Cowboys Clobbered by Lowly Bears in Chicago

Going on the road against a winless Chicago Bear team, the Dallas Cowboys had a little momentum after Week 2’s exciting 40-37 overtime win against the New York Giants at AT&T Stadium. Maybe the team would carry that momentum into Chicago. Maybe the defense would dial in and finally string together some solid series’. Maybe the offense would pick on the banged up Bear secondary. Maybe the Cowboys would head into next Sunday night’s (Week 4) home contest against the talented Green Bay Packers with a 2-1 record and some juice for Micah Parsons and Co. 

Or maybe not. 

The Cowboy defense was in another generous mood on Sunday afternoon, giving up 298 yards and four touchdowns to 2024 No. 1 overall draft choice Caleb Williams in a 31-14 drubbing at the hands of the Bears. Williams completed 19-of-28 passes and was not sacked, the first time in his NFL career that he was not sacked. The Cowboy run defense did a good job limiting D’Andre Swift to 33 yards on 13 carries, but the secondary fell victim to deep plays by the Bears, one of which was a flea flicker to Luther Burden III for 65 yards. Rome Odunze also caught a 35-yard pass from Williams in the first quarter. This makes it now two really poor performances in a row from the Dallas D. In Week 2, they allowed 450 yards from Russell Wilson. On Sunday, the ‘boys allowed 385 total yards to the Bear offense.

The rocky start for the road team on Sunday began when Javonte Williams after a catch and run into Bear territory had the ball stripped from him by cornerback Tyrique Stevenson. It was an impressive play from Stevenson, who was able to possess the football after the strip while staying inbounds. Williams then found Odunze for the 35-yard score. The Cowboys were playing catch-up all game long because of the defense’s inability - just like in Weeks 1 and 2 - to make plays and get off the field. 

The issue with this team is their defense and two glaring weaknesses. The team signed veteran defensive end Jadeveon Clowney last week, but he did not play on Sunday and can’t get into his No. 42 jersey fast enough to make his Cowboy debut. The Cowboys generated literally no pass rush, accumulating zero sacks on Williams. Rookie Donovan Ezeiruaku played better on some plays, but Sam Williams and Dante Fowler still failed to play to standard. Mazi Smith, the now maligned former first-round pick who registered two DNPs in Weeks 1 and 2, saw his first action of the season and continues to be a question mark. Solomon Thomas, the veteran offseason addition, played solid on the inside. The former 49er, Colt, and Jet has had a quality season. Another positive defensively was the play of cornerback Reddy Steward. Elevated to the active roster for last week’s game, he shows good instincts and aggressiveness.

Kenny Clark and Osa Odighizuwa did play well. Linebackers Kenneth Murray and Jack Sanborn do not look like starting caliber linebackers. They looked lost often, and were especially so on a Cole Kmet touchdown reception where both heavily bit on a Williams play-action fake to Swift. A 19-play, 76-yard drive in the third quarter by the Bears was capped by a D.J. Moore touchdown reception. The drive was a representation of what the Cowboy defense has been so far this season in not being able to provide pushback. They are an open door that welcomes all visitors.

As an example of how poor the defense has played so far in 2025, the unit has given up thirteen completions of 25+ yards and five passing touchdowns of 25+ yards in the first three weeks. Per Elias Sports, the thirteen completions and five touchdowns over that yardage mark are the most that a Cowboy defense has allowed in the first three weeks of a season in the last 45 years.

The Cowboys’ Williams did run well - 10 carries for 76 yards - and Miles Sanders contributed 41 yards on nine carries. Brock Hoffman, filling in at center for the injured Cooper Beebe, plays with an apparent nastiness that is refreshing to see. Tyler Booker also looks good. Tyler Smith is his All-Pro self. Those were positives to take away from the game.

A major negative came in the first quarter, when Cowboy star wideout CeeDee Lamb was inexplicably lined up in the backfield on a play and took a handoff going right. Lamb was tackled and had his ankle rolled up on, and subsequently missed the remainder of the game. He attempted to come back but after not being to run took the remainder of the game off. He will undergo an MRI and there is a fear that it could be a high ankle sprain, which is typically a multi-week injury. The offense and the team is better off reserving such gadget plays for the likes of returner KaVonte Turpin versus their star receiver Lamb.

A surprising element was that the Cowboys only managed 14 points against a defense that allowed 52 last week. Prescott completed 31-of-40 for 251 yards and one touchdown and two interceptions, one of which was off the hands of George Pickens. Thrust into the No. 1 receiver slot with Lamb out, Pickens did catch five balls for 68 yards and a touchdown - a nice one-handed grab in the end zone - but had that one crucial drop. The good news is that he is a No. 1 caliber receiver and if Lamb is out multiple games, Pickens can help the offense more so than if he was not on the roster and a Jalen Tolbert were elevated to the top spot. Tight end Jake Ferguson was a Prescott favorite on the day, 13 catches for 82 yards. You would like to see the Cowboy offense let loose a little bit and take chances down the field, especially when playing from behind. Perhaps they will do more of that going forward with the big-bodied Pickens (6 foot, 3 inches and 200 pounds). It did not seem though on Sunday that the offense had a particular sense of urgency. They did accumulate 396 total yards but a lot of that was in garbage time and due to playing from behind. 

This was flatly one of the worst losses that the Cowboys have had in years. It started off bad with the Williams fumble and got increasingly worse. The defense allowed anything that the Bears wanted to do and the offense abandoned the run game because of the need to score quickly because of the deficit.

With all that, the Cowboys head into next Sunday night’s clash with the Green Bay Packers (2-1) surely not looking to embarrass themselves in front of a national television (again) primetime audience. The Packers lost a difficult one on Sunday afternoon, 13-10 to the Browns in Cleveland with the Browns’ Andre Szmyt kicking a game-winning field-goal with no time left. If the Cowboys do not have a healthy Lamb, hopefully they will have a participating and impactful Clowney to at least help combat a Packer team that is no doubt frustrated about Sunday’s loss and also has a motivated Parsons coming back to AT&T Stadium.

As cliche as it is, the Cowboys need all the help that they can get. Because things are not looking up right now.

Game Notes

The Cowboys and Bears have split their last four games against one another. In the Cowboys’ last loss to the Bears prior to Sunday, on December 5, 2019, they also gave up 31 points.

Cowboy quarterback Dak Prescott’s 800 passing yards are currently fourth in the NFL. Daniel Jones (816), Geno Smith (831) and Justin Herbert (860) are the other QBs with 800 or more.

The Bears scored 30 or more points only twice in 2024.