When you are the defending Super Bowl champion, you don’t get a lot of downtime during the NFL season. One week after dismantling the previously undefeated Kansas City Chiefs, the Seattle Seahawks host the 5-2 Chicago Bears in a Monday night tilt that features a classic matchup.
The Bears are coached by Ben Johnson, possibly the best young offensive mind in the game today. He will be matching wits against Seattle’s Mike Macdonald, who is redefining the way defense is played in the NFL.
The Bears will be the fifth of Seattle’s first eight opponents to make the playoffs in 2025. With quarterback Caleb Williams back at full strength, their offense is dominating opponents while their opportunistic defense forces opponents to play carefully. They are a very tough out.
5 keys to a Seattle Seahawks victory against Chicago in Week 8
As good as the Seahawks defense looked against Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City in Week 7, they are not likely to smother Caleb Williams and company in the same manner. The offense will have to make plays.
Special teams will need to chip in. In short, it will take a total team effort to capitalize on their impressive Week 7 win and build momentum for the second half of the season. Here are five problems Seattle needs to figure out in order to beat the Bears.
Creativity in the red zone
Seattle’s offense was dynamite for much of the game against a good Chiefs defense. Their most impressive stat? 12 conversions in 17 attempts on third or fourth down. That accounts for more than a ten-minute advantage in time of possession.
But as good as they were on third and fourth down, they were equally bad in the red zone. Both touchdowns came on long plays. Three trips inside the Chiefs’ 20 yielded six total points. Sam Darnold threw an interception to kill one promising drive.
On the other two, Brian Fleury couldn’t seem to unlock the compressed field. He tried throwing short and tried running wide. Both plays went backwards.
Seattle does not appear to be physical enough up front to run the ball in right now, and teams have an easier time dealing with Jaxon Smith-Njigba on a short field. Seattle needs to find other options. Cooper Kupp or AJ Barner would seem like likely options, especially with Elijah Arroyo unavailable.
Clean up the pre snap penalties
One of the things that has hurt red zone efficiency has been pre-snap procedural penalties. On Seattle’s final red zone trip in Week 7, a delay-of-game penalty wiped out a positive first down run and left them in a difficult position.
Each of Seattle’s three interior linemen – Grey Zabel, Jalen Sundell, and Anthony Bradford – was called for false starts. This isn’t exactly an epidemic, but on a team that prides itself on discipline, it remains a nagging problem. And as this offense continues struggling to find explosive playmakers beyond JSN, unforced errors like this can be drive killers.
Speed – or lack thereof – kills
The absence of Kenneth Walker has put Seattle’s relative lack of speed into stark relief. Jadarian Price’s absence has exacerbated the problem. In Week 7, two of the Seahawks fastest offensive players – Rashid Shaheed and Velus Jones – left the game with injuries.
Shaheed is clearly a bigger potential loss, but even losing a reserve like Jones will hurt because of the overall lack of team speed.
Of course, Smith-Njigba remains a very scary option, but Seattle’s other top offensive weapons – Cooper Kupp, AJ Barner, Emanuel Wilson – are not winning any sprint relays. It is hard to scheme around a lack of speed, so look for the Seahawks to pound the middle of the Bears line, with a heavy dose of Brady Russell as lead blocker.
The expected return of Zach Charbonnet may help. He is not a speed demon, but he has a better burst than the players currently in the backfield. Perhaps we will see Robert Henry Jr. adding a different dynamic as well. At receiver, if Shaheed is unable to go, this should be Tory Horton’s chance to shine.
Guarding Chicago’s outside receivers
It seems silly to say any facet of the defense needs to be cleaned up after what they collectively showed against the Chiefs in Week 7. The Dark Side was devastating.
But we should note that, for all intents and purposes, the Chiefs had no quality wide receivers. Tyquan Thornton and Rashee Rice were out. Their best remaining outside threat, Xavier Worthy, is very fast, and that’s about it. No other receiver on the field in a Chiefs uniform should be playing major snaps on a good NFL offense.
That is decidedly not the case with the Bears. Luther Burden, Kalif Raymond, and Rome Odunze have 449 yards – AFTER THE CATCH this season. That’s over 100 yards better than Kansas City’s five Sunday night wideouts have this year, before and after the catch.
Burden, in particular, is developing into a YAC monster. The challenge will be much bigger against the elusive Caleb Williams and his dangerous receivers on Monday night.
The same old song and dance
I say this as someone who does not consider Sam Darnold’s interceptions quite as serious as the rest of the world seems to think they are. Against Chicago, ball security will matter. This is a Bears defense that can be attacked, but they are also among the most opportunistic in the NFL. They will give up yards and then come up with a momentum-shifting turnover seemingly every week.
Though they have fallen off their league-leading pace from 2025 and only figure in the middle of the pack in terms of turnovers this season, the Bears seem to pick their spots very well. They have made big defensive plays at big times, and Seattle will need to be very careful, especially when they get into the red zone.
Darnold, despite his end zone pick, looked far more comfortable on Sunday than he has since returning from his early injury. Monday night will be a good test of his ability to balance aggressiveness with caution.
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