Cowboys vs Bears Preview: Predictions, Impact Players to Watch and Best Bets | NFL Week 3

The Chicago Bears are still looking for their first win of the season. They just let up a 50 burger to the Lions in week two. And this week, they welcome America’s team to Chicago. Matt Eberlu’s coming back to his old stopping grounds, of course, on the other side with the Cowboys. Now, the Cowboys did allow Russ 450 yards last week. So, it’s not like their defense is like the golden standard of the NFL either. But still, Chicago looking pretty out of sync on offense. And when it comes to Dallas’s offense, we know that Dak Prescott and company can put up some points, can’t they? All right, let’s welcome in our NFL analysts Mike Rener and John Breach here to discuss. Matt Eberloose back in Shytown, but this time as the Cowboys DC gentlemen. So, what are your expectations for this Cowboys defense in Chicago? And it feels like breach, they really can’t stop a nosebleleed based off of what I’ve seen over the last two games. Yeah, absolutely. But I think Matt Everlo is going to be walking in there with a little bit of confidence saying, “Hey, look, it wasn’t my fault. Chicago was a disaster when he was there.” But things have not exactly been fixed now because they are once again 0 and2 still looking for their first win. And I think if you’re the Cowboys defense, this is the potential to be a get right game for them. Yes, you just mentioned that, Jacqueline, that Russell Wilson did throw for 450 yards, but they actually played pretty well against the Philadelphia Eagles in week one. We saw them essentially shut down Philadelphia in the second half. So, if you come with that kind of strength and show up in Chicago, uh, and they play that way, they can certainly limit the Bears. We saw the Lions limit the Bears in week two. Caleb Williams seems like he’s still trying to figure out his way through this Ben Johnson offense. So, the Bears don’t really have that home run threat that uh the Giants have with Malik Neighbor. So, you have a Bears offense that could struggle and this could be a revenge time for Eberflows. I’ll just say this about the Cowboys. Everyone knew the Cowboys brass knew going into this season that this wasn’t going to be a good defense. When you start Caier Elim, we all saw what he was in the playoffs last year above Buffalo. when you’re starting him at one of your quarterbacks and when you trade your best player on the eve of the season. I mean, what else is Matt Eberlu supposed to do? It’s just not going to be great there in Dallas. Yeah. My fiance, as you guys know, is a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan. In every single game, he’s like, man, it really feels like we could use a star pass rusher. How about that? Right. All right. We’re going to look at impact players to watch for both teams. On the Cowboys side of things, we’re looking at the offense. And Mike, your impact player to watch is George Pickkins, who had a very crucial touchdown in that OT win against the Giants. Yeah, it’s the secondary for the Chicago Bears, is very susceptible right now. No Jaylen Johnson, no Kyler Gordon. That means they’re probably still going to put all their attention. Guys like Tyreek Stevenson, who is still your star there on CD Lamb and just say, you know, we’ll take our chance with George Pickkins. And that rapport has got to get right with Dak Prescott. It’s been slow rolling. Maybe that touchdown gets him going, gets him back on the same page. But this is the game. If George Pig is going to have a game, this is the game that he needs to roll. I think he goes big. I I mean, this feels like it’s only a matter of time given how talented this guy is, given how talented Dak is before this rapport really develops into something special should be this week. Yeah, Mike and I are absolutely on the same page. My impact guy is Dak Prescott. And yes, that is the obvious guy because he is the quarterback. But let’s look at what the Bears have done this season. The NFC offensive player of the week in week one was JJ McCarthy. The NFC offensive player of the week in week two was Jared Goff. What do they have in common? They both played the Bears. So, you play the Bears defense and you are a quarterback, you can put up big numbers. Uh Mike just kind of alluded to how beat up that secondary is. They’re going to be missing Pro Bowl quarter Jaylen Johnson. And now they’re going to be forced to not just stop George Pickkins, they also have to figure out how to stop CD Lamb. So when you have one of the best receiving duos in the NFL against a beat up secondary and you have Dak Prescott throwing passes to them, this feels like a game where we could see Dak get close to the numbers he put up last week against the Giants. I think it was 360 yards. Maybe he tops it. So I think this could be a huge week for Dak Prescott. Uh Breach, I feel like your thought process is the same way that we think in terms of fantasy, right? like who should our starting quarterback be? It’s like whoever. Hey, whoever’s going up against uh this Bears defense, right? As for the Bears in general, um Breach, who is the difference maker that you’re going to be looking to for this game? Well, for me, it’s DeAndre Swift, but my answer is is questionable because that is his health status for this game. Uh we don’t even know if he’s going to play, but I do think it’s important for the Bears to get their rushing attack going against the Cowboys for two reasons. Number one, it does feel like Caleb Williams is still trying to feel his way through Ben Johnson’s offense. So, if you have a quarterback who’s still kind of learning the ropes, the easiest way to take some pressure off of him is to get your ground game going. So, that’s where DeAndre Swift comes in. He had a pretty solid game against the Lions. He averaged over five yards a carry, uh 12 rushes for 63 yards. And but the thing is, when you get blown out, you don’t really have any use to your running backs. They only carry the ball four times in the second half of that game. And the other part is if you get your rushing attack going, you kind of control the flow of the game and you burn the clock, which is what the Bears need to do because they don’t want their defense on the field. You got to keep your offense on the field, keep things going, and that’s what DeAndre Swift can do if he can go off against the Cowboys. Yeah, there’s so many glaring issues on this Bears roster through two weeks. Running game is one of them. And their pass rush is the other big one. They have 13 total pressures in two games. No one on this team has more than three and they’re paying a lot of guys a lot of money to be productive. My impact player is Gervon Dexter, their nose tackle because he has the most favorable matchup. Cooper BB center for the Dallas Cowboys goes on IR. That’s backup Brock Hoffman that he’ll be going up against. If he can’t get pushed up the middle of this defense, if they can’t get pressure on Dak Prescott, it will be a long day for this Bears secondary. So Gervand Dexter needs to have himself a big performance. Breach, you mentioned it. DeAndre Swift is questionable and there’s uh a lot of injuries as the Bears just put out that week three injury report and a lot of injuries on defense specifically. As mentioned, they just gave up a 50 burger to the Lions here. So, how do they correct those issues on defense while also taking into account these injuries that we’re dealing with on that side of the ball? Mike, I don’t know if there is any correcting. Unfortunately, defense still takes a level of talent that the Bears just aren’t sending out there at this point in time. It it is going to come with that front four, though. You know, Dennis Allen doesn’t like to blitz a lot. Their defensive coordinator, they need to win with four. That’s why they signed so many guys this off season. And, you know, when they faced Minnesota and it was a backup left tackle, they were getting some success against them. But I don’t think this Cowboys offensive line outside of the center position that I just highlighted really has a lot of avenues for favorable one-on-one matchups for this Bears team. So that’s the worry, but it needs to change right up front or else it ain’t going to change at all. Yeah, and Mike, you hit the nail on the head. It needs to change, but I’m not sure how it can change. We saw the Bears just gave up over 50 points last week, over 500 yards, and now they’ve got eight players on the injury report. on the defensive side of the ball. Five guys already ruled out on the defensive side of the ball. So, it’s kind of hard to fix things when you’re not even uh you don’t have your best players on the field. So, really what you need is for your offense to be your defense. The offense needs to play well enough to stay on the field and maybe win the time of possession. This is a game where you want Caleb Williams that offense out there for 36 37 minutes and that limits the time the defense has on the field. This survival of the fittest at this point for the Chicago Bears uh because their defense is banged up. All right, finally we want to get into a game prediction. Cowboys slightly favored on the road. Breache, who you rolling with here? I am rolling with the Dallas Cowboys 30 to 27. We saw that injury report. I can’t pick the Bears after seeing that injury report. It was I had to cover my eyes. It was that horrifying. Uh that’s a lot. They’re just beat up right now and I think the Cowboys offense is going to have a field day. Yeah, they’re not only beat up, they feel demoralized after this 0 and2 start. Whereas the Cowboys seemingly trending in the opposite direction. They had an encouraging start against the Eagles. That big win against the Giants, they feel like they’re ascending into a team after all the momentum wasn’t going their way preseason. So, because of that, I think it’s a blowout. I I think they boat race the Chicago Bears in Chicago. Dang, a blowout. That’s what Rener is saying. Hey, and even if it’s not, if it’s just you’re down by a field goal, get to the logo. Brandon Aubry’s got you. We’ve seen it multiple times from even 60 and beyond. Rer breach, we appreciate it. Hang tight cuz we got to get to a matchup in the AFC South ahead. But hey, in the meantime, make sure you check out the NFL Today Plus ahead of all the kickoffs on Sunday. You can stream it every Sunday 10:00 a.m. Eastern. And of course, you can watch it on Paramount Plus as well.

John Breech and Mike Renner join CBS Sports HQ to preview the NFL Week 3 matchup between the Dallas Cowboys and the Chicago Bears.

[00:00:00] Cowboys DC Matt Eberflus returns to Chicago
[00:02:20] Cowboys Impact Players to Watch
[00:04:21] Bears Impact Players to Watch
[00:06:06] Bears Week 3 Injury Report + Issues on Defense
[00:07:51] Game Predictions

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