Coming off of a 52-21 thrashing at the hands of the Detroit Lions in Week 2, there was a tremendous amount of pressure on the Chicago Bears to show up for their Week 3 matchup with the Dallas Cowboys with a renewed sense of energy and desperation. In a 31-14 victory over ‘America’s Team,’ the Bears not only proved that they were up for the challenge, but also that there may be another level that this team could reach.
For veteran defensive end Montez Sweat, who notched his first sack of the season this past Sunday afternoon, there’s no may be about it. He believes this 17-point victory was a sign of things to come, and that could spell bad news for the rest of the National Football League.
Montez Sweat after the Bears’ 31-14 win over Dallas.
While a dominant win over the Cowboys — who were without star wide receive CeeDee Lamb for most of the contest — alone won’t be enough for anyone to seriously reconsider their feelings about the Chicago Bears, if the Monsters of the Midway use this Week 3 performance as a jumping off point for the remainder of the season, then sure, it may be worth reevaluating how high the ceiling is for the 2025 Bears.
Bears Offense Makes Headlines, But Defense Holds Their Own
What Bears fans were hoping to see right out of the gate from a new-look Bears offense under first-year head coach Ben Johnson took until Week 3 to come to fruition. The marriage of explosive plays — a category which the Bears lead the league in through three weeks — and smash mouth, ball control football — on display during a 19-play scoring drive in the 3rd quarter — is exactly what the Ben Johnson experience was supposed to be like.
But on the opposite side of the ball, the Bears held their own too. After scoring 60 points over their first two games of the season, the Cowboys were limited to just one touchdown and a pair of field goals in their visit to Soldier Field. Sure, Dallas outgained Chicago, had more first downs and won the time of possession battle, but while the Bears defense bent plenty, they rarely broke.
Meanwhile, the Bears turned the Cowboys over four times and limited Dak Prescott and co. to just three 3rd down conversions on 11 tries, and this was all without Jaylon Johnson, Kyler Gordon and TJ Edwards, three of Chicago’s best and most reliable defensive starters. But perhaps the most encouraging development was Chicago’s ability to pressure Prescott, which was lacking in each of their first two games of the 2025 season.
While nobody should expect this iteration of the Bears defense to resemble units of the past that were able to batter opposing quarterbacks with regularity, if Ben Johnson’s offense is able to put points on the board and give Dennis Allen’s defense the opportunity to play with the lead, it makes Montez Sweat and all of his Bears teammates a hell of a lot more dangerous than they would be otherwise.
“When they [Bears offense] get ahead like that, we get to peel our ears back and get after the QB. I’m looking forward to that,” Sweat added.
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