PHILADELPHIA — When the NFL schedules were released in the spring, the Eagles’ Week 13 game against the Chicago Bears sure looked like a nothing burger.
The Bears, with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams, went 5-12 and fired their coach in the middle of last season. Even with offensive guru Ben Johnson as their new head coach, they didn’t figure to be much better this season, especially playing in the rugged NFC North, a division that sent three teams with a combined record of 40-11 to the playoffs.
Add in the facts that the Eagles are the defending Super Bowl champion and the game is being played at Lincoln Financial Field, and this sure looked like a mismatch six months ago.
But here we are in late November and the Black Friday matchup between the Bears and Eagles has plenty of sizzle.
In fact, it’s one of the many great matchups on this week’s schedule, which starts with Thursday’s games that feature Green Bay at Detroit, Kansas City at Dallas and Baltimore at Cincinnati. Yes, we know the Bengals stink and usually decline the option of playing defense, but they are getting Joe Burrow back at quarterback.
Eagles-Bears is the only one, however, that features two first-place teams. They have identical 8-3 records and are battling for the second seed in the NFC when the playoffs begin in six weeks.
The Bears also have a roster with lots of former Eagles, including safeties C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Kevin Byard. CJGJ is a world-class agitator with three sacks in four games with the Bears after being released by both the Texans and Ravens. Byard, after a disappointing 11-game stint with the Eagles during the great collapse of 2023, has rebounded to start every game for the Bears the last two seasons. He leads the NFL with five interceptions.
The Bears’ leading rusher is Philly native and former Eagle D’Andre Swift. Olamide Zaccheaus, his former teammate with the Eagles and St. Joseph’s Prep, has contributed 33 catches for 254 yards and one touchdown to the Bears’ success.
Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio sounded legitimately concerned about matching wits with the innovative Johnson and trying to slow down Williams and a Chicago offense that ranks eighth in points at 26.3 per game and sixth in yards at 369.6 per game.
For context, the Eagles’ scuffling offense has had just one game this season in which they managed more yards than the Bears are averaging per game.
“It’s a great scheme,” Fangio said. “They do a great job calling the game, mixing it up, marrying their run game and their pass game. They’re highly ranked in a lot of areas, and I don’t think it’s any accident. They’ve got really good players and it’s a great scheme and a great play caller.”
Fangio is most impressed with the way Johnson and his coaching staff have mentored Williams, who a season ago was sacked a league-high 68 times for an offense that finished 28th in scoring and last in yards.
Williams is still a work in progress, but his sack total is down from 4 per game to just 1.5 per game and in his last four games — all Chicago wins — he has thrown seven touchdowns without an interception. Williams, of course, is also a nightmare to defend in the running game.
“Kudos to (Johnson) and his staff for bringing that young quarterback along who I don’t think ever played under center in college,” Fangio said. “He’s doing a great job, and they have fought through any of the pitfalls of that and now they’ve got a quarterback that is executing their offense the way they want to.”
The Eagles, meanwhile, are 11 games into the season and still trying to figure out what happened to their offense, which is averaging 64 fewer yards per game this season than it did last year. They are coming off a disturbing loss at Dallas in which they blew a 21-point lead and failed to score in the final 41 minutes.
That led to a typical sky-is-falling Monday after an Eagles’ loss that had everyone from quarterback Jalen Hurts to coach Nick Sirianni and especially offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo coming under extra scrutiny.
“I think it’s a team message this week about how you respond,” Hurts said. “Response is very important in anything you do. The question about that is if you want something, what are you willing to do to achieve it.”
For the second time this season the Eagles are coming off a loss and confronted by a short week. The last time things didn’t go so well. They went up to East Rutherford and suffered their worst loss of the season to a Giants’ team that hasn’t won since.
The Bears have won eight of their last nine games, but they have only beaten one team all season with a winning record. That was the Steelers last week without Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. This game against the Eagles starts a stretch in which the Bears will play five of their final six games against teams with winning records.
The Eagles, meanwhile, need to prove they are still among the top forces to be reckoned with in the NFC. Should they lose, sky-is-falling Monday will be moved up to Saturday and this game that looked like a nothing burger six months ago will be a something burger with extra cheese.