The Dallas Cowboys will play their next two games against opponents from the NFC North, the best division in football a year ago which put three of its four teams in the playoffs. This Sunday’s opponent, the Chicago Bears, was the one that missed out on the playoffs, going 5-12 with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. Twelve of these games (four wins, eight losses) came under current Cowboys defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus.
The Cowboys need to avoid getting caught looking ahead to their second
primetime game of the season in week four versus Micah Parsons and the Packers. They must handle the emotions of drawing a winless team for the second week in a row, this time on the road, desperate for a win under first-year head coach Ben Johnson. The Bears competed well in the first Monday Night Football game of the season but lost the lead in the second half versus the Vikings, then were blown out at the Lions, 52-21, last week.
Starting with an Eberflus defense that was just shredded by the Giants in week two is an easy place to begin breaking down this game, but it loses sight of the matchup where the Cowboys will have most of their best players on the field, against a defense with some obvious weaknesses to exploit. If not for Eberflus’ defense conceding explosive plays and points at will to Russell Wilson, the story out of the Cowboys’ first win would be much more of Dak Prescott having another dominant performance against a divisional opponent and lighting up the scoreboard at home. Prescott did this anyway by having to put the offense on his shoulders in the game’s biggest moments and make clutch throws.
The Cowboys offensive game plan against the Giants to get Brian Schottenheimer his first win had to make a lot of adjustments. Through it all they stuck to their new identity and stayed patient with motions and trying to spread the ball around, but compared to the huge chunks the Giants were getting in the pass game, the Cowboys nearly fell short of keeping up. Although they’ll be expecting a much more stout effort from their defense in this department against the Bears, one of the best things the Cowboys can get out of this game is another efficient game from Prescott with more big plays to CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens.
What else do the Cowboys need to do to earn their second win, and what could derail their efforts in Chicago? Welcome back to our weekly win or lose scenarios for week three, the Cowboys’ first appearance on FOX’s America’s Game of the Week for 2025.
The Dallas Cowboys will beat the Chicago Bears if…
They attack the middle of the field and stay ahead of the chains
The Cowboys’ passing attack has taken an interesting hierarchy through two games this season. Lamb leading the team in targets comes as no surprise, but second is tight end Jake Ferguson. KaVontae Turpin has matched Jalen Tolbert in targets as a third option at wide receiver, even with exiting the Giants game early with a neck injury.
It feels like the Cowboys getting Ferguson going more has been a weekly talking point for the entirety of last season up until now. Ferguson has been, and still is, the barometer to measure if the Cowboys offense is really humming. In some ways the effort to do so has been there so far in 2025, but Ferguson has not been targeted once in the red zone and only four of his 14 catches have gone for first downs. There is much more big-play potential to be tapped into from the Cowboys starting tight end, with a few misses in week one against the Eagles down the seam standing out in that four-point loss.
The attention in coverage both Lamb and Pickens on the outside are drawing has created contested throws to both, which neither receiver nor Prescott mind. The same is true of Ferguson, although using the speed of Dallas’ offense around him to his advantage and owning the middle of the field more would be a very welcome next step to establish Ferguson even more. Seeing as he’s stayed on the field for 60% of the Cowboys run plays this season, Ferguson has not been pushed by either Luke Schoonmaker or Brevyn Spann-Ford in this role like some expected, and can be vitally important to keeping the Cowboys offense multiple.
Going up against a Bears defense that is currently being coordinated by Dennis Allen is a great opportunity for the Cowboys to push the ball downfield more and attack the middle third with Ferguson. In a slight way, this is also a revenge game for the Cowboys offense and not just Eberflus’ defense, as Allen was the head coach for the Saints who beat the Cowboys with a healthy Prescott 44-19 last year.
Coming off a game where they allowed 52 points to the Lions, the Bears defense showed an obvious weakness against Jared Goff in Detroit.
The Lions offense picked apart the Bears over the middle, with Jared Goff throwing five touchdowns. Amon-Ra St. Brown made a living on deep crossing routes over the middle in this game. The Bears secondary came out of this game with further injury concerns, so the opportunities should be there for all three of Lamb, Pickens, and Ferguson to make big plays. Against an aggressive defense like Allen’s, it will come down to how well Dallas can pass protect, but if Prescott has time in the pocket a repeat performance of what he did to the Giants is very possible. Hopefully, if the Cowboys are able to score between 30 and 40 points again, we can be right back here next week talking about a more decisive win than by a field goal in overtime, which brings us to how the Cowboys can lose to the Bear.
The Dallas Cowboys will lose at the Bears if…
Their defense cannot limit big plays again
The way the Cowboys defense played against the Giants was simply not sustainable. Yes, they have a “cop out” based on the players unavailable right now, primarily in the secondary. The expectation still should be the experienced coach in Eberflus can get his side of the ball right, at very least by changing up some of the looks the opposing offense sees. Eberflus has been reluctant to call anything but passive zones, which has called on the front four to hold up against the run. The good news is that the Cowboys have done this well thanks to their upgrades at defensive tackle, but the bad news is even with numbers on the backend, they allowed a slew of big plays to Russell Wilson and Malik Nabers.
The Bears offense has impressively spread the ball around to a laundry list of receivers, and done a lot of the things that Johnson expected to bring with an athletic quarterback in Williams. His play obviously hasn’t resulted in a win yet, but his flashes of much better QB play from rookie season until now have been there in a big way.
The Bears had four different receivers with a catch of at least 15 yards against the Vikings, and three against the Lions with Rome Odunze leading the way with 128 yards and two touchdowns. Odunze was drafted in the same class as Williams, and now under the right offensive coaching is creating that tandem with his QB to take the top off of defenses. It doesn’t take much separation for Williams to target Odunze, and for the former Washington receiver to haul it in. He may remind the Cowboys defense of Nabers in some of these ways, which means they’ll need a much better game plan against not only Odunze but D.J. Moore as well.
Chicago has quickly found themselves in a position to leave it all on the field and play loose here in week three. They are not only winless, but 0-2 within the brutal NFC North already. If there was a time for Johnson to call an even more aggressive game, something he’s never backed down from doing against the Cowboys especially, that time is Sunday against the Cowboys zone defense.
In the only other Bears home game this season, they made the big plays early and had a lead they should have held onto. If the Cowboys defense starts slow again and allows the Bears to get off to a similar start, it feels unlikely they’ll let the same opportunity slip away again. Chicago actually opened as the betting favorites despite being 0-2 in this game, with a mix of home field advantage and the leaky Cowboys secondary seemingly being the biggest factors here.
