For the second week in a row, the Dallas Cowboys defense allowed an opposing quarterback to have a career day, and this time it was much more than their own offense could overcome. The Cowboys fell 31-14 at the Chicago Bears, dropping their record to 1-2 and highlighting blatant defensive issues that stand to sink the 2025 season if not corrected swiftly.
By the end of Sunday’s games, the Eagles remained undefeated with a furious home comeback, the Commanders won without Jayden Daniels, and the Giants
had yet another game kicking only field goals – meaning the only defense they’ve scored a touchdown against in 12 quarters is the Cowboys last week. Dallas lost ground in the NFC East by having their first true letdown game of the season, and also leave the Windy City with an injury concern for CeeDee Lamb. It feels like none of these things, either within the Cowboys’ control or not, will truly matter unless the defense is night and day better starting in week four.
In what will feel like an afterthought to the way Chicago rallied and controlled the second half of this game, Dallas actually did well to try and build some early momentum on the road in this one. They forced a three and out on the Bears’ first possession, and quickly got to work trying to establish their ground game. Javontae Williams had the ball stripped out of his hands on a 22-yard dash into Bears territory though, leading to the first of back-to back-explosive play touchdowns for Caleb Williams and the Bears offense.
The Cowboys only answered both touchdowns from the Bears with Brandon Aubrey field goals, but did rally before halftime with a George Pickens one handed touchdown grab and Jalen Tolbert two-point conversion to tie the game at 14. Playing without Lamb at this point, it was painfully obvious this was going to have to be a game where Dak Prescott pulled off more heroics to keep his team in it, but 14-14 is as close as the visiting team would ever get. The Bears continued to make big plays, dominated time of possession, and created turnovers on defense the rest of the way to score 17 unanswered points and get in the win column for the first time under first-year head coach Ben Johnson.
In the win for Johnson, the Bears looked like a team rallied around the identity of their coach, with just the right amount of desperation already pinned with two divisional losses to come out and control the game at home. The corresponding loss for another first year head coach in Brian Schottenheimer leaves the Cowboys searching aimlessly for such an identity, with few things to lean on at the moment. The run game looks improved from 2024, but having it look any worse would arguably be more impressive. Their ability to trust the run game when the defense is allowing so many yards and touchdowns is also extremely shaky, and their own downfield passing attack was hindered without Lamb in this loss.
Dallas will have to find a similar level of desperation back at home for their second primetime game of the season next Sunday night, against another NFC North opponent, the Green Bay Packers. A team that, of course, features Micah Parsons on defense, and is also coming off a humiliating loss at the Cleveland Browns. A lot will be learned about the Cowboys by this time next week. Will any of those things be different from the issues that nearly lost the Giants game, and sunk their chances against the Bears, or just more confirmation of where this roster is not built to compete right now?
Before we can answer this, let’s take a closer look at some things that actually went right – and many others that went wrong – for the Cowboys at the Bears.
The Cowboys defense was zone heavy again in this game, which is sure to irritate fans already frustrated with the heavy zone usage versus the Giants that led to big plays over the top, but the truth is their man coverage looks did not fare much better. Dallas was caught in both looks and conceded big plays in both on the Bears first scoring drive.
First, Marist Liufau and Jack Sanborn failed to pass off a vertical route by rookie tight end Colston Loveland, leading to his longest catch of the season for 31 yards. Liufau was on the field likely because the Bears were in 13 personnel with three tight ends on the field, looking to defend the run. Although he was one of the Cowboys best defenders in the preseason, Liufau does not have a lot of coverage reps, especially lined up next to the former Bears defender Sanborn. Three plays after this explosive play to Loveland, the Bears jumped ahead 7-0 on another vertical to Rome Odunze. This time a much simpler play and read for Williams, Odunze flat out beat Trevon Diggs at the line of scrimmage. Once Diggs stumbled in press man coverage, and the Cowboys pass rush was nowhere to be found affecting the pocket, all Williams had to do was lay the ball up for an easy score to get the Bears rolling.
It was this contrast in how both offenses were working that made it difficult, and eventually impossible, for the Cowboys to stay in this game. The Cowboys tried to stick to their approach of getting everyone touches and moving methodically on their next drive, even giving Lamb a carry out of the backfield, but this led to their best receiver being rolled up on and taken out of the game. Dallas settled for a field goal to make the score 7-3, but it took just one play on a flea flicker for Williams to increase this lead to 14-3 airing it out to Luther Burden for a 65-yard touchdown. It was clear from this point on that Matt Eberflus’ defense was not going to have the answers they expected against his old team. Once Lamb tried to return to the game but could not move well enough on that injured ankle to actually do so, the Cowboys big-play ability was hamstrung while the Bears got big chunks of yards whenever they wanted.
The Cowboys’ final scoring drive in this game was also their last breath of opportunity to play with the balance that Schottenheimer desires. Capped off by a great individual play by Pickens, serving as the team’s WR1 for most of the game without Lamb, the Cowboys threw the ball four times on this drive, ran it four times, and didn’t face a single third down. Once they fell behind and were forced into being one dimensional, they were put behind the sticks and the run game was out of the equation. With so much of this team’s new persona under Schottenheimer being about the all-important run game, it is a fascinating crossroads to be at this early in his first season where Eberflus’ defense is forcing impatience by the Cowboys offense. Eberflus was supposed to be one of the steadiest and trusted coaches on Schottenheimer’s almost entirely new staff, with both previous head coaching experience and defensive experience in a past stint with the Cowboys, but instead the results have been worse than imaginable.
They were few and far between in this loss, but the vision for what the Cowboys defense will need to do on a much more regular basis were actually seen a few times against the Bears. When Dallas is able to get offenses behind the sticks even just slightly, they get much better results. Their safety tandem of Donovan Wilson and Malik Hooker are able to play in a tighter coverage area, which makes a world of difference for two players being asked to play much more coverage than ideally necessary at the moment.
Right after the Cowboys drew within 14-6 on Aubrey’s second field goal, the Bears got the ball back and were called for holding on their first play. Williams nearly threw an interception to Hooker on second down, and on third down Dante Fowler got close to Williams as he threw incomplete. The defense got the ball back for the offense, leading to that balanced drive and a touchdown.
Another glimpse of positivity from the Cowboys defense that was quickly erased came on a red zone situation, when Wilson separated the ball from Odunze with a hit near the goal line and forced a Bears field goal attempt. Unfortunately, this time the Cowboys offense went conservative and threw a third-down pass to Jake Ferguson well short of the sticks, giving the ball right back to the Bears. Ferguson was involved all game leading the team with 14 targets, catching 13 of them for 82 yards, but none of them went for more than 12 yards. The Bears came right back and got another one of their tight ends involved, again picking on safety coverage with play-action and targeting a wide open Cole Kmet to go up two scores 24-14.
A similar type of sequence actually repeated itself at the start of the second half to really finish off the Cowboys chances of coming back. Another short pass to Ferguson that stood no chance of getting a first down on the opening drive, and fell just short of getting into range for Aubrey, led to a punt that spelled the beginning of the end for Dallas.
The Bears took the ball and chewed up 9:54 of clock on a 19 play drive that ended with D.J. Moore getting behind Malik Hooker on fourth and goal for a touchdown.
The rout was on at this point, with the Cowboys only able to make marginal gains against Dennis Allen’s aggressive defense, but the Bears blowing the top off of Eberflus’. The Cowboys were unable to attack the middle of the field, be it with Ferguson or Pickens, regularly enough to stress the Bears defense similarly to how the Lions did last week when they scored 52 against them.
Moore’s touchdown to make the final score of 31-14 was the second time Chicago caught Hooker unable to identify the deepest receiver on the field, instead biting up on a shorter route and allowing the biggest possible play. The first was the trick play touchdown, and this was also something Hooker struggled with against the Giants.
Opposing quarterbacks are having a really great time forcing the Cowboys safeties to play coverage right now, and the outlook doesn’t look much better at cornerback either with Diggs struggling, DaRon Bland still out, and Shavon Revel still unable to make his debut as a rookie. The Cowboys pass rush hardly has answers either, as this was the first game of Caleb Williams’ career where he was not sacked, and second throwing four touchdowns.
In his first full game filling in for Cooper Beebe at center, Brock Hoffman appeared to more than hold his own. The Bears lined up defensive tackles in a zero-tech directly over Hoffman numerous times, which is not something defenses do often against Beebe who is quick out of his stance and powerful. Hoffman dealt with this well, was able to create some movement in the interior run game (for as little as Dallas was able to use this), and didn’t have any communication issues playing between Tyler Smith and rookie Tyler Booker that led to free interior rushes. The Cowboys may need to find better depth at wide receiver, cornerback, safety, and defensive end for it to truly matter, but with how poor the offensive line depth was last year, it’s good to see at least one area be improved with better depth in the trenches.
