By rssfeeds-admin 
The Bears’ first-year head coach, who’s already familiar with playing the Commanders in a high-stakes atmosphere, sees an opponent who plays “inspired football.”
“When you turn on the tape and you see special teams playing so fast, so violent, so physical, I think that says a lot about [their] football team,” Johnson said. “I like to think we do the same thing on our side … but I can’t say enough good things about [their] identity.”
Facing the Commanders, Then and Now
Washington was the team that put an end to the Detroit Lions’ 2024 season in the NFC Divisional Round. The Commanders won a two-score contest, 45-31, primarily thanks to five Detroit turnovers.
Jared Goff accounted for four of them (three interceptions—one of which was a pick six—and one fumble lost), and Jameson Williams threw an interception on a trick play called in the fourth quarter. Washington scored 21 points off those five extra opportunities.
“I felt like, within that setting, that as good as [their] offense was clicking, you feel a little bit of pressure on offense to go score for score, and you don’t want to fall behind by two scores against a team like that,” Johnson said. “And so, [I] might have been a little bit more aggressive with the play calls and got away from the game plan a little bit based on how that game went.
“End of the day, if you take care of the football, that game maybe goes a different direction.”
A different direction from that turnover-maligned result last postseason is what Johnson sees in Chicago over the past two weeks in wins over the Dallas Cowboys and Las Vegas Raiders.
“That’s been the last two weeks for us in general. We’ve done a good job of taking care of the football for the most part, and we’ve been taking the ball away from the opposing offense,” Johnson said.
The Bears are +7 in the turnover margin over their past two games. In those contests, Chicago has forced eight turnovers (six interceptions, two fumbles), with four coming in each game. It was the third occurrence in the last 19 years where the Bears notched four-plus turnovers in back-to-back weeks.
Chicago logged four turnovers apiece in Weeks 11 and 12 of the 2023 season, and five turnovers apiece in Weeks 12 and 13 of the 2006 season. The Bears went 4-2 across those six contests. They lost in Week 11 of 2023 against the Lions, 31-25, and in Week 12 of 2006 against the New England Patriots, 17-13.
“I think that’s a big indicator of how well we’ll do this week,” Johnson said of the turnover battle to come against the Commanders.
A big factor that will go a long way toward determining whether or not Chicago will be able to pull out a victory over Washington will be how they handle RPO run plays centered around Jayden Daniels and Jacory Croskey-Merritt.
Croskey-Merritt has 43 carries for 283 yards on the ground and leads the NFL in rush yards per attempt at 6.6. Daniels, back on the active roster after missing two weeks with a knee sprain, is averaging 41.3 yards rushing per game after a 2024 season where he accounted for 891 yards on 8.7 yards per attempt.
“[Daniels is] dangerous. I think he’s a big reason why their running game is what it is,” Johnson said. “He strikes a lot of fear in opposing coaches because you look at them and you know you got to account for him, not just as an accurate passer, not just as a scrambler, but the quarterback-driven run game that they do a lot of.”
Chicago’s defense has been putrid against the run through four games. They’re giving up an average of 164.5 yards on the ground at 6.1 yards per attempt. Those numbers are second-to-last and dead last in the NFL, respectively.
“It’s going to take all 11 guys playing disciplined football to make sure we contain their attack,” Johnson said.
Discover more from RSS Feeds Cloud
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.