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Forward progress the Chicago Bears Podcast with Dan Bernstein and Matt Abeticola on 312 Sports.
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The Chicago Bears have improved to 4 and 2 with a 2614 win at Soldier Field over the hapless New Orleans Saints. Welcome to Forward Progress. This is our live post game here on 312 Sports, brought to you by Beer Church Brewing New Buffalo's Brewery Pizzeria in a historic church Wood fired Neapolitan pizza small batch craft beer brunch every day. Visit beerchurchbrewing.com I'm Dan Bernstein, that is Matt Abaticola and let's just start with, with the good stuff. The Bears on what could have been a very strange game with strange conditions. Everything mitigated by the end of the game. In that regard. They beat a bad team by running the football down their throat. On a day when their quarterback was bad and Caleb Williams was bad. The Bears have racked up 222 rushing yards. Another great game for DeAndre Swift, 124 yards rushing and 19 carries. Kyle Manon guy, 13 attempts, 81 yards and the long rush of the day for them, 24 yards. They did what they had to do. You don't have to win pretty in this league and they certainly didn't.
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Yeah, and then you had a, an explosive play on the run game from DeAndre Swift as well. Guy with 6.2 yards average for his carries today looked like a different running back. DeAndre slip, he looks like a different running back and they're blocking so well and they're moving so well to get up the ladder, get into different layers and blocking from shedding the first block to getting to a second level engagement which is creating some nice holes. I even saw DeAndre Swift burst out of the backfield, slowed down, pulled back for a little patience, a little stutter step and then accelerated again. I mean he's, he's seeing things better than we've saw him seeing holes early in the year. He looks like a better running back. They're blocking definitely better. Obviously when Ben Johnson said we need some time to get together, I really think that's him covering as he covers. For Caleb. It was just about guys being able to pick up the schemes that he wants to call in the run game. He is calling wonderful games and wonderful plays for the Chicago Bears offense. And as the talent gets better and if Caleb can improve in the pocket, this offense is going to be very explosive moving forward.
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And while the talk certainly defensively is going to be about the Fact that they're now leading the NFL in takeaways, I believe they got the. The tipped pick by Tremaine Edmonds, I believe is the 10th interception that they've got this year. And were not for Nishan Wright smashing into his teammate, Kevin Byard would have had another one in what is certainly a Pro bowl season that Bayard is putting together. But I want to single out the play of Montez Sweat because we've been very hard on him and we're not the only ones who've been very hard. He's deserved it. He's earned every bit of it because of the money that he's making to be a top five producer and game effector at the very least at the edge. And boy, he was today where he had the strip sack, the forced fumble. He had another tackle for a loss that mattered late. And then I believe it was Sweat who tipped the ball on that late interception. So he showed up. He was. He made big plays at big important times.
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Yeah, no. And he had. Yeah, he had the sack, the forced fumble and the recovery. So the trifecta on that one particular play starting to show up. And that tip play was actually. It was tipped by Edwards, intercepted by Edmonds. But I'm going to give credit to jamarco Jackson who made that play happen because he read Alvin Camara coming out of the backfield and put him on his ass. That was the first read that Rattler had and he couldn't go there. Forced him to look in the middle, make a quick throw. That was then tipped by Edwards and intercepted by Edmonds. So DeMarco Jackson gets that interception there.
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It was a good catch on your part.
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Dropped him to the ground. It was great.
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Yeah. I want to make sure I wasn't. I was. It was crediting the proper person there because, man, and actually I had Jackson down. As for another pass breakup when New Orleans had in the first quarter of their own 33. I thought Jackson did a nice job timing up a play and I think it might also have been. Been Camara. What happened to Alvin Camara? I don't know.
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I don't know if I know. He's been a little.
A
I'm having trouble hearing your. Your microphone, man. I don't know if you. You. You popped it off for your.
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No, I'm still good to go. You can't hear me here. You hear me or no? No.
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Okay, give me one second. I will say as long as. As long as everybody else can hear us, I'll see if I got a problem. On my end here, but is. I would say that Alvin Camara coming into this game was at 16, 26 carries before today, and usually it's 1500 is about the. About around the time where some of these backs in their early 30s begin to have a drop off. And he just doesn't look the same to me. He doesn't look quick, he doesn't look explosive. He had a couple of whiffs as a blocker. So I'm. This is a guy who was a build your offense around type of back at a time, at least in a partnership with some other runners. But at this point, he's just not. There are all kinds of reasons for Bears concern even after this win and celebrate it. It's spectacular for them to have now won four in a row for the first time in five years, I believe. But Caleb Williams is terrible. I don't know what is going on overall, his timing.
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Stan, can you hear me at all? Because the people in the comments can hear me. So.
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Maddie, I'm.
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It's something with your headphones.
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I'm gonna have to see if I can fix it on my end, but I've, I've got. I've got my audio, but. And I don't know if you're. If you're going out over the. Over the main. Okay, I'm gonna try to fix it.
B
Yeah, thanks for the comments there. People are saying they can hear me, so it must be something maybe on. People are saying they can hear both of us.
A
I don't. Yeah, thanks for the note. I saw that. We hear both of you. What I'm gonna do, Maddie, you run with it. I'm gonna. I'm gonna drop out and dial back in.
B
Yeah, go ahead.
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Do your thing.
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Do your thing. So the Bears get the win here today.
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The.
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As Dan was just saying, the. The fourth row for the Bears, they beat the Saints 26 to 14. You know, the. The play of Caleb Williams, it's just been. Not. Not been what we needed to be. And they're being successful. They're. They're winning. Winning football games right now. Really not because of Caleb Williams. And it's.
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It's not really like he's being a.
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Negative impact on the game either.
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He's just not.
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He's not creating the opportunities or actually we're taking advantage of the opportunities that are there right now that are being created by Ben Johnson. So you're not hearing me still, Danny, you're still not hearing me. All right, well, this is not good. Is your. Let me see Let me just check something here. Hey, Dan, why don't you go ahead and talk? You talk. I'm gonna look at your stuff.
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This is forward progress. The first word of forward progress is forward. And that's all you have to use for your special offer at rug yet r u g I e t.com so you can get back in the game with Rug yet. Back with you post game. Bernstein here. Forward progress. These Saints fall to the Bears because the Saints are bad at football, man. And the It's. I have no problem with the team waxing a bad opponent at home, as they should. And I give Ben Johnson a lot of credit because there is every opportunity for him. And we know that he gets excited about everything he's got in his bag. And he didn't have to dive too deep when he saw the blocking advantage that he had up front. And it was a weird game for Drew Dahlman in several ways. First of all, I don't know what. What the hell is going on. I wrote down WTF a couple times because first of all, the difficulty that he had getting the ball out of his hand and just handing it to his quarterback, I don't get. I haven't seen that happen once in a game in a long time, let alone twice in the same game where the center simply fails to snap the ball. The first time, it should have been called a penalty because a center actually must release the ball. And if he's snapping it, he can't just hold it. And then Try to move forward with it. But they missed the call. They didn't. And the call would have helped them there. And then they ended up getting the break on that where there was no play. And they're able to get a field goal out of it. Jake Moody, 4 for 4, 8 of 9 so far as a Chicago Bear. And this is. This is the kind of thing where Dalman redeemed himself, I thought was some of those trap plays they were running with that little C lead where he popped out and he's real good moving to his right. Johnson saw a couple of mismatches inside and what we've seen in the last couple weeks is his understanding. And I love this in a coach. Run it until they stop it. Run it until they stop it. I don't care if it is an isolation play in a basketball game when you know you've got an advantage or the collegiate mentality that we've heard before about, just find that weak spot and pound it. And I thought that the Bears did that a couple of times with some of the interior runs with a variety of schemes. We did see outside zone again and I know on this show that that was a. A subject of a lot of our discussion leading up to this game was what the success running behind Darnell Wright, running behind Theo Benedict in the zone game was going to do. And they didn't go back to that necessarily. This opponent called for something else. And we saw double teams in duo schemes. I think I saw a split zone or two, but I would need to go back and look at that. And my eye is not as well trained as others in determining some of that stuff. But what I did notice too, ISO Durham Smythe lined up as a fullback on consecutive plays in the second quarter. They had first, they had third and two, and it was Roshan Johnson picking up the first down with Durham Smythe with his hand on the ground as a fullback. First and 10 at the 12, same formation. Classic eye formation with Smythe as the fullback. And they pick out a linebacker and he targets him. He goes right at him. And DeAndre Swift scored on that play. So we saw that variation and there was. There was some duo. We saw them with a couple of double teams set up in there. Not to mention the trap game. They may have another name for it, but that just looked to me like when you get one with a center to pull around one gap and you're able to get a guy on the backside of the play and come downhill with a little bit of power run game. We saw a little bit of everything. And that versatility in the run game can, can let you go a long way. So when we say a long way with his Bears team at 4 and 2, who knows. But I believe they're out of the cellar in the NFC north. First time in a long time the Bears are threatening to climb out of the cellar and it's, it's good stuff to know the other team can't stop you when you want to run the ball. I love the opportunity for them to do that, to be able to pound it, pound it, pound it, pound it, pound it. Apologizing for some of the technical difficulties that we're undergoing at the moment with some audio concerns on our end as we get them fixed. But happy you're here with us. Always happy you're here with us. On Forward Progress. If it's your first time joining us, we do this Dan Bernstein with you, Matt Abaticola alongside as well. And let's look at some of the final numbers because this was, this is going to be up there with all you want in your run game. Swift 124 yards Manungai with 81 Roshan Johnson that one run for 11 yards. Let's just say this Manungai has taken that job. He has demoted Roshan Johnson. Johnson hasn't helped himself with availability coming back from injuries, but it's going to be Manunga's and the other thing that he does and I know it's probably going to going to happen as soon as I say it, but he's got a reputation for security for taking care of the ball for not being a risk. Manangai is unspectacular but as a running back if you can build up just that reliability, it's going to serve him really, really well. We had D.J. moore targeted five times and caught three passes for 43 yards to lead the team with a long at 26 and more coming off injury that had him hospitalized a week ago that they said was groin and also hip but he played. Maybe we'll get more on that as we hear throughout the week. Roma Dunze not his best. Dunze was targeted six times. He only had two catches. There was certainly one on that comebacker where the defender had a hand on his biceps, but it still looked like he could have made the play. Colston Loveland with a three catches on four targets for only 24 yards, made a couple of important ones. Cole Comet just the one catch before he left with a back injury. So the injuries of which were aware at this point. Tyreek Stevenson left and was declared doubtful with a shoulder injury and it was commit with a back injury. And we saw as we discussed that Kyler Gordon had to move out to the boundary corner because Josh Blackwell came into the nickel. They didn't want Blackwell lined up with Nick McLeod already in the game because they're down to the back end corners on this team. So my guess is that they would have to continue that if Stevenson is going to be out unless they. Because I don't think Blackwell's got the speed or the wiggle to stay as a boundary corner where perhaps they believe that Gordon does. So we'll look at that going into next week. But they're in a terrific position right now. It's. You'd rather be. As we've watched this Bears team, it's kind of a luxury to say, yeah, the Bears decisively beat a bad team at home in a game they were favored to win. And they won and covered. So if we're able to nitpick here, I think you enjoy that. I think it's a luxury. I think if, if you want to get frustrated with the play of Caleb Williams, fine. But to do that after a victory, I always think that is the ideal situation for a coach to be in, that you want a coach to say we won, but we won the game. But there's so much that we have to do. If you remember the very last, the time we saw Ben Johnson, he was not the very last. The last time we saw him at a game day, he was the first words out of his mouth when he got back to the locker room were just think what would happen if we, if and when we clean up these penalties. And they didn't. They didn't clean up the penalties. They were giving up way too many. It's. They were called. I think it was. Last check that I wrote down was with 709 to go in the game, 10 penalties for 92 yards. That's not good enough. That is absolutely 100% unacceptable. And if they do clean them up, because some of them were just maddening, one of them actually helped him, of course. But I hate the term clean it up too, because. And by the way, while I'm on that, I'm done with clean that up and the other thing and this maybe I'm just. I've been watching a weekend of college football and now pro football. Can we find something else or at least get away from talking about anything on defense or offense being dialed up? I get it. Can a blitz be called? Can somebody Say they'll they blitzed this coordinator blitz. Why must every blitz be dialed up? Everything has to be dialed up. Phones don't have dials anymore. Most young people don't even understand the concept of something being dialed up. Pet peeve. There, I've said it. I feel better having said it. So it's. Speaking of defensive coordinator. Defensive coordinator ing if I'm going to coin a verb. I thought for the most part there was at least an awareness of what Rattler was and wasn't comfortable doing. And I guess when you have sweat playing as well as he is and so many guys ball hawking in the secondary, I thought they, they mixed up some of their coverages nicely. They had three linebackers out there and early downs to stop the run. And I don't mind depending on personnel, depending on what you see as a threat if you don't have a lot of wide receivers out there. And can't you forget Olave's this good just because he's hurt so often and you know, you knew the name and you know, every year Ohio State just keeps disgorging all of these, these professional wide receivers. But he can really move, man. It's just a matter of keeping him on the field. But I thought they did a really nice job with making sure everybody was properly positioned and making sure they salt away win. I'd like to hear Johnson post game come down pretty hard on these guys for the penalties because it's just got to stop. It's. There were some bullshit calls I thought, particularly the one that was called the offensive pass interference on Colston Loveland who in my notes looks like Clove land because I always write down the first initial and I don't know, we've got some, some, some land of magical spices there out in Cloveland, but I'll have to figure that out because it looks weird. But that was a terrible call. He did exactly what you're supposed to do when you coach that play is even though you are, everyone knows you're setting a pick, but they can't call it if you turn back toward the play, put your hands out there as a receiver, there's no way you can even, even more unless you're holding a sign that says I'm a receiver and a believer that I thought he did absolutely everything right. But there were. It was, it was a game where the. Anybody who cleaves to the old way of winning football games, if you are the kind of person run the football, stop the run, pressure the quarterback. This was that this was ugly and it certainly was not a shining day for this young quarterback who's supposed to be shepherded along in this whiz bang offense. But they got their 20 points again. The Bears once again what is that? That's six in a row to start a season of you know I don't know what the record was was going that they broke some horrible franchise record that shouldn't have been a franchise record but congratulations to them they that they were able to get enough points thanks to Jake Moody and I I think they've got a decision to make a kicker. It's because as the pedigree on Moody suggested a guy who teams thought was going to be worth a third round pick and I don't know if anybody else he might have dropped another three rounds had he not been taken where he was. But the change of scenery perhaps doing him, doing him well. And with Kyra Santos injured I'm sure Ben Johnson is going to have to prepare for being asked all throughout the about whether or not he's open to making a change. He's not going to carry two in the roster. They're just not and you can't stash one because some other kicker is going to get hurt or somebody else is going to come grab this guy. So regardless the good news for Jake Moody is he certainly clearly has played himself back into someone's full time NFL job. I was not sure why Moose Johnston was so angry with Kyler Gordon on the as I'm going through the penalties here on the personal foul where there was some helmet to helmet contact but I wasn't sure that it was, it was worthy of a penalty. It might have been what I used to call the Kyle Fuller rule. I almost said Kyle Tucker he's probably headed to the Dodgers. We learned today but the Kyle Fuller rule that would be the hit was too awesome and then they look at each other like I guess we have to penalize it because the hit was too awesome because I thought that was just right. But then he did do the nighty night gesture and I will agree that it's bad sportsmanship. I will disagree with Moose Johnston that it indicated intent. That's, that's bad analysis and unfair analysis when after the fact he's celebrating his hit with something that was yeah probably not the most sportsmanlike thing to do in a time where everybody is, they're all dear, I wouldn't say friendly but everybody is professionally respectful enough to if you're going to take an accidental headshot or even something borderline Legal not to necessarily celebrate the fact that you might have knocked a guy out, but it does not show intent. You can't say after the fact he was trying to do it. So I thought that was unfair. But however you want to frame this game for the Bears, avoiding a bad loss, great. That's also a good win. In this league right now. There are no bad victories, there are ugly victories. But on the day that presents itself with the personnel that you have, I admire the fact that Ben Johnson didn't try to get too cute. And the idea of doing what you can do to beat the team in front of you is enough for me certainly to remain relatively optimistic. Looking at the schedule and seeing a team that is going to have some opportunities coming up to keep this rolling. And it's almost an ideal situation for a young first year coach to be in, to come back, to be able to say to them, this isn't it yet. This still isn't it. And yet we're winning. We're winning in spite of not playing our best football. It's a solid message to a young team. And if I'm starting to look at players who are, who are sort of separating themselves, that's two really good games from DeAndre Swift. That's two games where they have leaned on him and really helped him with the blocking schemes, seeing what he's wanted to do. And he was hurt coming into this game. He was questionable and said, I'll be fine. He was more than fine. And the way Kevin Bayard is playing, the level at which Bayard is playing. Tremaine Edmonds has had some outstanding games too. The sack that he had getting Rattler just around the ankle and then coming up with that interception late. Tremaine Edmonds, after a couple of years of a big contract who had not been showing up in quite the way you would ask him to do, certainly doing it now. So the Bears find themselves still in a really difficult division with some matchups coming up down the line, but still in a breather point in their schedule, still with an opportunity to start. God, I can't believe I'm saying stacking wins, but I don't know. What you call four in a row is certainly a small stack of wind pancakes and iron this dumb stuff out. The stuff with Dahlman, it might be a timing issue with Caleb and whether or not there is anything. We know that he has struggled with cadences and that that has been an enormous problem. We learned about it in training camp and if that is an issue where at the goal Line, they've changed something up. They're worried about Chase Young getting a jump, which he was doing all day, because that's what he does and that's certainly going to hurt Williams. The near interception that first drive was just. I thought we were in for a miserable football day watching that first drive. But that the, the near interception there, there was the one on the goal line that hit the Saints defender in the head. That's going to downgrade him also. And boy, after the show we did talking about PFF grades, learned a lot about how much they will penalize a quarterback for potentially bad plays. So this is. There's good, there's bad. There's more good than bad. I am very concerned about the Tyreek Stevenson injury and also as far as the run game goes, concerned by Cole Comet as well, because even though he's been a zero in the passing game, he's been really important to what they've been doing in the run game. And if they use Durham Smythe more, if they think going forward they can have him as doing some of the H back stuff and use him as sort of the hybrid fullback. And they're going to try to play this, it's not going to get them anywhere ultimately because you got to throw the ball better than this. You got to time it. The throwing on the run wasn't there. I still see it as a timing issue with Caleb. It's the timing of his eyes and the timing of his. Of his targeting system, which is his feet, it's his head. It's everything. Throw it or not throw it. I thought the interception looked a little late, that if you're going to make that throw, it's gotta be on time. And it looked like something in him saw it and he hitched and then he threw it. That's gotta stop. He also stared him down. That doesn't help either. But if you have the arm and you get it out, staring him down doesn't matter because even if the safety sees it, once he's back at his landmark, he's not going to get there in time. But that is. That was a paint by numbers how to get it intercepted. So they've got a lot of work to do in the past game, a lot. But to come away with a convincing win with all of that work to do is a testament to a game well coached. And sometimes a plane loses an engine mid flight and you got to try to land the thing safely with what you got. And I thought that the Ben Johnson did a really, really nice job and that challenge, look how important that was at the time. Because that's a third and 20 that they picked up on that version of a hook and ladder. But. And those who mistakenly call it a hook and lateral. It wasn't a lateral. It was. And I didn't think it was going to get overturned. And maybe there was an angle on that that we didn't see because I didn't think there was enough to definitively say that that was not a lateral pass, that there was a false forward pass. But if they had an angle, I didn't. We'll take that one. And if that makes up for some of the other bad calls in the game. And that's an example of how I say it's. A lot of this stuff comes out in the wash. I guess it did there. We can also debate that roughing the passer penalty that Brisker had immediately after the sack. They get him in the third and 28. Just don't make contact with his head. I know they make it hard on you. You can't go low, you can't go high. It looked like incidental head contact as his arms were coming down. I didn't think that flag had to come out. But once it does and once there is any head contact, it's. It's always going to be that. And that's where you're going to be. This is forward progress. This is forward progress. Live post game brought to you by our friends at Beer Church. We do this after Bears games and for better or for worse, it is your place to be. So we love the fact that you're involved and love the fact that you are here hanging out with us and we are at a place with this team where I didn't think we were going to be and I'm just being straight up that I did not think that after that 02 start that the Bears were going to stand at 4 and 2 at the moment here. And they are. They're here. So are they good is the question. Not yet. I don't think the Bears are good yet. I know the Saints are awful and the Bears are to get credit for every one of these wins and they've done what they've had to do. The quality of the Bears team will be tested further and they're going to get every opportunity to incrementally prove that they are able to beat a good team and to go on the road and do some of this stuff. I think the diversification of the run game on film, if this works out ideally will Pay all kinds of dividends. But my God, they've got to get the quarterback timed up, they got to get the passing game timed up because once it's all hitting, and I know that it's going to make Ben Johnson absolutely crazy to watch this film because he can get the scripted stuff, he can get these defensive looks from the scripted stuff and run different things off the same formations. Last week, a lot of reduced formations. We saw some of that this week as well. But I loved what he was doing, mixing up the run blocking schemes and all that's running through his head right now are the passes that he can show off of that based on the reactions of the linebackers. But they've got to be ready. They've got to stay on schedule. They absolutely have to make sure that they are not doing stupid ass things that get them behind the sticks and change what that menu is going to be. Also, if Montez Sweat can affect games like this, if he matters this much, things are going to be good.
B
Hey, can you hear me now?
A
Matters this much, things are going to be good.
B
Sweet.
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It is, it is. It was great to see. Hello, Montez Sweat. Now don't make this an exception, make this a rule. Because doing it here and doing it on a, on a day like this against a team like this should be the start of things to come. But this is the DeAndre Swift Kyle Manon guy game. This, this was a, an old fashioned run, dad. Football stopped a run. You win a lot of football games and make a passer's life difficult and it's, it presents a coach the opportunity to tell his guys he's proud of him, he can have his little 24 hour rule. He can give DeAndre Swift another game ball, maybe one to Kyle Manungai as well and say, hey, we got things that we can reinforce. We got things about which we can be excited. But let's, let's lick our wounds from some of these injuries and try to tinker around. Do what you did with the passing game like you did off the bye week with the run game. I know it's more complicated and it's more risky. There's a lot more danger involved. And this, this is not a coach who's going to get gun shy. There's not a coach who's going to say, well, that's it. We're, we're just going to reduce everything down to an occasional play action high school offense. No, no, no, no. They fix, fix everything because you're going to need more points, more yards and more options against better football teams. All in all, a good day for the Bears and a good day for them to continue to build a identity as a running team for the moment to be to have to rely on it, to be forced to rely on it in the NFL for a team to say we pretty much know you're one of the football, they couldn't stop it. All right, I'm cool. I'm cool. I am. I've always been a run it until they stop a guy, as I've said. So appreciate everybody hanging with us through some technical difficulties today. We are going to be back with everything tomorrow, all of Matty's thoughts and everything that you have to hear on Forward Progress, which after Dan Bernstein unfiltered that is going to drop around 11 o'. Clock. We'll be talking Bears on that show as well and catching up on everything that has gone on in the sports weekend. Also Forward progress right around 1:00'. Clock. And thanks for hanging with us today. Appreciate you doing that and being here for the bit of the early start and we got things we got to get cleaned up as well and damn it, we're going to coach it up and we're going to do it. But thanks for hanging and we'll be right back at you tomorrow.
Hosts: Dan Bernstein & Matt Abbatacola
Summary by: [Your Name Here]
This episode is a live postgame breakdown of the Chicago Bears' 26-14 win over the New Orleans Saints at Soldier Field. Dan Bernstein and Matt Abbatacola dissect the Bears' fourth consecutive victory, focusing on the team’s powerful run game, the underwhelming play of rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, defensive takeaways, and coaching decisions by Ben Johnson. The episode is a balance of analytical critique and raw fan emotion, examining not only what went right but also lingering concerns for Chicago’s playoff potential.
“DeAndre Swift... looked like a different running back. ...they’re blocking so well...I even saw DeAndre Swift burst out...slowed down, pulled back for a little patience, a little stutter step and then accelerated again...Looks like a better running back.” – Matt (01:32)
“Caleb Williams is terrible. I don't know what is going on overall, his timing...” – Dan (04:51)
“Boy, he [Montez Sweat] was today where he had the strip sack, the forced fumble... and another tackle for a loss that mattered late. ...He made big plays at big important times.” – Dan (02:41)
"They didn’t clean up the penalties. They were giving up way too many. ...That is absolutely 100% unacceptable." — Dan (22:28)
The episode maintains a passionate, knowledgeable, and sometimes irreverent Bears-fan tone—mixing deep tactical insights with unfiltered fan frustration, banter between the hosts, and a sense of cautious optimism about Chicago’s trajectory.
This postgame breakdown is essential for anyone who wants to understand not just “how the Bears won,” but what’s sustainable and what still needs fixing—especially at quarterback. The episode is both a celebration of a convincing win and a warning that bigger challenges lie ahead until the offensive passing game falls into place. The coaches and fanbase have much to be pleased about, especially in the trenches, but questions about discipline, injuries, and Caleb Williams’ readiness for the NFL spotlight dominate the conversation going forward.
Next episode drops tomorrow afternoon with more in-depth analysis, injury updates, and review of Bears/NFL news.