Chicago Bears: 3 Big takeaways from win vs. Jets in Week 8

The defense dominated once again

After the first four weeks of the season, the Chicago Bears defense was one of the most dominating units in the NFL. After the bye week, however, they took a step back. They gave up 69 points and 922 total yards in just two games. The pass rush was almost nonexistent in those games. After the first four games, they had 17 sacks. In the last two, they recorded only two.

A lot of that changed against the Jets. While they only recorded one sack, they put some pressure on Darnold, making him throw before he wanted. Also, the Bears dominated against the run as they have for the most part of the season. They gave up just a minuscule 57 yards rushing (and an average of just 2.4 yards per carry).

At one point, the Bears held Isaiah Crowell to no gain on five straight runs. The Jets ended up with zero rushing touchdowns, the same number of rushing touchdowns the Bears’ defense has given up. Additionally, they held the Jets to just 207 total yards of offense.

I know that this was against an injury-depleted Jets team. However, this is what the defense should do to a team like that. They should have dominated the Dolphins offense without their starter but failed to do so.

Having a dominating performance without their best player is a good sign for the Bears. Mack will have two weeks of rest by the time the Bears play next week so hopefully he’s near full strength and can play. They play another struggling team, the Buffalo Bills, so if he isn’t fully healthy they may decide to rest him again. I hope that isn’t the case, though.

The Bears defensive players felt good about their effort without Mack. They love having Mack but they feel this is a great overall defense, not just Mack. Akiem Hicks spoke about that after the game, via Pro Football Weekly:

"I don’t want to go back and forth about what any particular guy does on this defense. I want to talk about our entire defense, as a whole and how dominant we have been and how dominant we will continue to be for the rest of the year."

It’s great to see the defense return. The real difficult part of the season comes up after next week’s game. In the three weeks after next week, they play the Detroit Lions twice and the Minnesota Vikings. Those games will go far to deciding the Bears’ NFC North chances.