The Chicago Bears picked up 34 first downs against the New York Jets on Sunday afternoon, the most in franchise history, according to Stathead. The 23-12 final score didn’t come close to showing the gap.
Chicago possessed the ball for 42:45 and had 492 total yards of offense compared to New York’s 17:15 and 157 yards. The Bears ran 89 plays and picked up 34 first downs. Meanwhile, the Jets ran 32 plays and earned seven first downs.
[ What Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson said Monday after dominating the Jets ]
We could keep going, and will later on, but it’s pretty clear that the Bears put up numbers that they haven’t seen in a long time. Different factors on both sides of the ball played a role in such a showing.
Here’s a look at the numbers behind the Bears’ dominant win over the Jets.
Some rare numbers
The 34 first downs beat the previous record of 33, which was set in 2014 against Green Bay. The feat also tied for 40th-most in NFL history. The league record is 40.
Chicago’s 42:45 time of possession was the fourth-most in team history. The team’s record is 45:32, which occurred during the 1988 season opener. The Bears also ran 89 offensive plays, the fifth-most in team history. Their record sits at 100, which was set against the former San Diego Chargers in 1981.
Although the 492 total yards the Bears had weren’t their season-high (that happened in Week 1 against Carolina when they had 552), but they were the 26th-most in a game in team history. The team’s record is 682 total yards against the New York Giants in 1943.
It wasn’t just the offense that put up some of the franchise’s best statistics. For defense, we limited the comparison to games since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. Bears defenses in the 1920s and 1930s, in a league with fewer teams, put up numbers that would skew the list.
The Jets’ seven first downs were the fourth fewest the Bears have allowed since the merger. They allowed five in a 1991 game against the Packers. The Jets’ 157 total yards of offense was also the 25th-fewest the Bears have allowed in a game since the merger. That record is 92, which happened against Tampa Bay in 1978.
Sunday was also the third time in franchise history that the Bears held an opponent without a third-down conversion.
That dominance led to one other feat that hasn’t happened often for the Bears. Chicago didn’t punt the ball in Sunday’s win. It was the fourth time in since the merger that the Bears didn’t punt in a game.
Kyle Monangai’s career day
Chicago dominated the time of possession because of how well it ran the ball, primarily thanks to a career day from running back Kyle Monangai.
Bears head coach Ben Johnson quickly realized that Monangai was running well in the first quarter. He finished Sunday with a career-high 30 carries and also scored multiple touchdowns in a game for the first time. His 146 rushing yards were the second-most in his career.
Monangai wrote himself into the Bears record books with the high workload. His 30 carries tied for the 30th-most in a game in team history. Hall of Famer Walter Payton holds the record with 40. It was the most carries by a Bears running back since Jordan Howard had 36 carries in 2017.
It looked like Monangai ran hard and the numbers backed that up. According to NFL’s NextGen Stats, Monangai ran for 106 yards after contact and forced a career-high eight missed tackles. He ended the game with 16 yards over expected based on tracking data, three carries that went farther than 10 yards and four carries where he ran 15 miles per hour or faster.
Tyson Bagent stays close to home
Quarterback Tyler Bagent didn’t go deep too often in his first game since 2023. He mostly found success by keeping passes close to the line of scrimmage.
A majority of Bagent’s pass attempts came up to 10 yards. Bagent attempted 21 of his 34 passes up to 10 yards, with 13 coming from the line to 10 yards while eight came from behind the line. He completed 11 passes for 84 yards from the line to the 10 and converted on seven passes behind the line for 38 yards.
Bagent wasn’t afraid to throw it deeper, though. He completed six of his nine passes from 10 to 20 yards for 126 yards and an interception and converted on his one attempt beyond 20 yards.
It’s likely that Bagent will throw the ball deeper once he gets more comfortable. Although he doesn’t have Caleb Williams’ arm strength, he can still sling it around.
Receivers making plays
Johnson said last week that he needed to do a better job of getting the ball to his wide receivers. He did, and they rewarded him with big plays.
Rome Odunze had a season-high 94 receiving yards along with six receptions and seven targets. Luther Burden III finished with 63 receiving yards and four catches on six targets while tight end Colston Loveland had 57 receiving yards and six receptions off of nine targets.
Both Odunze and Burden helped out Bagent with some impressive catches. Odunze finished the game with a 17.5% catch rate over expected, meaning he caught passes at a higher rate than expected based on the pass and the defenders. Burden had a 12% catch rate over expected.
It’s an encouraging statistic to see, especially for Odunze. He had been criticized for not making tough catches early in the season. The numbers show that he did a better job of that Sunday.
Defense causes havoc
Let’s end with an appreciation for what the defense accomplished too.
Jets quarterback Geno Smith ended the game with 119 passing yards, 58 of which came on one touchdown completion. It was the fewest passing yards the Bears allowed in a game since Week 4 last season, when, coincidentally, Chicago held Smith to 117 passing yards with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Chicago chose when to pressure Smith. The defense finished with three sacks and nine quarterback pressures. But the Bears only blitzed Smith on 27.8% of his dropbacks but had a pressure rate of 50%. They landed in the pocket when they needed to.