Bears win one the ‘Monsters’ way — with defense and a running game — as Caleb Williams offers little help

Three turnovers?

Please.

The Bears defense wanted at least four of them Sunday against the lowly Saints.

They talked about it all week. They reminded one another throughout a 26-14 win at Soldier Field. And once there was only one more to go, it became almost even more about tacking on turnover No. 4 than it was about sewing up victory No. 4 in a row.

When linebackers T.J. Edwards and Tremaine Edmunds made it happen with 4:20 left to play, Edwards tipping a Spencer Rattler pass and Edmunds hauling it in, there was only one thing left for Bears defenders to do.

“Everybody was throwing their ‘fours’ up at the end,” said safety Kevin Byard III, holding his fingers aloft in demonstration. “It was pretty special.”

Bears coach Ben Johnson told us the Saints (1-6) would be difficult to tangle with, that they were a “good football team” that’s “getting better every week.” That’s like calling Congress a good branch of government that’s getting better every shutdown.

There’s no great achievement in kicking a sad-sack opponent to the curb, but it was how the Bears (4-2) won a fourth in a row — for the first time since 2018 — that counted. The Bears, now an eye-popping plus-11 in turnover differential, just won’t stop stealing the football from the guys in the other jerseys. And on a day when Bears quarterback Caleb Williams did next to nothing well, the rushing attack wouldn’t stop burying the Saints in the turf, erupting for 222 yards — the most by the Bears since a Christmas Eve 2023 win against the Cardinals.

When we aren’t writing about Williams and Johnson, we’re talking about them. When we aren’t talking about them, we’re thinking about them. We obsess over the QB and the coach, who sometimes seem like the whole deal around here because “taking the North” and getting back to the Super Bowl won’t ever happen if they don’t lead the way.

But guess who still loves to see a running game eat and, even better, a defense take over a game? Everybody, that’s who. Bears fans, too. Don’t we still love an old-school mudfight in this town? Don’t we still dream of “Monsters” by the lake? That’s what Sunday evoked.

“Pure domination,” defensive end Dominique Robinson called it.

It started right away with lineman Montez Sweat’s sack of Rattler on the quarterback’s very first drop-back, causing a fumble that led to the first points of the game. In one second-quarter sequence, Kyler Gordon and Jaquan Brisker blitzed for sacks before fellow defensive back Nahshon Wright had a diving pickoff and a slick 38-yard return, leading Johnson to later joke about playing Wright on offense. Robinson tackled Taysom Hill so deep in the backfield on one play, it was almost shocking. Byard added a third-quarter interception, his fourth of the season.

When the Saints got the ball with 2:45 left before halftime, Rattler’s passer rating was at 2.8. When your passer rating is so bad that it wouldn’t even make a good GPA, you know you aren’t fooling anybody.

“When you see somebody make a big play,” Sweat said, “you want to make one, too.”

Johnson awarded defensive coordinator Dennis Allen a game ball in the locker room. Allen went 18-25 as Saints coach until they fired him last November.

Defenders surrounded Allen and jumped up and down with him after he took the ball. Then they demanded a speech.

“Sometimes, the good Lord just has a frickin’ plan for you that you don’t know about,” Allen told them. “And sometimes you ain’t good enough for somewhere else. That’s perfectly fine. I love being here, and I love being with this group of guys.”

Then he told them four turnovers isn’t enough. A man can dream.

The defense didn’t have all the fun. Running backs D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai rumbled for 124 and 81 yards, respectively. Their offensive line had itself another day. The Bears had a breakout game on the ground last time out against the Commanders. To back it up with similar production brought smiles to faces of some guys who aren’t often talked about unless something is amiss.

“You see the numbers,” guard Jonah Jackson said, beaming. “And it can only get better. There’s still some [expletive] we’ve got to clean up. But once we do that, the sky’s the limit.”

Tackle Darnell Wright took a stab at describing the offensive line in an adjective or two.

“I don’t even know too many words, to be honest. I’m not that smart,” he cracked. “Maybe tough? I’d just say tough.”

And getting tougher, it seems.

“Yeah, it does feel that way,” Wright said. “It’s not perfect. It’s not crazy-good. It sometimes feels like it’s not all the way where you want it, but it’s definitely better than it was.”

One gets the sense this 4-2 start might not give way to a 10-game losing streak, which is exactly how the Bears derailed a year ago. What, you’d forgotten?

“Not happening,” Edwards said.

It couldn’t. It wouldn’t.

“No way,” Wright said.

It sounded like a promise.