For all of his strategic brilliance, Bears coach Ben Johnson is still a football coach at the heart of it.

Football coaches never let their team get ahead of themselves.

At least the ones with an ounce of value never do. Johnson wasn't letting his team do it even after Monday's 34-17 win over the defending Super Bowl champions in what may have been their biggest regular-season victory under their coach.

"There's a lot of places that we can get better at as well which we'll do, we'll look at in depth over the bye week but we're just solely focused every week," Johnson said. "I tried to explain this last week. We're just focused on how do we get 1-0 for the next week? Once we get into December and January, we'll start worrying about big-picture stuff, but we got to continue to improve and we got a short week coming up with a good opponent that's kind of hot right now.

"They're playing good football. So we got to keep it going. Prime time or not, we got to keep finding a way to go 1-0 each week."

The media could be forgiven if they had muffled their laughter about "playing good football." Tampa Bay just did something no NFL team would want to attempt and that's win without completing a single pass and by throwing only three against Atlanta. Even John Fox wouldn't do something like that, although it seemed he attempted it once as Bears coach.

In this case Johnson has every reason to warn the Beas against ignoring the 24-hour rule because Tampa Bay doesn't need "no steenking passes" to give the Bears a tough game Sunday night at Soldier Field. They've got the makeup already to be a Bears problem, perhaps even moreso than Seattle did based on the matchup.

Building something special pic.twitter.com/TrvCBNakX1

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 3, 2026

Here's why.

1. The running game

The only consistent offensive weapon Tampa Bay has is its running attack. This isn't to say Baker Mayfield is terrible. The Bears saw how good he was back when Matt Eberflus was coach, but he has been injured and Tampa Bay's receiver corps isn't what it was. What they do have is Bucky Irving and 728 rushing yards, Kenneth Gainwell as a second option and a good run-blocking offensive line. The Buccaneers had 324 rushing yards in the rain against the Falcons when they didn't complete a pass. Even the Bears' running game doesn't do that. They had 258 the week before that, and two weeks earlier 241. They have pulled ahead of the Bears in rushing as the No. 1 team in the league.

After the Bucs’ uneven offensive start, HC Todd Bowles and OC Zac Robinson huddled up to plot a new course. The result: A run-first blitz over the last two weeks. pic.twitter.com/TtWxRGoWRW

— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) November 2, 2026

2. Bears weakness

One defensive weakness the Bears haven't shown they've successfully covered up is their in ability to stop the run. They didn't really do it in Monday night's game, although they appeared better it with Jeffery Simmons in the lineup. They still allowed 81 yards on 19 rushes at 4.3 a carry. They have improved fourth in the NFL against the run but they're still lagging behind at 22nd in yards allowed per rush. Teams can gain on them, they just don't run it enough against the Bears. They give up on the run because they fall behind against the Bears offense. This could change once Simmons is in and settled at tackle, but he isn't in that situation yet and the Seahawks popped a couple of plus-10 runs in the game.

Tampa Bay’s running game could NOT be stopped today pic.twitter.com/aZUaXpLKQW

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 1, 2026

Tampa Bay is third in the NFL in time of possession, indicating they aren't exactly likely to abandon the run. If they didn't complete a single pass, they can't be expected to abandon the run.

The most lopsided Bears loss came against Green Bay when the Packers played ball control initially but not with their ground game. They were incapable of this. Instead, they did it with a short passing game and then went to the deep ball and burned the Bears.

Using ball control and the running attack could benefit the Buccaneers.

First play of the game for the Bucs. Graham Barton, Cody Mauch and Luke Goedeke go to work, and Bucky Irving shows off some really impressive contact balance pic.twitter.com/wTLCY6QruB

— JP Acosta (@acosta32_jp) November 3, 2026

3. The Bucs blitz

The second-worst game the Bears played on offense came against Minnesota's complicated blitzes. In facing Tampa Bay, they'll see a defense fifth in the league in blitz percentage at 33.6% Coach Todd Bowles has been known for his blitz packages back to his time as Jets coach. He's likely to give them the closest thing there is to seeing Brian Flores' complicated Minnesota blitz packages.

Something to watch for this morning is a few bears injuries…

Kentavius Street - knee

Grady Jarrett - groin

Theo Benedet - unofficial, but @NicholasMoreano said he heard Theo say “separated shoulder” in locker room. Good reporting.

Bears play the Bucs on Sunday night before…

— Harrison Graham (@HGrahamNFL) November 3, 2026

4. The injuries

The groin injury to Grady Jarrett and knee injury to Kentavius Street suffered against Seattle deprive the Bears of two key defensive stoppers at tackle. The Bears never intended to use Jeffery Simmons 87% of the plays on Monday night but they did so with Street and Jarrett getting hurt. It's going to mean more playing time for Jayden Loving and Jordan van den Berg going forward but those are largely untested rookies. The opportunity for Tampa Bay to run and control the ball exists because of possible absences or at least with players who aren't entirely healthy forced to play.

The injuries go behind those two. With Kyle Monangai still out due to toe and finger injuries, the ability of the Bears to move the chains with the running game is limited. They're averaging 105 yards rushing in four games without Monangai after averaging 196.2 in four games with him. This is a huge discrepancy.

The Bears defense by DVOA is 31st on first downs, 20th on second downs, and 2nd on third downs.

Normally, this kind of thing is not sustainable. Is there something special about the Bears? Last year, their defense was also better on third down (26th, 24th, and 10th).

— Aaron Schatz 🏈 (@ASchatzNFL) November 3, 2026

Summarized trouble

Johnson loves getting a lead and dictating the way the game will be played. Yet, Tampa Bay has the means for preventing this to a greater extent that other teams — even the two Super Bowl teams the Bears just beat.

It could be a case where the Bears are going to need to lean heavily on Caleb Williams' passing and their offensive approach to keep from falling victims to an upset a week before their bye.

“If this is a sample of things to come for this Chicago Bears defense, then whoa.”

Simmons made his presence felt. Caleb shined. Chicago has @RSherman_25 rethinking his power rankings. 👀

Seattle needs cleaner football from Darnold and more from its run game.

Full reaction on… pic.twitter.com/5BcBurgazu

— Richard Sherman Podcast (@RShermanPodcast) November 3, 2026