Ben Johnson reviews the tape, looks toward Atlanta

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Brought to you by Chevy Drives Chicago, the official truck partner of your Chicago Bears. Through the first five games of the season, the Bears at 3-2 clumped in the hotly contested and deep NFC North with the Packers and Lions all trailing the 5-0 Minnesota Vikings. The Bears 0-2 in the division, so some work to be done after a 31-7 setback at Lambeau on Sunday. We discuss in episode 253 of the Bears Etc. podcast with Super Bowl winning Bears guard Tom Thayer. I'm Jeff Jonigak. Bears, etc.

is brought to you by Chevy Drive Chicago. Chicagoland in northwest Indiana. Chevy dealers coming up as per usual. The day after a game we visit with head coach Ben Johnson. So we'll hear that shortly. Tom, you dug into the tape. What are your immediate reactions? Let's start on the offensive side of the ball and move to defense.

Well, I think as a whole, everything that kind of, you know, you saw during the tape and you get a chance to really slow it down. You get the chance to look at it from a lot of different angles. Everything is correctable. And so that's kind of the encouraging thing and a discouraging performance. I think this is the right coaching staff to.

Get it done.

You have higher expectations for guys that are out there playing a majority of the snaps.

And so that's not lost in the improvement.

But as much as I'm discouraged because I'm a Bears fan lifelong, I don't I want to see them win every game, but I know that's not the case. But when you go back as an ex-player, as an offensive lineman, or how you look at a defense, you just have to make sure there's no problems that are uncorrectable.

And I don't think that's the case at all.

It's going to be a hard week of practice for the players. It's going to be a hard week of practice for the coaches. But a number one is make sure everybody's attitude is pointed in a positive direction. Make sure everybody's willing to make the corrections that need to be made and then get on to your next business at hand. And that's the Atlanta Falcons. So as much as you want to dwell on what happened the other day, you got to make improvements moving forward.

What's non-correctable?

You know, on the offensive line specifically, because that's where I played. If you have a guy that's individually getting beat, play in and play out. If you have a guy that is given an opportunity to play on defense and he is just not up to the competition of an NFL offense. So you just have to take all those things into account because it's very specific corrections. I don't see a lot of mental mistakes and that's the encouraging thing about it.

It's just physical adjustments.

It's maybe a defensive back transitioning into their back pedal a little bit more fluidly. It's just a matter of an offensive lineman making sure that he doesn't open up an opportunity for a defensive player. It's making sure that the right play is called at the right down a distance and the right time in the field. And so one of the things about it, yeah, there's always difficulty in playing at an opponent's stadium, but that's one of the things that you have to grow and overcome.

But when I.

Look at some of the you know, problems that came up, like I said, they're all correctable and they're all coachable. And when you look at this coaching staff, I think every one of these guys are up to, you know, a Ben Johnson, you know, creative system and what they have to do.

This game, as we've discussed, can sometimes be rather simple. It was big plays, give it up, 31, 36, 46, 42-yard touchdown, 53-yard touchdown, and the five turnovers on the offensive side of the ball.

That's the game.

For this particular matchup of Bears-Packers Week 5, that was the story of the game.

Yeah, and the thing about it is, so you go and look at those, I think you just mentioned maybe 11 issues during the course of the game. And then you take them and you break them down very specifically. And whether it's the vision of the quarterback, whether it's protection responsibilities, or it's route foundations. And then if you look at the defensive side of it, Is what do you have to do with more immediacy up front to, you know, put the.

Quarterback in harm's way?

And like I said, it may be the fluidity of a defensive back getting into his transition. You think about the long touchdown pass and you think of Dylan Thineman, be it because he's. turns his shoulders to the right, it's an interception. He turns his shoulders to the left, and it's a touchdown. So you take instances like that, and as such a young player, as a rookie, and having the season of a lifetime, that's just one transition that we're talking about, and that's easily correctable for the immediate future next Sunday or and the rest of his career.

Yeah, the average of those big plays, 43 yards, the other 53 plays accounted for 3.2 yards of play. And if you're allowing 3.2 yards of play over a 53-play game, you're probably winning. Isn't that crazy? You can't separate it. I mean, it happened.

Right, you said it right. You can't separate it.

Those 3.2-yard plays are as correctable as the 53. 25-yard play is correctable. And so you do have to make adjustments. So how can we do more of the 3.2-yard per play and correct the 25-yard per play?

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Tyson Bajan is a handful of NFL starts. I think many analysts look at Tyson Bajan as a guy who's been around a long time. And yes, in the reality of the NFL, you know, 2023 to where we are today, yeah, that's an appreciable amount of time. But actually playing, playing really for the first time in the season here for back-to-back starts, first time in your career since, you know, early on in your career, there's a lot that you have to be, the more you put on tape, the more they know you.

You know, I played three years in the USFL and then I came to the Chicago Bears. I came from a system in the USFL that everything was forgettable the moment I got to the Chicago Bears. The first couple of years of Tyson Bajan's NFL career are forgettable. and now he's being tutored by some of the best offensive coaches that have been in the league in quite a while.

So I think you have to take that.

Into account in probably the most important position in professional sports. It's not going to happen overnight, and it's not going to happen within a season, but the more opportunities, the more reps, the more practices, the more conversations that you have with your coaches, the other quarterbacks on the team, in other position players and other position coaches as well.

That's how you're going to grow into that position.

There's a lot of examples of quarterbacks throughout their career in the NFL that have suffered in the first couple years and they were starters. It's more difficult when you're not getting reps in the actual games to show that growth potential That will take place over time.

And the defensive side of the ball, you have not played a full game with the people you had on paper that you wanted to start the season. That hasn't happened because of injury during the course of the game. Dio, TJ Edwards, Tyreek all leave the lineup. There's new introduction of players going to happen here from week to week.

You've had to pull guys in from other teams. You traded Javon Dexter before the season. I mean, there's so many things. There hasn't been a consistency yet. And it's early. It is very early in the season. But you don't want early to become feeling late. That's the only key.

Well, the guys that are going to get an opportunity to play because of the result of injury, they should be chomping at the bit and relishing the opportunity that they're going to get on the field. There's nothing like a player throughout the course of their career, whether it's year one, year three to year 10, that are getting an opportunity to start in an NFL game. And that enthusiasm has to carry over during the weekend of the locker room and then spill over on game day. Because I see a guy like Noah Sewell, that he plays with an enthusiasm, a speed level that that you can see the desire in him, and you can see the want to and the willingness to do whatever it takes to get on the field. And I think he's shown

it through his rehabilitation, and now that he's getting an opportunity to play in special teams and regular defense.

Shop Steinaufel's Friends and Family Sale and save up to 30% on furniture and home decor, plus get up to $ 300 off. Shop Steinaufel's proud partner of the Chicago Bears. Let's step away and listen in to our interview with head coach Ben Johnson following the loss to the Packers.

All right, thanks, Ben.

Thanks for your time once again. I know you don't sleep much anyway, but did you?

Yeah, you know, it's a disappointing deal traveling back home and going through the tape and getting to watch all that. But, you know, it's one of those things you You learn in this business. You go through some of those games sometimes. And fortunately, I've been on the other end, too. And those are the fun ones. But you get punched in the mouth like this. And I can't wait to see how our team responds. It's still so early in the season that I know we've got the right mix of guys.

It's a prideful group. and we'll handle this the right way.

You're about as competitive of a person I've ever met. Are you also looking forward to seeing how you respond?

Oh, I know how I'm going to respond. You know, this is kind of, I relish this. I've told a you get a setback and you get your back against the wall a little bit. I think that's when the best come, come out of a lot of us. And so, uh, I kind of see it, see it that way.

You know, you know, teams have great players, but is inconsistency, uh, one of the worst things for a coach to have to witness and to correct over a period of time? Yeah.

I mean, I, I, I see what you're saying. Um, We certainly don't want up and down play. We want guys that we can count on and are reliable. There's no doubt about it. And yet, I don't know that that was the entire culprit in that game the other day.

Yeah, I'm thinking more big picture.

Yeah, yeah. I suppose that is something that we really put a lot of value on. The guys that we can trust are normally the ones that are the most consistent.

Are you a what-if guy?

Not usually. Yeah, I think we either get it done or we don't.

When you talked about something last week, I think, you're always trying to fix something, and that resonated with me, that this really is the job because nothing is consistent. There's always some wrinkle. Do you have to always put your hard hat on and go into the repair shop?

Yeah, because, I mean, there's never been a perfect game played, so I think as coaches you're always– striving to find ways to make your guys better in every facet. For us coaching the team right now, obviously, we didn't have our best showing. I think we learned a lot about our group, though. It's a different team than it was a year ago. Yet, there's some areas that if we get put in a similar situation when we're in a fight and we get punched in the mouth, how do we go about correcting that so that we can make it into a ball game. We had opportunities to get back into that game, and we just didn't take advantage of it. So something that we were able to address today and talk about as a coaching staff and with

a locker room and what needs to happen for us to go ahead and turn that thing around. So here's what I know. I know we've got a group that's going to fight. They're going to fight until the clock hits triple zeros, you know. What we need is just one or two guys to ignite us and give us the spark. That's what we needed yesterday. It was just a spark to give us some life. And just didn't feel like we quite got that thing done. And of course, when they hit that third and 22 for a touchdown, that kind of sets us back the other direction. So the opportunities are there. And we're going to just encourage a couple of these guys to step to the forefront and put it on their back a little bit.

Fact of the matter is, yes, we always as analysts looking and the, you look at the guys that are decorated or have the highest salaries, but the fact of the matter is any one of your guys could be the igniter. Once that happens, that's when you have true growth.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think there were a number of plays out there that could have been made that, that would have been, you know, game altering in a type of way, but you know, end of the day here is what I said after the game is we had, Five turnovers, you're not going to win many games like that.

You really weren't clicking on offense, and that's going to be a struggle for your team. And then defensively, we gave up way too many big plays. And so the critical things that we look at, the turnover battle, the third and fourth down conversion rate, the passing efficiency metrics, we weren't anywhere near where we needed to be in any of those.

If you zoom out, though, back up quarterbacks, 2-1. The agents only had six NFL starts. There is things that are going to pop up no matter what. The experience level is a part of that, right?

For that position, I certainly understand what you're saying.

Doesn't mean you accept it.

No, absolutely not. We've got to play better there and we've got to play better up front. We've got to play better at the skill positions. It was everything. We've got to coach better too. I didn't I didn't put my best foot forward either. I'll be the first one to tell you that. As a collective, like I said, we win together, we lose together. We all got to find a way to improve here.

Why do you say that about yourself though? I know you're the head coach.

It's a number of factors, but when you look at that offensive plan, when it doesn't work like that and we can't get in a rhythm, the play calling, the sequencing, all those things. There's There's a number of things that you look back and you reflect on and you learn from, and hopefully we get this thing squared away and right back on the right track here shortly.

Three defenders left the game. We'll not talk about their status, but individually, if you go through how Dio has been impacting the game, TJ Edwards and Tyreek.

Yeah, I mean, all three are playing key positions for us, and Dio– feel his presence more as the interior pass rusher. I think he probably leads the team in terms of affecting the quarterback from inside. Certainly on second along and on third down, you feel him the most. His length shows up. TJ, he's the green dot for a reason.

Elite communicator. You hear him out on the field. He's getting everything set up and communicated for us and So losing him for any length of time will be a big, big challenge. And then, and then Tyreek, you know, he, he goes out there and he battles, he challenges and he's not afraid to get in your face and, and jump Jamie a little bit and mix it up. And so, which is what we want our corners to do. We want them to come up and get hands on and make things challenging coming off the line of scrimmage. So all three of those guys were, were playing big parts of our defense and you know, it'll be someone else stepping up. Maybe that's a Shamar Turner coming off PUP, you know, time will, time will tell, but we've got, uh,

we've got some opportunities out there for other, other individuals.

And you, you know, we could, Manon guy, you feel his presence when he's on the field. Yeah. That's a, that's a, it's.

A tough one. You know, that you, that you mentioned him cause you just talking with the coaching staff. He's one of those guys.

Fire starter.

Yeah. You, you, you feel him ignite those around them. And so, um, certainly missed that in a game like yesterday, and yet there's other guys that are capable of doing the same thing. We're just going to continue to encourage and see if we can't foster a little bit more of that. It doesn't have to be a running back.

It can be any position and anybody. We'll see what we can come up with.

Down to Atlanta. We touched on it on our ESPN interview, the greatness of B. John Robinson, the multidimensional player. That's a big ask Brian Robinson, that's a big, tough physical runner, but Drake London on the outside, he reminds me of Mike Evans, frankly.

Would you agree?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, these guys are all top ten picks for a reason. Supremely talented. You can throw Kyle Pitts in the mix, too. He's a little bit of a unicorn in terms of what he can do at his position. And then the way that the quarterback has looked since he's come back from his injury, it makes the offense a completely different animal and And a big, big challenge.

We'll see what his health status is going into this next one. But certainly those skilled players are some of the best in the business right now.

And you had circled Evan Williams and Xavier McKinney last week. And here we got Jesse Bates and Xavier Watts as a safety tandem.

Yeah, yeah.

And really smart, heady, instinctive players that they find a way to be around the ball. And so I want to say Watts. Had a ton of interceptions there at Notre Dame, if I remember right, and it's kind of carried over to the NFL as well. And then Bates has been doing it at a high level for a long time now.

Good luck this week.

Yep, thank you.

Appreciate it. First, let me hear from you what you thought about what he had to say.

You know, I think he understands the reality of this scenario. He's been a part of these types of losses before in his career, and he's been a part of some really big victories. And I don't think Ben is lost in the fact that they're going to continue the process that he's been putting in place since the moment he got hired. And I think that's the right way to go about business. You never want to pull the panic alarm again. and think you're going to start changing things up and down the offensive play calling formations, personnel groupings.

It's about improvement and it's about putting the improvement responsibility both on the coaches and the players. And that's the right way to go about business. And so he's been in coaching long enough now to see the ups and the downs. And I think he's been in coaching long enough as an assistant coach, as an offensive coordinator, and as a head coach now to make the corrections team-wide to make sure everybody takes a responsibility of what they do in the future.

Hey, how he's going to respond, you know? I'm interested to watch that. Because he drills down deep. He's already analyzing the first five games of the season to see what is contributing maybe to the inconsistency, what's going on. And then the fire starter, Kyle Manung guy, is definitely one of those guys. When I said anybody can be, it is true. But, you know, I've circled sports. that I would consider that already, and we've seen it throughout the course of the season. Dylan being one of them.

Devin Bush, for sure. Colston, whether it be a block or a big catch. So there's plenty, and you don't have to be the highest paid guy. You could be the 53rd man on that roster on game day. or the 46th man on game day to be that fire starter. It doesn't take much to start a blaze, Tommy.

Well, listen, I still think guys like Cole, Kalief, Raymond, and DeAndre Swift are fire starters. And then when you look at on the defensive side of the ball, I think there's a lot of fire starters that Dennis Allen may have to play at a moment's notice because That's the way injuries have happened over the last couple years.

So I like that term fire starter because I think they're super important in the locker room. And you may have some fire starters that their fire starts a little bit slower, like Jonah Jackson, like Joe Tooney, like Garrett Bradbury, Darnell Wright, all the other guys, and the whole offensive line who's ever got an opportunity to play so far.

Just remember, it was a 14-7 game with a minute 53 to go in the half.

Yep.

And I think he was cognizant of that as well when you talked to Ben Johnson today.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Chevy Silverado, the official truck partner of the Chicago Bears. Check out a Chevy Silverado at your Chicago land in northwest Indiana.

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Chevy drives Chicago. All right, let's look at the defense again because Jordan Love had five completions of 30 or more air yards. Hadn't been done in the league since Big Ben in 2015. And he's now had two touchdown passes each of the first five games. So that is his game. If you're not pressuring him, getting off his spot, if he's just arching back and letting it rip, that's going to be the result. So as part of that, yes, you want coverage to be better. You got to put a roof on the top. But the pressure has to be more consistent. And he was killing the Bears on first down, 13 of his first 14 completions for a lot of yards. How do you rationalize all that defensively?

I do think you have to be more destructive. You have to be in Jordan Love's space because with that anticipated speed, he has the ability to throw the ball into an area and allow the receiver to run to it. But I think with the creativity of a guy like Dennis Allen and the variety of fronts he can play, He can move people around to set some guys free, to overload the line of scrimmage, to make sure that they have more bodies up front than they do have blockers.

And so when you have an opportunity to take some chances, you're going to have to take them. But it's about the defensive front seven, front eight at times that are being able to put— destructive pressure onto the quarterback to put him in a drop back to interfere with his throwing foundation that will help decrease the number of those opportunities.

But still, everybody's going to face that same speed along the way with the Green Bay Packers. and the anticipation by Jordan Love. It's going to be about the defensive coordinators making sure that they have to take some chances about getting pressure to the court. It doesn't necessarily have to result in a sack, but if you put that quarter in a backpedal and you interfere with his throwing ability, that's when you create an incompletion or an interception.

Yeah, the highest rate of play action he's had all season long. Interesting enough, they ran a little. They weren't Great. They're the worst running offense in football. But play action can still happen without the running game percolating and using the tight ends like they did a lot of 12 and 13 personnel in their package as well against the Bears' base defense. So it's interesting, this whole play action thing.

As an old school football fan, you know, you always thought, well, you got to have a running game really going for it to work. But not necessarily in today's game.

To me as an ex-offensive lineman, Jeff, play action is an offensive lineman's favorite friend because you don't necessarily have to sustain a block for two seconds, three seconds, or four or five yards downfield in order to open up a running game or have a straight drop back passing game. Because of the deception of the quarterback coming from under center, there's a hesitation in the linebacker and then your offensive line gets to be more aggressive. So if there is some vulnerabilities and susceptibilities within the offensive line, play action is their best friend.

Tommy Austin Booker on that series, he's the only player in the NFL this season with back-to-back sacks on back-to-back plays. And I know he has mentioned it apparently that he'd like to have more snaps. And with more snaps comes more production. That was his statement as he met the media today. So you earn that, obviously, with the production.

So One goes with the other. It's, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg, right?

Well, you know, Ben wants more production out of him as well, and he has said so. But the thing about Austin Booker, he has that skill level. You look at the first sack, it was a left-handed stab to the left tackle that put him on a retreat.

He disengaged and made the sack.

The second sack he got, he had a good position on the left tackle, but then the left guard came and tried to take a shot at Austin Booker and kind of slingshotted him, sprung him around the corner to get the sack. So I think he had two different rushes, Two different opponents, but the same result.

I'm just glad we're talking about him. That means good things.

He's still a young player.

Still a young player.

And, you know, two training camps in a row now he's had a hiccup injury where he's lost a little bit of time. So I really think right now he's starting to get into what he has the capabilities of being in the work that he put in in the offseason.

Good news.

Chicago United Airlines is getting brand new planes with all the bells and whistles, light Bluetooth connectivity, screens at every seat, and room for everyone's roller bag. United proud to fly the Chicago Bears and you too. Let's go to the Bears offense. Green Bay was very productive, man. Four sacks, nine quarterback hits, eight tackles for loss, eight pass breakups, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and of course the three interceptions. So a lot to delve into with the way the Packers played defense against Tyson Bajan and Case Keenum. Overall, Swift with 13 touches for 73 yards, but rhythm was missing, would you say is a fair thing?

Oh, 100%. And I think Ben made note of that as well. I think when you fall into the rhythm of the play calling, it's because one thing is complimenting the next.

You never were able to compliment each other.

You didn't compliment the passing game with the run game or the run game to the pass game. Now it was trying to call plays and strike a match some way, shape.

Or form.

And when you're not able to fall into that rhythm, then it just makes everything more difficult from the blocking for the offensive players to finding a receiver to even the play calling.

I'm not going to get into this in the true sense because this is seemingly low-hanging fruit every time that we can go back to years of this, how the targets happen through the course of a game. It's not intentional that somebody's not getting the ball. It's the flow of the offense. It's if you hit your first read or you hit your third read or your fourth read.

But through five games, Colston is 13 catches, 110 yards, no touchdowns so far. It didn't get started for him until mid to late season last year. Really came on the last six games, including the playoffs. He's got many responsibilities and they got to find him too. But, you know, there's a lot that gets into that. So I don't want to criticize it in any way. But is that something?

To me, it's a secret weapon still yet to be untapped. And maybe a not so secret weapon because everybody knows he's got great skill.

Well, I think there's plays of significance that he's been missed as a receiver. If you look at the second play of the game, they checked it down an outlet pass to DeAndre Swift. If you look at 16-yard in cut, you're going to see Colston Loveland.

That's all alone.

So you have to have the proper protection that provides the route sites of lengthier routes. And that's what Colston Loveland's capabilities are. He can run routes from 12 to 18 yards. And sometimes that means you have to have sustained protection for up to two and three quarters to three seconds.

I will say the blocks continue to impress from Cole Komet and Colston Loveland. Cole on the touchdown run to Swift. Colston, a couple of chip blocks that caught unsuspecting edges from a side smack that they didn't see coming. So you would think that the Bears have put enough of that on tape that guys are going to have their head on a swivel on the defensive line. That's not been the case.

Well, I think there's different personnel matchups now because they're so aware of the blocking ability of the Bears' tight end position. So I think the personnel matchups are a little bit more big guy to big guy when Cole and Colson are in the game.

But now if.

You get some of those receptions that you talk about, that may take the big guys off the field and put little guys in coverage responsibilities. So I just think that's the early season chess game that they're going through.

And I know Ben will figure it out.

Get your operations across the goal line with Granger count on nearly one and a half million products from the brands you trust and a distribution network that delivers in the clutch call, click Granger.com or stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. Special teams, Vivian Thomas had him on offense. A couple of plays had a 13 yard run. I believe a six for one 92 in the kick game. That's 32, a kick 61, the long one with Blackwell, Sanborn, Sewell helping out on the, blocking.

On that one.

We saw the best of Xavier and Thomas so far this season.

Yes, we did.

But, you know, he also committed to the path. And I've spent my whole career on kickoff return, and that's the unique trait of great returners. You want to look up and down the board as they commit to the path. The opening play of the Super Bowl when you called Devin Hester, you saw it. He was going to make a guy miss, and then the next thing in sight was the goal line.

And I think Xavier Thomas, he.

Learned an incredible lesson that's going to last him a career this past week. Two weeks ago, tried to go lateral. It's hard in the NFL speed. Here, you commit to a straight-ahead path, and then you're getting those 30-plus-yard returns and a big return like he did. So I'm really excited to see where his future was. And Xavier Thomas, the calmness in which he caught that punt with later in the game and how difficult– The wind was making it for all punt returners and all kickers and all specialists.

That's super encouraging to me as well.

50-yard-plus punts are becoming common now for Torrey Taylor. Would you agree he's off to the best start of his career?

Yeah, you know, the thing that really kind of holds Torrey back from banging punts is the field position. Because if they're within the 50, they're within the 30, he can bang a punt easily into the end zone.

But it's his control.

As a partner, making sure that he gets the hang time with the distance to keep it in the field of play to create the longest field possible. And that's what, you know, Torrey's unique ability and traits are is to protect the football, to keep it in the field of play.

All right, Atlanta on the docket at the Mercedes-Benz Dome. Got the end of the Baltimore Raven game. Let's talk the offense. Tommy Reese, play caller, wide zone, play action. A lot of under center, multiple tight ends, things that we see commonplace now. Michael Penix, though, running it is a different story. A great athlete, a rifle for an arm, got banged up at the end. He had an MRI on Monday. It looks like it's no broken ribs or anything like that. But still, rib injury for a quarterback is painful.

I mean, bruised ribs can sometimes be as painful as broken ribs. And the thing about it is, do you have to put a flak jacket on that you're not comfortable with? That's padding around the ribs underneath his jersey. And sometimes it makes quarterbacks a little bit more cumbersome. But if you have an opportunity. This is football. To get physical with him, you may discourage his long-distance throws a little bit by something like that.

But he's a heck of a quarterback. They have a heck of an offense.

But it's going to be a major game on a major day. And they're going to have the luxury of being at home. Field conditions are going to be perfect. 68 degrees outside temperature for that day in Atlanta. So it's not going to be abusively hot. And, um, but they still have a dynamic offense.

Yeah. Uh, they had the, the dome open yesterday. I'm assuming they'll have it open then.

Well, one of the few times they have had the opportunity to have it open and they did it because the temperature was in the sixties.

Yeah.

Uh, let's talk about Bijan. He's a game plan player. Uh, there's no other way around it, both by air and by land. Uh, I know you made quite the comparison to him on the TV show, Bears game night live on Fox on Sunday night. You mentioned a combination of Gale Sayers and whom?

Barry Sanders.

I don't think you can get higher praise than that.

It frightens me to say that.

Yeah.

Wow.

He is a great football player. You knew that ever since he's come out of college. He had to get into the right system and the right complimentary pieces around him, and he has that. So, Bijan, the whole running back position with the other Robinson they have there, and so... They have a one-two punch, a lot like the Bears running game.

And Drake London is the size of a Mike Evans. He's looking like a little Mike Evans right now. That's high praise. 10 third down catches, first downs. That's tied with Mike Evans for number one in the NFL. Just a very productive player, a danger zone. Another game plan player, I would say.

And he's got a really positive attitude. He likes playing the game. He has fun out there. He's willing to go up and make some catches that you have the threat of being injured when you all, when you eventually hit the ground. So yeah, you got to watch out for Drake London. He's going to be, he is a one heck of a football player. And when you're complimented by offensive line of scrimmage, running back concerns, sometimes that gets you into some favorable coverages.

Defense headed up by Jeff Albrecht, a very well-known and promising defensive coordinator. Been in the league for a while. A flex 3-4 defense, Tommy, with a lot of pressure. They'll blitz. They'll rush five. They got a great safety tandem, in my opinion, in Xavier Watts and Jesse Bates. Nine different players have combined for their 11 sacks. They've got specialists out there. Then they're missing their top two pass rushers, so They're still making stuff happen defensively. What's your thought?

If the safeties are the leading tacklers in this football game, the Bears are winning.

And then in the special teams game, they've got three returners. Zachariah Branch is a rookie out of Georgia. Very good player. He had a 66-yard kickoff return erased by a penalty this season. Olamide Zaccheaus also on kick return. And Brian Robinson. He's got almost a 30-yard average on kick return this season, Tommy, with a long of 40.

Yeah, you know, thankfully they can only have one on the field at a time unless they got a dual kickoff return system. So, yeah, I mean, I think the Bears special teams are up against anybody. And they are a physical group. They're fun to watch, the Bears special teams. And, you know, I think that's about as even of a contest as you can get.

How do you tell a cashier you're a Bears fan without telling them you're a Bears fan? With the Chicago Bears PNC Bank Visa Debit Card, which gets you exclusive discounts on Bears merchandise. Find out more at pnc.com slash bearscard. Won't know who's going to play quarterback until later in the week. It'll be a big mystery, I should say, up until the end of the week. So we'll be waiting for that. We'll have another podcast this week as well.

All right, Tom, that's it for us. For Tom Thayer, I'm Jeff Joniak. Thanks for listening, everybody. Please subscribe now to the Chicago Bears official app, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bear down, everybody.

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