Bears beat the defending champion Seahawks 34-17 as Jeffery Simmons makes an instant impact
Caleb Williams threw for 247 yards without a turnover and D'Andre Swift ran for three touchdowns as Chicago won its third straight game and improved to 6-2.
Chicago won in Seattle on Monday Night Football to improve to 6-2
The Chicago Bears went to Seattle on Monday night and left with the kind of win that makes the rest of the NFC pay attention. Quarterback Caleb Williams threw for 247 yards and a touchdown without a turnover, running back D'Andre Swift scored three times, and the Bears beat the defending Super Bowl champion Seahawks 34-17 for their third straight victory, ESPN reported. Chicago is 6-2. Seattle fell to 4-4.
The Bears set the tone on the opening possession, a 17-play drive that ended with Williams throwing a 1-yard touchdown pass to Luther Burden. They added two field goals in the first half and led 20-9 in the third quarter after Swift's first touchdown, a 1-yard run that capped a 10-play, 69-yard march that ate up more than six minutes. Chicago controlled the ball for 35 minutes to Seattle's 25 and outgained the Seahawks 363 yards to 252, according to the game's official stats.
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Seattle had its moments. Sam Darnold found Jaxon Smith-Njigba for a 43-yard touchdown with 30 seconds left in the first half, and early in the fourth quarter he hit Cooper Kupp for a 7-yard score, followed by a successful two-point conversion that cut the Bears' lead to 20-17. For a moment, it felt like the game might turn.
It did not. Swift answered with a 5-yard touchdown run, and later James Lynch intercepted a pass that had been tipped at the line by Austin Booker, giving the Bears the ball at Seattle's 6-yard line, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Swift punched in his third touchdown, another 5-yarder, with 4:46 left. He carried 27 times for just 69 yards, but the touchdowns were what mattered.
Williams was steady more than spectacular. He completed 24 of 34 passes, took one sack and finished with a passer rating of 101.0. The Bears' run game, by contrast, averaged 3.6 yards a carry, and guard Grey Zabel said afterward that the team has to improve quickly in that area.
The Bears' defense got a boost from a player who had arrived only days earlier. Chicago acquired All-Pro defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons from the Titans on Oct. 29, sending a 2027 first-round pick, a 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fourth-round pick to Tennessee, while getting a 2028 fifth-rounder back. In his Bears debut, Simmons recorded a sack and led the team with six tackles, CBS Sports reported. Devin Bush and Montez Sweat also had sacks. According to The Big Lead, Simmons is the first defensive tackle of the common draft era to be traded for multiple first-round picks.
The price was steep, and the win suggests why Chicago was willing to pay it. The Bears already ranked among the league's better defenses before the trade, and Simmons reunites with his college teammate Montez Sweat on the defensive line. After the game, Williams said the Bears are a force to be reckoned with, per UPI.
Next up for Chicago is a home game against Tampa Bay on Sunday night. Seattle, which had been among the league's stingiest defenses, now has to figure out how to bounce back from a game in which it allowed long, time-consuming drives.