It’s Halloween weekend, but for fans of the Seattle Seahawks it’s a Sunday they get to spend without the stresses of “enjoying” a Seahawks game, as Mike Macdonald and his crew will take to the field against the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football.
Fresh off a dominant primetime win over Andy Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs, Seattle will be looking for an encore performance against another playoff contender led by one of the top offensive minds in the league in Ben Johnson.
It will be the first time
Macdonald and Johnson have gone head to head since the Detroit Lions thumped the Seahawks 42-29 on the back of a day that saw Jared Goff go 18-18 for 292 yards and a pair of touchdowns while also adding a seven yard touchdown reception from Amon-Ra St. Brown.
In any case, it should be a fantastic primetime showdown, and nobody clicked to read a bunch of fluff at the top of the post. Thus, without wasting any time, here are the questions posed to Bill Zimmerman of Windy City Gridiron, along with the answers provided.
1. So many offensive coaches break into the NFL with a splash, but then fizzle over time. Ben Johnson, in contrast, has remained one of the best playcallers in the NFL over the past four and a half seasons and has the Bears poised to compete in a tough NFC North. What has allowed his continued success, while so many other former hot name offensive coordinators, like Bobby Slowik and Mike McDaniel, have seen their success fade over the past couple of years?
Well, it helps that Ben Johnson is a psycho, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. He has a drive to be the best and to win like very few others I’ve seen pass through Chicago (probably since Mike Ditka). He’s also constantly looking to evolve his offense every season. Whether it be his run-blocking schemes, his passing concepts, and everything in between, he doesn’t run Sean McVay’s offense or Kyle Shanahan’s offense; he takes aspects of great offenses and tries to merge them into Ben Johnson’s offense.
Ben has an understanding that what worked in 2025 may not work in 2026 as defensive coordinators adjust. Heck, he understands that what works in week 1 of 2026 may not work in week 10 of 2026. He’s a very smart guy, and he uses that to keep defenses on their toes.
I think what makes Ben a tick above just about everyone else is he’s truly a brilliant playcaller. He’s playing chess every Sunday. He uses plays that he runs throughout the first half and early in the second half to get tendencies and open up plays for big gains in the fourth quarter. That was a big part of the late-game success last year. Yes, Caleb Williams had some magician moments, but those plays worked thanks to some Rembrandt-like work from Ben Johnson all game long, setting those up.
Ben has worked his way into the McVay/Shanahan realm of offensive minds and we are confident he’s going to stay on that level.
2. For the second time in recent history the Bears have swung big in adding an All-Pro to the defensive front. What changes with the addition of Jeffery Simmons, and how much does this move change the Chicago defense?
It’s not too often a team can add an actual game wrecker in arguably their biggest need midseason, but that’s what the Bears pulled off here. I can’t overstate how big this is for the Chicago defense. I know I sound like a homer right now, but let me not for a second, prior to this trade, I had the stance that this Bears team could never reach or win a Super Bowl because their defensive line was too deficient. You guys know this in Seattle: if you are going to beat great QBs, you need to get pressure with four. The Bears simply could not do that. Dennis Allen was a wizard with his pressure packages, but that’s always a bit of smoke and mirrors. Sure, it works in the regular season against Michael Penix, but that’s not what you want to do in the playoffs against Matthew Stafford or Josh Allen.
Simmons isn’t just a great player. He’s a multiplier. He’s going to make the rest of the DL around him better because of the attention he will draw. He will still make several impact plays a game despite that attention. And because he elevates the entire DL, the DL will elevate the back seven.
The Khalil Mack trade was awesome (that you were referring to in the question), but that didn’t work out as well because Ryan Pace bet that Mitch Trubisky was the guy, and well, he wasn’t. This time, there is far more confidence in Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams than Trubisky and Matt Nagy.
3. Most Seattle fans are familiar with the big names on the Bears roster, but who is a player on each side of the ball whose name fans may not recognize, but could have an outsized impact on the outcome of the game?
This is always a fun question but a tough one to answer from the Bears on the offensive side of the ball because they don’t have a lot of under-the-radar players. I think most NFL fans are well aware of who Caleb Williams, Colston Loveland, Luther Burden, Rome Odunze, and D’Andre Swift are. I’d love to give you Sam Roush, the Bears rookie who is going to get more snaps with Cole Kmet injured, but Roush has had a lot of rough moments as a rookie. The best one is Kalif Raymond. Raymond was with Ben Johnson in Detroit and is one of those Swiss Army Knife-type wide receivers that can do a lot of different things. He runs clean routes, is a great blocker, knows where he is supposed to be on the field at all times, and if he gets the chance to move with the ball in space, he does have some speed. Raymond hasn’t been involved in the offense as much the last few weeks, but he was quite important the first 3 or 4 games of the season. It would not surprise me if he saw an uptick in targets this Monday against Seattle’s defense.
On the defensive side of the ball, I’m going to give you the edge opposite Montez Sweat, Austin Booker. Booker was a 5th-round pick for the Bears in 2024 and had 6 sacks combined in his first two seasons. This year through 7 games, he already has 4 sacks, 5 TFLs (tying his career high already), and 2 forced fumbles. He’s playing solid football on a unit that desperately needed someone to step up. Now with Simmons in the mix, he should see even less attention and could have a chance to make a splash play or two.
4. Mike Macdonald’s defenses have been particularly troublesome for younger, less experienced quarterbacks. How has Caleb Williams looked so far in 2026, and what should Seahawks fans expect from the young signal caller as he faces off against a defensive group that just got done shutting down Patrick Mahomes?
I would never suggest that Caleb Williams is going to cook a Mike Macdonald defense, because it’s an awesome defense and it gives plenty of QBs trouble. But I don’t think Caleb Williams should be considered a less-experienced QB at this point. Caleb has started over 40 games at this point and has 25 starts in Ben Johnson’s scheme. He’s grown a lot this year as a QB.
Caleb will always be a QB who wants to take a shot down the field because he trusts his arm and his playmaking ability, but he has definitely learned to take the easy yards when they are there, and we’ve seen a big change. Last year, every Williams critic wanted to complain about his completion percentage. Well, this year, Caleb is sitting at 71%, good for 2nd in the NFL behind Joe Burrow. He rarely turns the ball over as well.
If I’m Seattle, I think you get Caleb Williams moving as much as possible and see how much he trusts his hamstring at this point. He’s had a nice break from Thursday Night Football, and the hamstring should be okay, but we haven’t seen him run since he returned from injury. He has 21 rushing yards in the last two games after having 107 in his first two games. That being said, if he trusts it, he could take off and grab 15- or 20-yard gains, but I would get him moving and disguise some coverages and see if you can cross him up and get him to turn the ball over once or twice. It’s becoming a difficult task to do, but if a defense can do it, it’s probably Seattle’s.
5. What’s your prediction for the game and why?
I fully admit, I am going with a full homer pick here. There is zero reason to pick the Chicago Bears on the road in Seattle where the Seahawks have a huge home-field advantage, and oh, by the way, they are the defending Super Bowl champions. And had we done this question exchange on Monday or Tuesday, I absolutely would have given you the Seahawks as my answer.
However, I am going with the good vibes pick here of Jeffery Simmons coming to Chicago. I think this defense is going to be fired up. I think Dennis Allen will give Sam Darnold some trouble. I think Caleb Williams probably won’t be as great as he’s been the last two weeks thanks to Seattle’s defense, but he will be effective enough to get the job done. Jeffery Simmons probably plays limited snaps, but I still think he makes at least a couple of impact plays.
Bears 26, Seahawks 20
And now we’re on to practice squad elevations Monday afternoon. But first, a Sunday full of football.
