Ben Johnson praises defense, run offense after Bears’ fourth straight win

Ariana Pensy · Correspondent · 3 hours ago

CHICAGO - For the first time since 2018, the Chicago Bears have a four-game winning streak after taking down the New Orleans Saints 26-14.

It all started with the defense, which had four turnovers, four sacks, and only allowed 44 rushing yards.

“I think this game really started and finished there with our defense. They just did a phenomenal job throughout. When you look at those critical numbers, it was 44 yards rushing. I saw four sacks and four turnovers and I just thought credit to (defensive coordinator) Dennis Allen and his crew one more time,” head coach Ben Johnson said in his postgame press conference. “They’re doing a great job getting us the ball on offense with great field position and it certainly gives us a ton of momentum in games like that and so, they just did an awesome job.”

During Chicago’s winning streak, they now have a total of 15 turnovers as they have four turnovers against the Dallas Cowboys, Las Vegas Raiders and the Saints. The defense had another three turnovers in their Monday night win against the Washington Commanders.

This Dennis Allen-led defense is at the heart of Chicago’s winning streak, as the aggressive style he preaches is really paying off.

“They come in bunches and these guys, we got a method in place for how we want to practice it. Dennis does a great job with instilling that confidence in those guys, putting them in the right spot,” Johnson said. “When the ball touches their hands, they’re coming down with it. We really don’t have many drops on that side of the ball. They’re very conscious of it when it’s a running play, to try to punch at that ball and get it out and so, it’s just really working for us right now and really, our team needs it. It’s really been the foundation of this last four game stretch for us.”

On offense, the Bears had struggled to develop a run game prior to the bye week. However, against the Commanders, running back D’Andre Swift had his first 100-yard game since becoming a Chicago Bear. Now, for the first time since weeks two and three of the 2023 season, Swift has back-to-back 100-yard rushing games after putting up 124 yards on the Saints.

Rookie Kyle Monangai had another 81 yards as the Bears rushed for a total of 222 yards, their highest since their Christmas Eve win against the Arizona Cardinals in 2023.

“Offensively, the 200 yards rushing. I think both ball carriers ran physical, ran violent,” Johnson said. “But, huge credit to our offensive line and the tight ends in that core blocking unit because you could feel that line of scrimmage move at times and our backs were finding the holes. So, that was really the name of the game there. A lot that we can clean up and we can improve. That’s always a good thing. We’ll coach these guys hard and we’ll turn our page onto Baltimore.”

Johnson also made a little personal history in this game as he had his first successful challenge. In the fourth quarter with the Bears leading 23-14, the Saints appeared to convert on a third and 20 when quarterback Spencer Rattler threw a short pass to Taysom Hill who subsequently lateraled to running back Alvin Kamara who picked up 26 yards and the first down.

However, Johnson challenged the play, and the call was overturned as Hill’s pass was not a lateral but actually an illegal forward pass. New Orleans ultimately had to punt.

“We got a good replay booth upstairs, and so, they’re getting footage, and it looked really, really close. We felt like it was close enough to be forward from the couple of angles that we got,” Johnson said. “Really good communication on the headset with that and the fact that they’re offense wasn’t going super fast gave us plenty of time to make sure we were exhausting all avenues.”

Chicago’s next game is against the Baltimore Ravens on Sun. Oct. 26 (Noon / CBS). Baltimore is having an uncharacteristically bad season with a 1-5 start and will be coming off their bye week when it faces the Bears.

Their defense is allowing the most points of any team in the league, as they have given up at least 37 points in four out of six games this year.