CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - DECEMBER 26: Leonard Williams #99 of the Seattle Seahawks sacks Caleb Williams #18 of the Chicago Bears during the second quarter at Soldier Field on December 26, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Quinn Harris / Getty Images)
The Seattle Seahawks needed every bit of the stellar defensive performance they delivered on Thursday night to survive for a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Bears in an offensively-challenged affair for both teams.
Leonard Williams had two of Seattle's seven sacks and the Seahawks held the Bears to just 179 yards of total offense. But even with that strong defensive effort, it still required Riq Woolen to intercept Caleb Williams on the final offensive snap for Chicago to seal away a victory. It was Williams' first interception since mid-October.
The seven sacks were the most in a single game for the Seahawks this season, and the second-most allowed by the Bears. The New England Patriots had nine sacks of Williams earlier this season. It's also the fourth time this year Chicago has been held under 180 yards of total offense.
Meanwhile, the Seahawks' offense struggled almost as much.
Seattle managed just 265 yards of offense themselves as Geno Smith appeared to be even more limited by his knee injury than he was in Sunday's loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Smith completed 17-of-23 passes for just 160 yards and nearly threw his fifth red zone interception of the year on the opening drive of the game.
Zach Charbonnet and Kenny McIntosh had 53 rushing yards on seven carries on Seattle's opening drive, and then had just 53 yards on 15 carries the rest of the game.
It was just an exceptionally low-event football game with the Seahawks doing just that little bit more required to get the victory. The last two NFL football games to finish with a 6-3 score have involved the Seahawks. Seattle lost 6-3 to the Cleveland Browns in an even uglier affair in 2011 with Charlie Whitehurst starting in place of an injured Tarvaris Jackson.
"It's not easy coming across the country on a short week, playing in an atmosphere like that. Our guys deserve a lot of credit for their poise," head coach Mike Macdonald said. "... Our defense deserves a lot of credit. They played really hard."
The victory keeps as many possible pathways to the playoffs open for the Seahawks, though they still need help to find a way into the postseason. The easiest path remains having the Los Angeles Rams lose to the Arizona Cardinals on Saturday, which would set up an NFC West "championship" game for the division title between the Rams and Seahawks in the final week of the regular season.
Here are the takeaways from the victory over the Bears:
– Defense delivers stellar performance.
The Seahawks absolutely could have lost this game to a Bears team that has now lost 10 straight games if not for the efforts of their defense.
For the second time this season, the Seahawks held an opponent to just three points. Seattle also held the Miami Dolphins to just three points in Week 3, facing backup quarterback Skylar Thompson. But that game was a 21-point victory and didn't require the defense to have little margin for error.
"We just kept fighting, and then you defend a blade of grass at the end of the day. Had an opportunity to win it at the end and guys did a great job," Macdonald said.
In addition to Williams' two sacks, Uchenna Nwosu, Derick Hall, Jarran Reed, Devon Witherspoon, and Rayshawn Jenkins each managed to earn a sack. For Nwosu, it was his first sack of the season after missing much of the year with injuries.
"It felt really good. It's been a long road for me as all the fans know back home. So I'm just happy to finally get out there and play the best I could. It was a long process, but I'm thankful," Nwosu told FOX 13's Alyssa Charlston-Smith.
"Just trusting myself again. Just trusting the player I know I can be, that I have been in the past. Just getting comfortable playing football again. When you're out for so long, you kind of forget what it's like to hit somebody, which sounds crazy. Go out there, run on the field and make certain movements. So just trusting myself again and just relearning everything and just believing in myself, really."
Nwosu made several critical plays in the game. He knocked down a pass, tipped another that was still caught but allowed the play to be stopped for a loss of yardage, and drew a holding penalty from former Seahawks offensive lineman Jake Curhan that negated a touchdown pass from Williams to Rome Odunze.
The Bears instead scored their only points of the game on a 42-yard Cairo Santos field goal.
"I just made an inside move on the guard. I was able to create a lot of penetration and he held me. Thankful for that because it took six points off the board. So just got to keep playing aggressive, being aggressive," Nwosu said.
Nwosu's sack came after a lost fumble from Pharaoh Brown as the Bears had moved near midfield. The 14-yard sack from Nwosu nuked the Chicago drive as they'd eventually punt back to Seattle.
Williams said the game plan was to pressure his namesake and force him to be uncomfortable.
"I know, right? That's big-time," Williams said of the seven sacks. "That was one thing that we knew we were going to have to focus on on defense is just attacking the quarterback. We knew he was a guy that liked to scramble and I think we did a good job of staying on him today."
The Seahawks brought a heavy blitz on the final fourth down play with safety Coby Bryant forcing a rushed jump ball throw from Williams that was picked off by Woolen to seal the win. The Bears could have attempted a 58-yard field goal for Santos, but interim head coach Thomas Brown said they were 3-to-6 yards shy of where they needed to be for a Santos attempt.
"Our guys were excited about getting to that particular call," Macdonald said. "Man, I mean, you just call something you haven't executed and it's basically the season is on the line, and just shows, hey, our guys can handle it. They've earned that confidence to call those types of high leverage plays. I know 'Spoon was asking for it, so when Spoon is excited about it then we're excited about it."
The Seahawks have had to lean heavily on their defense in the second half of the season, and they delivered another standout effort to get a victory in Chicago.
– Offense sputters again.
The Seahawks had one of their best opening drives of the year, only for it to stall out inside the Bears 10-yard line with Geno Smith almost throwing an interception.
Then the offense mostly went on sabbatical the rest of the night as the Bears took away any explosive passes downfield for Seattle. That opening drive gained 71 yards on 11 plays as Seattle got an opening field goal to take the 3-0 lead. However, the Seahawks would manage just 194 yards of offense on their final 40 offensive plays of the game.
"I don't know what the challenge was. I've got to go back and watch the film," receiver DK Metcalf told Charlston-Smith. "From my perspective, I think we've just got to run the ball more.
"I don't think anything should impact the game when you've got this type of firepower on offense."
Noah Fant led all Seattle receivers with four catches for 43 yards. Many of Smith's throws were short throws to underneath targets or screen passes as they couldn't generate options downfield.
"They did a good job really trying to take away our explosive pass game and made us check it down," Smith said. "We're okay with that, fine with that. As long as we get the ball into the hands of our playmakers we got guys going to make plays. Hats to them like I said. They did a great job really stopping us when it mattered the most. We were crossing the 50 a bunch and then we would just stall out once we get near the red zone. I think that's something we can improve on, especially from this game."
Smith was clearly not as spry as he usually is due to his knee injury, and the offense was missing running back Ken Walker III as he was placed on injured reserve due to a high-ankle sprain. But the running game actually seemed to be doing enough this week. It was the passing attack that wasn't able to produce enough.
"I thought he started strong," Macdonald said. "Put the ball in harm's way in the red zone, which we would like to do a better job of that. I'll tell you what, like Geno is battling his tail off right now keeping us together, so we follow his lead. I know the guys on offense are excited we won the game, but we talk about being 12 as one, and they're part of the team too and we won the game. So our expectation is obviously higher than six points, but let's go to work this week and do the best we can to go win.
"Thursday night's games are funky. It's a short week. It's just feels like there is some weird outcomes this happen. We'll look at the tape and go to work and Geno will be right there leading us."
– Jason Myers putting together another very strong year.
Special teams performances can get lost in the wash sometimes, but as the only player to actually score points for Seattle on Thursday night, it felt like it was worthwhile to note Jason Myers' strong season.
Myers converted kicks of 27 and 50 yards for the Seahawks on Thursday night. The 50-yard field goal was Myers' eighth of the season, which is a new career-high. It also adds to Myers' franchise record for most 50-yard field goals in team history with 25 during his six seasons in Seattle.
Myers is 25-of-29 on field goal tries this season, and 34-of-37 on extra point attempts. Myers hasn't purely missed a field goal under 50 yards this season. Of the four missed field goals this season, two came from beyond 60 yards, one from 53 yards, and the fourth was blocked from 47 yards out.
– Bears errors helped Seahawks survive, too.
The Seahawks still needed some mistakes by the Bears to help come away with the victory as well.
Curhan's hold of Nwosu was one critical spot, but he also false started on a fourth-and-inches on Chicago's final drive. The Bears then lined up to punt, only to waste a timeout to change their minds. While they made the conversion, they spent a timeout in the process.
Despite beginning their final drive with five minutes left to play, the Bears still ran into clock trouble. They had only reached the Seattle 40-yard line with 20 seconds left to play when Woolen made the clinching interception. Too much time bled off the clock and the loss of the extra timeout didn't help.
"We had plenty of opportunities to win it," Brown said. "Had an unfortunate call early on that took away one of the touchdowns, but still had plenty of chances to take at-bats, and that's extremely frustrating and disappointing, which is 100 percent on me. We'll have a couple of days off, have a chance to regroup, and have one more crack at it."
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