Commanders face a Bears defense that has one glaring weakness

A Mismatch on Paper

With the NFL’s No. 1-ranked rushing offense, a middle-of-the-pack passing attack, and a top-eight scoring unit, there’s good reason for Blair to distrust that Chicago will be able to keep Washington from doing what it has done all season on that side of the ball.

Even when quarterback Jayden Daniels was out for two games and the team struggled in a Week 2 loss in Green Bay, the offense has put up no fewer than 18 points and no fewer than 21 in four of five so far.

The Commanders are on a three-game run scoring 27 points or more in each, including 41 points put up against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 3. 

While like opponents never truly tell the story of what will happen in a given week, the Bears were only able to muster 25 points against the same Raiders, suggesting they may not be able to keep up with Washington should it produce to that level for a fourth-straight week. 

Only two opponents this season have scored more than 24 points against the Commanders’ defense, another interesting nugget considering some of the struggles we’ve seen from the group in the first four weeks, before getting right in Week 5 against the Chargers.

“I get what Ben Johnson means when he says this is "a new team" compared to the group that melted down at Washington less than one calendar year ago,” Blair continued about his distrust in Chicago. “But, well, it's the same location, the same opponent and, really, in a lot of ways, uh ... kind of the same team. I'm less concerned about Chicago's ability to exorcise old demons under its new coach and more preoccupied with the questions that have lingered around Caleb and the Bears since that point of divergence for these two franchises. Can Williams play consistently well? Can the roster support him? We still can't answer those questions today with much more certainty than we could last October. It seems Washington could be without Terry McLaurin again, but the Commanders jumped to a different tier when these squads last met, and I'm not confident the Bears can catch up on Monday.”

Depth on Display

Even without McLaurin, the offense hasn’t struggled to find ways to produce. Instead, when the offense does stall, it typically comes in the form of drive-killing penalties that negate many of the positives it achieves beforehand. 

Still, even when penalties eat away at offensive progress, Daniels has been able to lean on a different staff of receivers including Deebo Samuel who has looked like a No. 1 even while not running the traditional top receiver route tree, second-year receiver Luke McCaffrey who has two touchdown catches in the last three games and brought in a clutch 50-yard reception near halftime of last week’s win, and rookie Jaylin Lane who has proved to be an electric punt return specialist and has also earned enough trust to be a target option for Daniels on third downs as along as 16 yards from a first down.

It comes as no surprise, really, that the offense is functioning at a top 10 level even while missing some prominent names, and that trend should continue in Week 6, putting the pressure squarely on Williams and the Bears to prove that the win they nearly had last year against Washington was the real them, and not the squad that lost 10 straight starting that night, and their first two games of 2025.