The play seemed innocuous enough at the time—just another errant throw by Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold against a rapacious Chicago Bears front to force a punt late in the game.
But I pointed something out to my brother on the text thread that I thought was the cause:
He’d seen, as he had for much of the night, newly acquired defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons and defensive end Montez Sweat lined up on the same side of the formation, and he was thinking more about them than he was about delivering
an accurate football. They didn’t get home, but they pushed the pocket enough around him and into his throwing window that he lost his composure and threw a bad ball. There was a lot of that for Darnold and the Seahawks offense, which was the first to go against this new-look Bears defensive unit with Simmons at the center.
To be fair to Darnold, that fear wasn’t entirely unfounded.
A Bears defense that has struggled for much of the last two years to get pressure with just four rushers has apparently solved that issue in one masterstroke by trading for Simmons, one of the NFL’s best interior pass-rushers. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, who had been making ends meet without an elite front four by spamming blitzes, let the big dogs eat on Monday Night Football, and they left no crumbs.
But as hellacious as Simmons (two pressures, a sack, and an 86.9 pass rush grade) was in the Bears’ 34-17 beatdown of the Seahawks—arguably the best defensive debut we’ve seen since Khalil Mack’s in 2018—the effect he had on Sweat, his old college teammate at Mississippi State, might’ve been the biggest takeaway from last night.
Sweat, who was just coming off of a two-game suspension for violating the NFL’s PED policy, had his best game of the season with four pressures and a sack. (He would’ve had even more if it hadn’t been for a few untimely penalties in the secondary.)
Maybe it was the layoff. Maybe it was the addition of his old friend Simmons, with whom he already seems to have insane chemistry. Maybe it was primetime football. Maybe it was all of the above. Whatever the reason, Sweat looked as good as he ever has in a Bears uniform.
The Bears traded for and signed Sweat to a four-year, $98 million contract extension back in 2023 for games like this. But too often, he hasn’t had the running mates, especially on the interior, to maximize his skills, which are less those of a truly elite pass-rusher and more of a strong running mate to an alpha dog. Now, Chicago went and got him one, and the difference, even in a small sample size, is enormous.
This was one game, of course, and the Bears will have some tough tests up ahead—the Detroit Lions, who swept the Bears last year, the AFC South-leading Jacksonville Jaguars, and AFC-leading Buffalo Bills, to name a few. (Plus, they need to get revenge on the Packers for that drubbing a couple weeks back without Caleb Williams.)
But if the Bears are going to get this version of Sweat alongside Simmons, not to mention what other ways general manager Ryan Poles might improve the defense, Chicago might just be the scariest team in the NFL.
The best team in the NFL resides in Chicago.
