The Chicago Bears scheduled a walk-through for midweek on purpose. Ben Johnson said when the staff looked at the calendar before the season, this was the window — five games played, Atlanta next, a bye still ahead — to hit the reset button before the Falcons. “Big picture view, this is part of the plan,” Johnson said. “I think it’ll be good for our guys to kind of hit that reset button here today.”
The reset comes with a thinner defensive line. Montez Sweat’s multi-game suspension left Johnson disappointed but short on extras. “We’re disappointed whenever we lose a player of his caliber for multiple games,” he said. Asked about an appeal, he said he was not aware of one, and he had not spoken with Sweat since the day before. The message was next man up: “We want all of our guys available and playing in ball games to help us win… and we keep it moving.”
Booker, Turner and the next wave up front
Johnson pointed to Shemar Turner, now on the 53-man roster, and Austin Booker as part of the equation. Booker’s snap count and production are climbing. “That’s good to see,” Johnson said. What held Booker back earlier was consistency — “just the consistency of his overall game.” Dayo Odeyingbo’s status remains murky after he went down in the last game: not serious enough for injured reserve in the staff’s view, but likely to cost him some time. Johnson said the Bears planned for this depth crunch, including defensive linemen on the active roster who have not even been active yet and who earned trust in camp.
Behind Sweat and Odeyingbo, the secondary and linebacker room are also patched. Tyrique Stevenson is more day-to-day; T.J. Edwards is more week-to-week. Johnson’s message to a dinged-up defense was blunt: get back on the horse, prepare well, and play a better brand of football. “We’ve got talented players at all three levels… The reinforcements will come when it’s time, but we’ve got a lot of talent still.”
Atlanta’s run game and a flying defense
The Falcons present what Johnson called an elite running game, “led by a guy that might be leading the charge for MVP right now.” Stopping that is first. Cleaning up the explosive plays Chicago put on tape last week is second. “It’s not going to be a talent-level issue,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of guys and now we just got to play together as one unit.”
He also addressed Gervon Dexter Sr., now in Atlanta after leaving Chicago. Johnson called it a win-win — a fresh start in a defense that matches Dexter’s skill set — and praised how hard Dexter is playing getting out of the stack and chasing the ball. That style, Johnson said, is the MO of Jeff Ulbrich’s group: “These guys fly around to another level across the board… Their play style is really what stands out the most on tape.”
Caleb Williams still fluid; offense back to basics
On offense, Johnson said each week without Caleb Williams has exposed a different struggle — red-zone finishes that improved but were still one-for-two last week, too many three-and-outs, and turnovers that were a major issue. “It’s getting back to what we did all through camp and how we started the first week of the season,” he said. “I don’t know that we’ve done that at a consistent level since then.”
Williams is expected to be a full participant on the projected injury report, but Johnson would not treat full practice as an automatic Sunday green light. “We’re gonna figure out what’s best for this football team to win this game on who plays on Sunday.” The quarterback situation remains fluid even as he feels good about the plan in place. Health for all three quarterbacks is the priority; none is exactly 100%. He put last week’s offensive struggles on himself as play-caller more than on Tyson Bagent or anyone else: “I have to do a better job making sure we get in a rhythm on offense regardless of who’s playing the quarterback position.”
That same back-to-basics tone covered Rome Odunze and the run game. Johnson wants the volume of the game plan dialed down so the Bears get good at the little things — play hard, play through the whistle, fundamentals since the spring. On DeAndre Swift’s second-half involvement, he said the Bears will not ride one back for 50-plus snaps in a 17-game season and believe in spreading carries. “We don’t have that 240-, 250-pound back on this roster,” he said. “We believe in running back by committee.”
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