want to pay for all of it. In many cases, this leads to a bitter standoff. Several times, the teams have outright left the city for a new home. The Colts and Browns are two examples of this. Using the bluff of moving can often lead to political backlash.

It seems that the only way the McCaskeys may get the reaction they want from Springfield is by threatening to relocate the team. Not just to the suburbs, but out of the state entirely. It’s a cheap tactic, but history doesn’t lie. It works. The key will be whether the Bears are prepared to follow through on the threat.

The Chicago Bears made it to the bye week without letting the season spiral out of control. It came close. Starting 0-2 while including a 4th quarter collapse and a 52-21 blowout loss would’ve done it to other teams. Yet head coach Ben Johnson managed to rally the troops and deliver two scrappy wins. He knew going into the break that he and his coaching staff must prioritize finding ways to shore up their areas of weakness. One of the most obvious is the running game, which currently ranks second-worst in the NFL. Former Bears legend Matt Forte has some thoughts about that.

He understands why Johnson has stuck with D'Andre Swift to this point. The veteran can be so dangerous due to his blazing speed. All you need is one well-blocked play, and he can house it. Unfortunately, his mediocre vision and patience often lead to missed opportunities. Forte believes the Bears might have something with rookie Kyle Monangai, who has flashed in his limited opportunities this season. He told CHGO that he hopes the Bears give him more.

Matt Forte understands the position better than most.

If he says there are limitations to what Swift can offer as the primary back, it might be wise to take his advice. Don’t be fooled by Monangai’s 3.3 yards per carry. That is mostly because of an eight-yard loss he had against Dallas, where he broke four tackles before finally going down. In truth, he has averaged over four yards per carry this season. His strength, contact balance, and vision are big positives, carrying over from what you saw at Rutgers. The likeliest explanation for his lack of chances is his speed. He’s not fast, and Coach Johnson typically prefers backs who have juice.

Still, there has to be a point where the Bears do something. Their current approach hasn’t worked. Matt Forte can see that. Fans can see that. If Swift can’t get things going, maybe Monangai can. Some guys just bring a steady presence to the ground game, even if they lack the home run swing. The 7th round pick has that feel.

The debate between Caleb Williams and Justin Fields was fervent for months leading up to the 2024 draft. Many fans urged the Chicago Bears to forgo taking a quarterback #1 overall, trade down, and accept another haul of draft picks, while keeping building around Fields. Instead, GM Ryan Poles opted to trade the veteran to Pittsburgh, selecting Williams to replace him. It was a divisive move at the time, given that Fields had improved to 7-10 in 2023. There were signs of life. Teammates didn’t want him to go.

In hindsight, Poles made the right decision.

It is already apparent that Williams is the superior passer. He processes faster than Fields did and has already started mastering the difficulty of playing from the pocket. Yet there is one stat that hammers home the vast gulf between the two quarterbacks. Dan Wiederer of The Athletic laid it out. In 38 starts between 2021 and 2023, Fields had 23 opportunities to either tie or win a game in the final eight minutes of regulation or overtime. He was 3-of-23 in those situations (3-of-24 following today’s loss to Denver).

In his 21 games to date, Williams has seen that 11 times. He’s 4-of-11 as of writing this.

That isn’t even the craziest part of the stat for Caleb Williams.

In actuality, it should be 6-of-11. He had two other comebacks that were erased because of massive blunders by the Bears’ defense and special teams. He’d led the go-ahead touchdown drive in Washington that was undone by the Hail Mary. Then he had the Bears in field goal position against Green Bay at home, but the kick was blocked. Two plays out of Caleb Williams’ control stopped him from doubling up Fields’ total in 17 fewer games. That is just bananas to think about.

For all the love Fields got and deserved in his time with the Bears, it always felt like he never got enough criticism for how bad he was in crunch time. His 72.3 passer rating in the 4th quarter is by far the worst of any quarter in his career. Keep in mind that’s even with the benefit of garbage time moments when defenses are playing softer. The backlash from trading him probably wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if his supporters had kept those numbers in mind.