Bears Blitz: Previewing Bears vs. Saints and a chance for 4 wins in a row

Bears Blitz: Previewing Bears vs. Saints and a chance for 4 wins in a row

Hello everyone and welcome to Bears Blitz brought to you by IGS Energy. I’m Cassie Carlson alongside Luke Canelis and Anthony Herren. The Bears have a short weekend. We’re still riding the high of that Monday night win, but they quickly have to turn the page to a one and five Saints team that their talk this week at Howis Hall is you don’t want to have a letown game, but you look at the history between these two teams. The Bears have not beaten the Saints since 2008. And you think back, what were you doing back in 08? I was in eighth grade. What were you doing? Well, I remember Well, here’s what I remember about 28. I was I was not in eighth grade. Um I remember the blackout game. White Sox fans will remember that. Both baseball teams, by the way, in 2008 went to the playoffs. Cubs and the White Sox. Cubs got swept by the Dodgers. White Sox went to the postseason, lost to the Rays at that time. But you know what else I remember about 2008? What’s that? Barack Obama became president. Yeah, that was a nice and we had boy the financial meltdown that affected everyone out there. And I’m still digging myself out of that. I bet. Yeah. In ’08, I was actually I was just starting in broadcasting at that point. So, I was coaching arena football in Huntsville, Alabama, and I was just starting at the Big 10 network, starting to do some television and do a little bit of radio down south and just kind of dipping my toes into this media water and now here we are 2025. We love to see that. Made some progress. Made some progress. No let down for Big Ant just staying in in media and the Bears don’t want to let down either. I mean, that’s one of the important things that you have to go on when you’re on a three-game win streak. You’re coming off beating a playoff team and now you’re welcoming in a team where the record maybe doesn’t reflect who they are because as every coach has said this week, they continue to improve as each week goes on. When you’re talking about the Saints, one of the reasons why I love Ben Johnson so much is he said, “Letown is not in my vocabulary.” So, he will not allow his team to have a let down. And I get it. You’re coming off of two what? Last second wins with field goals. One blocked, one you kicked. Hey, this Bears team still has a lot of work. Talk to the head coach. He’ll tell you we still need to make progress in a number of different areas. I get it. The run defense was much better. DeAndre Swift had his best game as a Bear, but this team is not a finished product and won’t be according to the head coach till December. And the standard needs to continue enhancing for the Bears, right? They can’t allow wins, even three wins in a row, which is not a space that we’re accustomed to watching them operate in. So, that’s fun. But for Ben Johnson, for the players, the veterans, the leaders on this squad, they got to make sure they keep finding a new best, enhancing the level of excellence that they’re hoping to achieve coming out with wins right now at this stretch. You want to make sure you’re playing your best football later in the season. That’s been how Ben Johnson has been describing his expectations. And so it’s great to be in the midst of three games in a row that they come out with the victory, but still see very obvious areas that this squad can continue to improve. Well, and Ben Johnson said one of the big steps in showing growth in this team would be stringing together their fourth straight win coming off a short week because they had the short week going from week one Monday night against the Vikings into week two and we saw the let down in Detroit. He said so they could win this game this weekend. That’s a huge step for this team to continue to stack good weeks. Well, for a second straight game, the Bears did set themselves up to win in the fourth quarter. Caleb Williams and the run game setting up Jake Moody to hit a 38-yard game-winning field goal for an incredible story of being cut from the Niners to elevated off the practice squad playing in prime time. Now, there’s a sense of belief in the team and a calmness to Caleb Williams when he knows it’s time to go win a game. He really just comes to life and he he he meets that moment head on. Um, it’s almost like he wants that to happen each and every week because that’s when he’s at his best and uh he’s not surprised by it. I mean, this is this who he’s always been. That’s uh it’s those big moments like that that he he really lives for and uh I think he’s doing a great job with it so far. I try and portray that to my teammates uh that I’m calm that this moment right here is our moment. Um it’s our show. Um and in those moments, it’s it’s time to go win the game. Uh that’s that’s all it comes down to. All that’s all it comes down to. And uh there’s nothing more important than that moment. It’s the the patience, the calmness, the belief in each other. Um and then from there um you just go out there and execute the plays that coach calls. And Caleb Williams talks about executing the play calls. An interesting tidbit that Williams talked about this week is what Ben Johnson is like over the headset. When he has a play call that he knows is going to work and he instills that confidence, gets his team and his quarterback in the right mindset. He’s like, “All right, here we got a really good one. This is going to work right here.” And that was on the touchdown, Caleb Williams said, where he ran into the end zone and he was like, “I didn’t think that play was going to work, but Ben Johnson called it on the headset.” Um, Ben Johnson also talked about something that Bruce Arens preaches is that good quarterbacks show up in the fourth quarter and they’re accurate. And Caleb Williams week after week has now shown that he is so calm and level-headed when it’s go time and he takes that Superman cape and puts it on and puts the team on his back. Here are the numbers this year and they’re staggering, folks. Fourth quarter, four minutes left to play in the game. Caleb Williams passer rating is 132. Just so you have a sense of comparison, Justin Fields in 2023, his passer rating was 22. Not 122, 22. Last year, Big A, we saw him bring the Bears back and put them in position to beat Washington, Minnesota, Green Bay, Detroit on Thanksgiving Day. his best quarter of work last season, his rookie season, the fourth quarter when he is freelancing, man, he is playing his best ball. And it feels like they’re both tangible and intangible reasons for that. You know, tangibly, a lot of times when you’re in the fourth quarter and when you’re trying to mount a game-winning drive, that’s when you can frequently be in the no huddle. Sometimes you’re in a hurry up offense. you can maybe see the more vanilla version of the opposing defense and perhaps the plays you’re calling offensively will have less volume to them, but then the intangible of this matters as well. And for Caleb Williams, when you even think back to last season, like you’re referencing, Lou, there were games where the Bears were down multiple scores in the fourth quarter. And that’s where Caleb Williams pretty frequently during his rookie year became his most demonstrative, exuded his most confidence, and then in some ways threw caution to the win. And it was hard because so many of those games ended up in defeat to really try and dissect. Was this a positive sign for the Bears rookie or was there something negative about that that they had to be trailing before he became his best. Now we see critical moments. The game is coming down to cold crust depth and in the fourth quarter Caleb is the best version of himself in those moments. So, there’s a lot of positive to take from that, especially through the context cast of what we were talking about a moment ago where there’s still a little bit of that up and down to the overall four quarter picture, but we’ve seen now, you know, these last few quarterbacks the Bears have had. Now, having one that plays his best in the fourth quarter is a positive sign. And Cassie, I think that when Ben Johnson says in his headset, I really like this play, he’s almost putting him on the spot like, you better execute with perfection cuz I know it’s going to work. So you go make it work. Well, the run game was also working and that’s something we haven’t seen from this Bears team yet this season. It’s the whole operation. It was the blocking up front by the offensive line and finally DeAndre Swift coming to life and Declan Doyle says when you have a player like that who is trying so hard and maybe doesn’t find the answers early on to finally see it come to fruition, you’re always rooting for a guy like that. And Ben Johnson continues to say that DeAndre Swift is the same player that he knew him to be when he was a rookie back in Detroit. get him in open space and he can make guys miss and make these huge plays as we saw on that catch and run 55 yard touchdown. But it also just opens up the rest of the game. We saw how many miles they were able to feed with the run game getting going. I’m happy for Swift cuz he’s taken a beating in the year and a half he’s been here. Most of the folks out there, media, fans have not felt he’s lived up to the $24 million free agent contract he signed. But let’s give some credit to the offensive line that I thought had its best game. Theo Benedict as a starter gave this team a spark on the line and it spread throughout that fiveman front. To see the offensive line have their best game of the season coming off the by-week, the run game itself come to life in that way. And I really liked how they were effective getting DeAndre Swift into space, finding creases for him. So yes, some of those yards were made in between the tackles, but one of the wrinkles they had in the run game was getting the other playmakers, you know, involved in the the receivers and other positions with jet sweeps and orbit motions and things, but that eye candy was not a part of why anything was lucky about that last catch and run. So yes, as a runner and as a pass receiver, DeAndre Swift did big things. It’s going to be interesting to see if he goes this weekend. He’s listed as questionable heading into the game with a groin injury. Um, but he’s been a workhorse for this team. So, I would think they’re hopeful that he will be able to go in. On Theo Benedict, Ben Johnson said the best compliment he could give his left tackle making his first start at that position in prime time is that he didn’t really notice him. And that’s a good thing if you are at that premier position. I’m excited to hear your conversation with Benedict coming up on Bears Game Day Live Sunday morning. I mean, no one really knows about him. I think it’s a feel-good story that came out of training camp, but coming from Canada, they call it University there. He has a tie to Israel. Donna J a lot of cool things when it comes to Theo Benedict. You have to create population around the ball. Um it’s hard to take the ball away if you don’t have guys around it. So, you know, one of the big, you know, determining factors in winning and losing ball games is uh the turnover takeaway ratio. We got ball hawks on on all sides of the ball. uh in the secondary, in the linebacker room, uh it’s just about going there and making the plays, but then after that is DA um putting us in position to make those plays and then visualizing the certain plays that we’re going to have in each week. What are the plays that you’re going to make on this play regardless, you know, depending on what your responsibilities are. Welcome back to Bears Blitz brought to you by IGS Energy. First off on Dennis Allen. He spent 15 of his 24 coaching years in New Orleans. Yeah. Didn’t want to talk about his connection to the Saints at all. This guy is all ball and he has his defense on a takeaway tear right now. They say they come in bunches, especially for the Bears. Three in each of their last three games. They have 12 this season. And it’s something that clearly is being stressed throughout the week in film study. I go back to what Kevin Bernard said coming off of that Vegas game that he noticed some tendencies with certain routes when Gino Smith was throwing them and they were aligned in some way and that’s how he came away with his interceptions and it seems like Dennis Allen has done a really good job of showing the tape and showing when they’re going to pick their spots to go for those takeaways and it’s paying off. Had a chance to chat with Good Morning Football’s Mano played linebacker not far from here at Notre Dame. Played three seasons for Dennis Allen in New Orleans. I asked him specifically about takeaways in the Allen defense and he said back during his New Orleans Saints days that Dennis Allen literally had um what do you call them? Uh help me out big circuits. Take away the circuits at during practice that this was something they specifically prepared for in New Orleans. And it was one of those things that rem he remembered most about playing in the Dennis Allen defense. reminded me of remember that was Lovey Smith’s defense when he was here in Chicago. They used to chase the ball even, you know, when it hit the ground, right? You want it to become Pavlovian. You you want this to just be a muscle memory situation where when the ball’s in the air, if the opponent’s throwing it, that it’s your football as a defensive back, not the opponents. If there’s one that’s on the ground as a defender, especially in the front seven, some fumble happens in the back field where you know that’s your football and you’re going to take it away. And when you get that takeaway, see if you have an opportunity to scoop it, score it, clamp it, get it in the end zone, or get a pick six. So to have these takeaways mounting in the way that they are, we know how rough the first couple of weeks of this season were for the Bears in general and especially on defense, but now amongst the best in football, taking it away. And conversely, the offense converting them to points amongst the most points off turnovers in the National Football League. Yeah, you want them to more consistently be turned into touchdowns rather than field goals, but still a good sign. And the other good sign is just the way the run defense was able to step up against the commanders. That was a huge storyline going into that game. And I think you look at this Saints offense and I don’t know that you feel so threatened by it, but they did put up 189 rushing yards against the Bills defense a couple weeks ago. So they definitely have a threat in Alvin Cabra in the run game that you still want to make sure you are sound on your fundamentals going into this week. They’re coming off the Bears. That is Bears defense coming off a solid run defense game that we saw on Monday night against the Commanders, but they’re still second worst in the NFL. So, let’s be honest, they’re just under six yards a carry that they’re giving up. Hey, fundamentally, they were much better getting off blocks, making things happen. Tmaine Edmonds had 13 tackles in that game. Big A, you had TJ Edwards with nine. What did you think of Dennis Allen moving Edmonds to the will and Edwards to the middle linebacker spot? Uh, it worked really well and he did that a little bit even while Noah Su was in there also. And that that combination of allowing, you know, one individual to be at the mic linebacker and allow them to sort of read the run right in the thick of the box and be able to react to it there and to allow Tummaine Edmonds. There were times during that game where Tummaine Edmonds was almost like a spy but off the edge as a defensive end because of the athleticism and mobility that Jaden Daniels presented to them. And we’re seeing now where Dennis Allen as he gets a better sense for these players where he’s willing to move the various chess pieces around a bit and try to put players where he thinks they suit that individual matchup. So, I wouldn’t count on it being something where it’s static week in and week out, but it’s really beginning to work well. Big AM U Dennis Allen was asked about his third down defense. It’s been really good. It ranks third and he was asked what he’s doing differently, maybe a little bit less conventional in some ways. What are you seeing that’s working right now and maybe he’s showing teams one thing, doing something different than they expect on a traditional third down? Well, I use the the term eye candy for the offense and especially now that more the veterans are there in the secondary and at the linebacker core. some of the disguise. Sometimes it’s simulated pressure and sometimes it’s legit pressure. And to have Jaquan Brisker and Kyler Gordon and TJ Edwards back in the lineup, those are the Bears three best blitzers. In some ways, you can say amongst their best pass rushers even though they’re not true defensive linemen, but they get after the quarterback at a high level and you have to respect them because you know they’re in a position to bring it when they’re there. Roughing the passer. Yes or no? Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Right. All right, your player to watch is brought to you by IGS Energy. Big Ant, take it away. There’s not a player who Caleb Williams targets where he’s got a higher passing rating than Luther Burton. I believe the most naturally gifted wide receiver on the Bears roster. And it’s been great to see his role continue to increase each week. All right, you showed off your shirt, but show off the shoes, the Converse. You got something on. Yeah, if you’re going to say kiss my Converse like the showun of Harlem, you got to make sure you got them shoes, too. That’s right. Show them who’s the master. Show them the glow, Kayla. The Bears will try to do their best on Sunday at Soldier Field. We’ll see you then for Bears Game Day Live. Have a good one. [Music]

The Bears can win their fourth in a row on Sunday, something that hasn’t happened since 2018. Our Bears Blitz team previews how they can get it done vs. New Orleans.

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