The Chicago Bears are in London to face the Jacksonville Jaguars in a battle of former first-overall picks. Both Trevor Lawrence and Caleb Williams earned the 'generational' billing when they played in college, and both were the consensus first-overall pick for their respective draft classes more than a year in advance. Lawrence has yet to truly live up to the hype, while Williams hopes to lay the foundation of a Hall of Fame career and end Chicago's quarterback curse.
The Bears enter this game riding high on a dominant win last week over the Carolina Panthers, while the Jaguars won a nailbiter against the Indianapolis Colts at home, their first win of the season.
The Jaguars may only be 1-4 on the season, but they are still a dangerous team. Lawrence is a bad man when he's on his game. Head coach Doug Pederson is a Super Bowl champion. The Jaguars have weapons on offense and a pretty good pass rush. Their record is fool's gold; they can easily beat the Bears.
But 'can' and 'will' are different things. While the Jaguars may have more talent than their record shows, they've been playing bad football for most of this year and appear to have some serious flaws, especially on defense. Here are three things the Bears can do that should earn them a big Week 6 win and a lot of momentum heading into the bye.
1. Attack the secondary, especially deep.
The Jaguars have one of the worst secondaries in the league right now, and by at least one metric, they are dead last. The below graphic shows that they have the league's worst EPA (expected points added) per defensive back. This means that whenever a Jaguars defensive back is targeted in coverage, the team's likelihood of winning goes down a tiny bit.
Team coverage rates through Week 5 pic.twitter.com/7fjpzuXMOY
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) October 8, 2024
Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron needs to take advantage of this and relentlessly target the secondary. The run game will still be important, but Jacksonville's secondary is the weakness. Caleb Williams must make sure his recent trend of throwing more accurate deep balls continues, especially when targeting DJ Moore.
2. Dominate the trenches.
This key goes hand-in-hand with the first one. To throw the ball deep, Williams is going to need good protection. The offensive line was fantastic against the Panthers, but the Panthers' pass rush has been awful. The Jaguars have stud pass rushers like Travon Walker, who just devastated the Colts with three sacks and Josh Allen-Hines. While not exactly the best of the best, they're very good, and Chicago's offensive line needs to be ready for them.
On the flip side, Chicago's defensive line had its way with a Carolina offensive line that, headed into Week 5, was among the best in the league. Jacksonville's pass protection has been awful all year long. Bears pass rushers will need a big game on Sunday to keep Lawrence under fire and prevent him from taking over the game like he did in Indy.
3. Stop the run.
Somehow, despite making minimal personnel changes, the Bears have gone from the very best rushing defense to middle of the pack in one year. The ground game has been their Achilles Heel all season and that has to change in Week 6.
Travis Etienne is Jacksonville's big-name rushing threat, but second-year player Tank Bigsby has quietly been off to an elite start in 2024. He's averaging an absurd 8 yards per carry on 34 attempts, including a 65-yard touchdown run last week. The Bears cannot allow him to wreck their game plans the way he's been doing to other teams.
Both of Tank Bigsby's TDs came from him creating after contact. Powerful runner pic.twitter.com/NQx6sQOEbV
— Billy M (@BillyM_91) October 7, 2024
Bigsby is a powerful runner who specializes in broken tackles. The defensive line needs to plug gaps to stop him from gaining momentum, and the linebackers need to lay the wood on every hit. This is where the loss of Jaquan Brisker to concussion protocol will be felt the most.
Final Prediction: Bears win 34-27
I'm 4-1 on the year for my Bears predictions, and I feel pretty good about this one. Since it's played in London, I'm giving Chicago a slight advantage regarding jet lag. The Bears have been in London already since Monday night. Meanwhile, the Jaguars' travel plans have been impacted by Hurricane Milton. Bears fans saw the effect that jet lag can have on a team in their last London game in 2019, and I think it's going to slow down the Jaguars in the first half, allowing Chicago to build a big lead.
But they won't keep the Jaguars down for long. Trevor Lawrence will remind everyone why he was once called a generational prospect and Travis Etienne will have himself a monster game. They'll close the gap, but Williams will drive the Bears down for a go-ahead touchdown late in the 4th quarter and the defense will lock in to save the win.