The Falcons just a heartbreaker in overtime to the Ravens. The Bears got absolutely drubbed by a divisional rival. Both of these teams are looking for a win, but naturally, only one can get it. Will it be the Falcons?
That’s a question with a lot of moving parts. If the Bears don’t start Caleb Williams, my instinct is that yes, a Chicago team with a backup quarterback and no Kyle Monangai is quite gettable for Atlanta. If Williams is back in action and Monangai is too, this offense is incredibly formidable,
and that looks to be the way things are trending for the Bears. That makes the task much harder, even if the shaky Bears defense also provides real opportunities.
How will this one go? That remains to be seen, but here’s what you need to know for Week 6.
Team rankings
The Bears are one of those teams that look extremely impressive on paper and are very talented, but have more weaknesses than these surface level metrics might indicate. The passing attack is lesser without Caleb Williams, the rushing attack is incredible but may be missing sledgehammer back Kyle Monangai this week. The defense, meanwhile, has struggled against good offenses and been lights out against bad ones, and is also dealing with injuries. The have one of the brightest offensive minds in football and a very good team top to bottom when they’re fully healthy, but they are not fully healthy.
Atlanta’s been up-and-down but is settling into roughly the shape I think we’ll see this season, which is a very good offense with an effective defense that isn’t quite good enough to stop elite passing games or rushing attacks. The injuries in the secondary and attrition up front have combined to make the sledding tougher and they’re not forcing enough turnovers, but overall this looks like a team that should be comfortably league average or better across these high level categories. They just need to settle into a consistent level of play.
How the Bears have changed in 2026
They returned a ton of talent from last year, and notably traded Gervon Dexter to the Falcons and re-united him with ex-Bears assistant general manager Ian Cunningham, who is now running the show in Atlanta. They sought to bolster the defense in particular with signings like safety Coby Bryant, defensive tackles Kentavius Street and Neville Gallimore, and linebacker Devin Bush. Their draft brought in promising safety Dillon Thieneman, center Logan Jones, and some interesting depth.
Overall, though, this was not a transformative offseason and was not intended to be, as the Bears built a solid foundation of talent and were betting on good coaching and some truly outstanding potential on offense to push them over the top this year.
What to know for Week 6
The Bears are an incredibly dangerous offense paired with a defense that is worse than its underlying metrics suggest. That offers up a recipe for a real shootout in Atlanta.
It’s tough to get a read on the actual abilities of this Bears team, but the offense was at full strength in Week 1 in favorable conditions and boatraced the Panthers, putting up 552 yards en route to a 59-37 win. The following week, they played the Vikings in the rain and Brian Flores befuddled Chicago, which lost 9-3 and lost Williams for multiple weeks. It’s been difficult to get a true sense of the offense from there because they’ve had Case Keenum and Tyson Bagent under center and have had running back injuries, as well, but Ben Johnson did dismantle the Eagles 27-7 in Week 3 with Keenum.
With Williams set to return, a world of possibilities opens up for Chicago again. He’s simply one of the most gifted quarterbacks in league, and if the results can be a bit inconsistent, Williams’ ability to make nearly any throw while backpedaling away from pressure, scrambling, or otherwise just being wildly off-balance makes defending him extraordinarily difficult. The fact that the Falcons have not yet faced him adds a little difficulty to the mix, as does the fact that he can be a lethal scrambler.
Williams has plenty of weapons to throw to. While they take turns popping off, Luther Burden, Rome Odunze, and Kalif Raymond offer plenty of speed and big play potential; tight ends Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet are both capable pass catchers as well. Ben Johnson is a mad scientist who marries that varied passing attack to a very strong ground game featuring D’Andre Swift—who is banged up—and bowling ball with legs Kyle Monangai, who seems likely to miss this game. Teams that can’t account for all these threats tend to have a tough time, and the Falcons are a bit banged up in the secondary.
Pressure is the best way to solve this. This is not a Tyler Huntley game, where the Falcons leaned heavily on the blitz and paid for it against the Ravens backup, who has the third-best completion percentage when pressured in the NFL this year. Williams is 22nd in the NFL in completion percentage under pressure, plummeting 30 percentage points when the rush is getting to him, though he remains a threat to break a long run. Williams does not take many sacks, but you’ll live with that if you can force him into bad throws. If that puts extra pressure on a ground game that’s much less effective with a banged-up Swift and without Monangai, so much the better.
The Falcons defense will have its work cut out for it regardless, but what about the Falcons offense? That’s a little more straightforward, despite Chicago being statistically top ten thus far through five weeks.
What do I mean by that? Chicago has faced two capable offenses thus far and allowed over 30 points to both; the Panthers scored 37 in a shootout and the Packers easily set a new season high with 31 points last week. They held the Jets, Vikings, and Eagles in check, but all three of those teams are struggling with personnel troubles and dysfunction, so that’s not an achievement that deserves sustained applause.
The splits here are also reflected in passing yardage, where Bryce Young and Jordan Love picked them apart for over 300 yards apiece, while Geno Smith, Carson Wentz, and Jalen Hurts in whatever nightmare box the Eagles are putting in all scuffled. The Bears have a run defense that looks better in raw yardage than in DVOA, and they have yet to face a back as good as Bijan Robinson (and arguably not even as good as Brian Robinson Jr., for that matter). They can rush the passer well and have a knack for authoring big plays, but they also lost leading sack artists Montez Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo for this week alongside linebacker TJ Edwards, leaving them thinner and less capable up front.
As long as Michael Penix Jr. is good to go, this offense is more than capable of attacking this Chicago defense deep and with a diet of the Robinsons, which is likely to bear real fruit. The bigger question is whether this Falcons defense can bottle up a very capable, creative Bears offense and, failing that, whether the offense can keep up with what the Bears are capable of doing. I would be very surprised if this doesn’t turn into a shootout, unless Williams or Penix suffers an unexpected setback and don’t play Sunday.
The Falcons badly need to get back on track after that sour Sunday night and have a real chance to do so against yet another depleted team. If they can’t get the job done against a much less effective defense and a team that might be working without one of its top backs and with a limited or absent version of their star young quarterback, it’s going to be time to worry.
