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Bear Digest

What Short Week Means for Caleb Williams and Bears in NFL's Ugly Showcase

Thursday Night Football has a reputation for ugly play but going on short notice doesn't have to mean complete incompetence if they have the right plan.
Gene Chamberlain|
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye runs the ball against the Bears defense in a 2024 New England win.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye runs the ball against the Bears defense in a 2024 New England win. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

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Chicago Bears

The wild card in Thursday night's matchup for the Bears against the New England Patriots is, of course, just that. It's Thursday night.

They both just played on Sunday and now they need to quickly adjust to playing a game four days later without all of the rest a week can provide tired players or the extra time needed to tweek offensive and defensive schemes meant to deceive.

It's the main reason Thursday Night Football has been known for poor overall play since it started, or at least since "the Butt fumble" by Jets and former Bears QB Mark Sanchez.

Bears coach Ben Johnson humbly admits this lack of prep and recovery time is not an ideal situation.

“I wish I had the answers for that one," he said. "I always struggle as a coach of wanting to do more and making sure. Really, at the end of the day, these guys, they just need to go out there and play as fast as they possibly can, play confident football.

"For us, it's just a matter of scaling it back, streamlining it to where they can play fast, they can play clean. If we have another high-penalty game like we did last week, that's not going to play in our favor against a good team like this. We just need to play clean football, and that's really the message throughout, and let our play style come out and show itself again.”

So how has Johnson done at "streamlining" for a short week? The Bears have not played on so little rest under Johnson. They did play on a Friday last year in Philadelphia and handled it quite well, with a 24-15 victory that stunned all the Bears skeptics.

They played their wild card win over Green Bay with one less day off after their regular season ended, and they won 31-27 in a wild comeback.

Johnson seemed to have his offense working well on short rest as Detroit's offensive coordinator. The Lions had a Thursday game in 2024 while with Detroit at Soldier Field and the Lions beat the Bears 23-20. They had their Thanksgiving game the next week but had a full week to prepare for that one.

They also beat the Packers 34-20 on a Thursday in Green Bay in 2023 but then lost at home that year in the Thanksgiving Day game to the Packers 29-22. Back one more year to when the Lions weren't quite a playoff team yet, they nearly beat Buffalo at home on Thanksgiving in a 28-25 loss.

Wide receiver Rome Odunze called being ready on short notice as much on the players as the coaches, if not moreso.

"I think the main thing is recovery, just getting the bodies right," he said. "Obviously coming off a short week like that, that’s the main point and just sticking with our details. Being able to go out there and have meaningful reps even though we’re not going full speed is a big factor as well. Just getting the body right, staying on the details."

The Bears just came off Caleb Williams' most accurate passing day, and the one hope is that kind of timing shown in Atlanta after he had three games away can carry over to Soldier Field.

"I mean, obviously with Caleb coming back, a little bit of that rhythm and that chemistry for sure but at the end of the day, there’s not many things that carry over," Odunze added. "We’ve got to go through it every time we step out there on that field.

"The short week, we’re going to have to go back to our details, back to the things that we did well and try to amplify those."

Factors can favor the Bears

What they do have working on their side is a little more prep time than the road team has, because the Patriots had to leave on Wednesday to be in Chicago for the Thursday night game. Meanwhile, the Bears can and will use a full day to take a look at what they're doing and "streamline."

It's New England's first Thursday game under Mike Vrabel, although they did play a Wednesday night game but that was to open the season. While he coached Tennessee, Vrabel had a 3-4 record in Thursday games.

Historically speaking, the Bears are not a bad Thursday team. At least, they have been better than on Monday night or Sunday night.

They are 30-26-2 all time on Thursdays, and this includes day and night Thursday games. On Thursday Night Football, they are 7-8, which is still better than they've fared on Monday night (36-44) or Sunday night (18-32).

Home teams win 55.3% of the time on Thursday night, as opposed to 52.9% in other games, according to Fan Duel.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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