In the months leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft, one of the worst-kept secrets around the league was that the Chicago Bears were keen on Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty. Of course, this didn’t make the Bears unique. Following a record-setting campaign during the 2024 college season that nearly ended with a Heisman Trophy capper, Jeanty was considered by most to be a generational talent, and it was unlikely he’d still be on the board when the Bears made their selection with the 10th pick.
Predictably, the Las Vegas Raiders were quick to select Jeanty with the 6th overall pick, robbing Chicago of the chance to add Jeanty to a long lineage of great running backs in the Windy City. And now with Week 4 approaching, the Bears will be tasked with slowing down Jeanty in a battle of 1-2 teams out in the desert, and head coach Ben Johnson knows that the Bears will have their hands full.
“He’s a phenomenal player,” Johnson said, per Mike Pendleton of Bears Wire. “I thought the world of him. He’s a hard guy to bring down, compact yet powerful. You better have low pad level when you’re looking to tackle this guy or else he’s going to lower his shoulder and run you over. He’s got that mentality, he brought it with him from college. You see it in the first three games of the season. He’s fearless, he sees a little bit of air, he steps on the gas, and he plays violently. So he’s a guy we’re certainly aware of and we’ve got to do the best we can to bottle him up.”
Although Jeanty has yet to put forth a bonafide, star-making, I’m Him sort of performance, it would be a massive folly to assume it’s not coming sometime soon. His struggles have had much more to do with how poorly the Raiders offensive line has been playing than anything else. But with how badly the Bears have been struggling defending the run through the first three weeks of the season, his breakout party could happen this Sunday.
Bears Run Defense Leaving Plenty to be Desired
Thus far this season, the Chicago Bears defense hasn’t done anything to prove that they are worthy of the Monsters of the Midway moniker handed down to the franchise’s most dominant defensive units.
After three weeks, Chicago ranks in 26th in the league in total rushing yards allowed (418), 23rd in rushing 1st downs allowed (22) and 31st in yards per rush (5.5). Now at least part of this can be attributed to the fact that the Bears have played much of the first three weeks of the season without TJ Edwards and Kyler Gordon, who ranked 2nd and 5th respectively last year in tackles for the Bears.
Early intel suggests that while Edwards and Gordon can be expected back “soon,” it may not be soon enough to deal with Ashton Jeanty. If that’s the case, the burden will be on a defensive line that has lacked any sort of serious juice this year to take advantage of the fact that the Raiders are vulnerable across their front five, and even then, if Jeanty makes one man miss, that’s all it could take for him to make a definitive statement of his arrival.
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