Week 8 recap: Bears 34, Seahawks 17
Seattle came into Monday night 21-6 since the start of last season, playoffs included, and all six of those losses had been by four points or fewer, per the club. Chicago beat it by 17. The Bears held the ball for 35:03, gained 363 yards, the most by a Seattle opponent this season per the club, and scored touchdowns on all four of their red-zone trips; Seattle converted 1 of 11 third downs, scored once in four red-zone trips, had a field goal blocked and missed an extra point. Bears 34, Seahawks 17. Per the club, it tied Seattle’s largest margin of defeat since a Week 15 loss to Green Bay in 2024. Seattle is 4-4, Chicago 6-2, and Arizona comes to Lumen Field in six days.
How it happened
Seattle went three-and-out to start, and Michael Dickson’s 63-yard punt went into the end zone for a touchback; per the club, Rodney Thomas II, trying to down it, knocked it in. Chicago went 80 yards in 17 plays and 8:32 from there, converting a fourth-and-1 at its own 44 with a D’Andre Swift run, and Caleb Williams threw a 1-yard touchdown to Luther Burden III, 7-0.
Seattle’s first good drive came at the end of the first quarter: Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught passes of 21 and 16 yards to the Chicago 9, but three straight plays to Zach Charbonnet netted nothing and Jason Myers kicked a 27-yard field goal, 7-3 early in the second quarter. Seattle’s next two drives were three-and-outs, and Cairo Santos kicked field goals of 44 and 38 yards for 13-3. With 1:08 left in the half, a 16-yard pass interference penalty on Jaylon Johnson and a 12-yard Smith-Njigba catch got Seattle to the Chicago 43, and on third-and-10 Sam Darnold threw deep left to Smith-Njigba for a 43-yard touchdown with 30 seconds left. Myers missed the extra point wide left. It was 13-9 at halftime.
The third quarter started with a three-and-out each, and then Chicago went 69 yards in 10 plays and 6:19, two of them Rome Odunze catches of 23 and 22 yards, and Swift scored from the 1, 20-9. Leonard Williams left on that drive with a stinger. Seattle answered with 11 plays to the Chicago 11, where Smith-Njigba caught a pass and was pushed out at the 1, but he was called for offensive pass interference. From third-and-18 Charbonnet caught a 6-yard pass, and Austin Booker blocked Myers’ 33-yard try on the first play of the fourth quarter.
Seattle got one more chance. Mike Morris sacked Williams for 10 yards, the first sack of his career per the club, and on third-and-20 DeMarcus Lawrence punched the ball away from Colston Loveland and recovered it at the Chicago 25. A Darnold pass for Cooper Kupp was intercepted in the end zone but wiped out by a defensive holding penalty, and two plays later Darnold found Kupp for a 7-yard touchdown and Tory Horton for the two-point conversion, 20-17 with 11:46 left.
Chicago went 56 yards in six plays, helped by a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty on the kickoff return. Facing third-and-4 at the Seattle 39, the Bears took a delay-of-game penalty, and on third-and-9 Kalif Raymond ran 39 yards to the 5 on a play the club called a screen pass; Swift scored on the next snap, 27-17 with 8:28 left. Another unnecessary roughness call on the kickoff started Seattle at its 11, and on third-and-7 from the 25 Darnold’s pass was batted at the line by Booker and intercepted by James Lynch, who returned it to the Seattle 6. Swift scored his third touchdown four plays later, 34-17 with 4:41 left. Seattle’s last drive reached the Chicago 7 and ended with an incompletion on fourth-and-4.
The numbers
| Seahawks | Bears | |
|---|---|---|
| Total yards | 252 | 363 |
| First downs | 18 | 22 |
| Rushing | 19 for 81 | 35 for 126 |
| Passing | 17 of 34, 188 yards | 24 of 34, 247 yards |
| Turnovers | 1 | 1 |
| Points off turnovers | 8 | 7 |
| Sacks | 1 (10 yards) | 3 (17 yards) |
| Third down | 1 of 11 | 7 of 15 |
| Fourth down | 1 of 2 | 1 of 1 |
| Red zone | 1 of 4 | 4 of 4 |
| Penalties | 5 for 43 | 10 for 85 |
| Time of possession | 24:57 | 35:03 |
Darnold went 17 of 34 for 188 yards with two touchdowns and the interception, and ran twice for 20 yards. Smith-Njigba caught six of 11 targets for 118 yards and the touchdown. Per NFL Research, through the club, it was his seventh 100-yard game in eight, a start matched in the Super Bowl era only by Michael Irvin (1995), Marvin Harrison Sr. (2000) and Adam Thielen (2018), and his 985 yards lead the league by 259. Horton caught three for 26, AJ Barner two for 23, and Kupp one, the touchdown. In their first games back, Jadarian Price ran 10 times for 29 yards and Charbonnet six times for 23. George Holani returned six kickoffs for 144 yards.
On defense, Ernest Jones IV had 13 tackles, Devon Witherspoon eight with a tackle for loss, and Julian Love and Jarran Reed seven each, Reed with two tackles for loss. Morris had the sack, and Lawrence forced and recovered the fumble. For Chicago, Williams went 24 of 34 for 247 yards with a touchdown and no interceptions. Swift ran 27 times for 69 yards and three touchdowns, Odunze caught four for 87, and Loveland and Burden seven each, for 65 and 56. Montez Sweat, Devin Bush and Jeffery Simmons, in his first game since Chicago traded for him, had a sack apiece, and Booker had the blocked kick and the batted pass. The attendance was 68,739.
The passing yards in the table are the quarterbacks’ totals; ESPN’s team passing figures, net of sacks, are 171 for Seattle and 237 for Chicago. Raymond’s 39-yard play counts as a run in ESPN’s data, and without it Chicago averaged 2.6 yards on 34 carries. Points off turnovers are counted from the play-by-play: Lawrence’s recovery led to Kupp’s touchdown and the two-point conversion, and Lynch’s interception to Swift’s last touchdown. Seattle’s red-zone line is four trips: a field goal, the blocked field goal, the touchdown and the turnover on downs.
What decided it
Mike Macdonald did not argue with the score: “Tip of the cap to the Bears, they won the game, they won it fair and square, and they won it in all three phases.” And: “We got beat. There’s no other way to sugarcoat it.” He spread it around: “In all three phases, we can have better plans, we can coach it better, prepare our players better, and we can play better.”
On offense it was third down. A week after converting 11 of 16 against Kansas City, Seattle converted once, on the touchdown before halftime, and went three-and-out four times. Darnold: “Not our best tonight.” And: “Offensively, I feel like we couldn’t get anything going.” Kupp: “Way too many three-and-outs. Way too many short drives and just put our defense back out on the field.” Macdonald on why the ball kept going to Smith-Njigba: “If we’re playing the way that we’re supposed to and we’re running off the rock and targeted right and we’re dialed in on what we should be doing, we’re way more efficient, and then the ball is distributed more evenly.”
On defense, Chicago did what few teams have done to Seattle this season, drive the length of the field: touchdown drives of 80, 69 and 56 yards, per the club, with Williams finding the middle of the field. Love: “Kudos to them, for sure, but we’ve got to go to work, man. People need to step up, guys need to get together here, and just play better football together.”
And on special teams, four points were left on the field, the missed extra point and the blocked field goal, and two unnecessary roughness penalties on fourth-quarter kick returns set up Chicago’s touchdown drive and pinned Seattle at its 11 before the interception.
Our preview said Seattle 23, Chicago 20, with a lean to the under on 46.5, and both were wrong. Its tests were whether Seattle kept Darnold clean and turned third downs into touchdowns, and whether Chicago’s pass rush got home with Charles Cross out. Cross was out, Darnold was sacked three times, and the third downs did not come. Seattle lost as a 3-point favorite in our game-morning number and in DraftKings’ final number in ESPN’s game data, so it is now 2-4-2 against the spread, and the 51 points went over; the full record is on our odds page.
Injuries, and what comes next
Per the club, Williams (stinger) did not return. “Leo had a stinger, and we’ll see how that shakes out,” Macdonald said. He also said outside linebacker Connor O’Toole came out of the game with a foot injury. Of Charbonnet, in his first game since tearing his ACL last January, and Price, back from four games on injured reserve: “To my knowledge, the running backs came out OK.” Charbonnet: “I feel pretty good.” Price: “I felt good after a 60-minute game, so we’ll just keep going from there.” Cross (ankle), Rashid Shaheed (knee), Velus Jones Jr. (hamstring) and Uchenna Nwosu (ankle) were inactive. Quenton Nelson played left guard in his Seattle debut. The first practice report for the Cardinals game is Wednesday, November 4, on the injury report.
Macdonald: “We’ve got a short week, this is the first of I think maybe four or five throughout the season, so it’s really important that we get our bodies back and get our minds ready to go on Wednesday.” Love: “We’ve got to play better, it’s a results business.” And: “We’ve got to win games, 4-4 is not a great spot to be, but I’m optimistic that we’re going to get things right.”
Around the division, San Francisco had the week off and is 6-1, the Rams beat the Chargers 24-9 and are 4-4, tied with Seattle, and Arizona won 33-30 in overtime at Dallas, with Gardner Minshew II coming off the bench, and is 3-5. Arizona visits Lumen Field on Sunday, November 8, at 1:25 p.m. Pacific on FOX. As of Tuesday morning, November 3, at 6:45 a.m. Pacific, DraftKings has Seattle by 10.5 with a total of 43.5, per ESPN’s game data. Our Week 9 preview has the pick, and the game day guide has how to watch and getting to Lumen Field.