Third and fourteen, poor Man Russia again feels for the end zone.
Four touchdown, wide open touchdown.
Curtis Samuel bass Is called in by More gets free. Washington gambles and lose the gamble that time fifty six yards touchdown.
Oh thank goodness. I'm telling you.
Bears, fans of America and beyond, you needed this one and you got it. The Chicago Bears, the monsters of the Midway erstwhile monsters of the Midway, and maybe once more is.
Some things.
Connect finally win a game forty to twenty, doubling up the Washington Commanders on the road in Landover. Dan Hans is here with Mark Sessler, and this was a game that the Bear is absolutely controlled from the start, taking a twenty seven to three lead into the half. Washington wakes up and they have a chance to pull within
one score in the fourth quarter. A missed field goal followed by that gamble by the Washington dB leads to the third Dj Moore touchdown of the night, the fifth Justin Field's touchdown pass of the night, and Mark Sessler the Chicago Bears get a little scare there, but ultimately such a positive night for the organization. And an important one bottom line.
Absolutely. I mean there was a moment where I thought, is this are they doubling as the Washington generals of the NFL Where it's like you're gonna kind of toy with someone, but ultimately you're the clown. Could they possibly blow a twenty one point lead two times in less than a week, But they got it done and it's like they snap a fourteen game losing streak. And this is an organization because I think Bears fans have quietly been through we talk about the Jets, the Browns, other organizations,
like they've been through a lot. Like they haven't had a fourteen game losing streak since the Chicago Bears were the Chicago Cardinals that lost fourteen games back when you didn't play a thousand games in a season from nineteen forty two to nineteen forty five. So it's been a
long time. These guys have been through a drought. And if you look at the last if you look at what they I know they lost the Broncos skip, Like if you look at that game and what Justin Fields did in that game, and you pair it with tonight, and you pair it with some other aspects and you look at DJ Moore, who like the box score for the ages eight catches, two hundred and thirty yards, three touchdowns. It's a confusing state for bear stands because there is
hope here. And like you kind of saw, like Luke Getzi's offense, which dazzled down the stretch last year, start to take hold tonight. They absolutely dominated in certain plays. Big plays were starting to be produced. I just don't know if I can believe it. Like even like the defense which had two sacks coming into this game, a pass rush, which you know, Greg and I got into an argument about on one of our shows. It's like are they real or not? Like they blew up tonight.
Everything kind of came together that I feel like that's how Thursday night football is. But I thought this would be Washington's Thursday night football coronation. I really believe in Sam Halle. But it went in a totally different direction. And Chicago came in and completely disrupted that coronation and created a disruptive poem that went in the wrong way for Washington.
Yeah, and let's not get it twisted. And Commander's fans that are listening right now, and good job by you. You have our eternal respect. They've been through it too. I mean they've been through a really, really rough century so far that you finally feel like there's some hope with Daniel Snyder's ass out the door. And you got the Josh Harris bad beat for Harris when they come back from commercial when it's twenty seven to three or whatever and he's yucking it up and showing people his phone.
That's things you'll learn as the owner. You have to be very stern in your etiquette and know that the camera can find you anytime. And it felt like that was gonna be like kind of what this night was gonna be, just an ugly, grim night for the Commanders, when like you said, it felt like this was going to be a celebration of a new error for Washington football, and that could still happen. This is still a team
that has talent, that has ability. The young quarterback does do things every time you watch them that gets you excited, and maybe Sam Howe will continue to develop. But this was not the Commander's night. And you could say about this Bears performance, well, don't get too excited. I mean there's still just one in four. There's still a lot of things wrong with this team that they came very close to letting this one get away in the way
that they let last week's get away. But I think it's so in terms of morale and this idea that there is something building here. You will absolutely be over the moon when when you know that, I said Mark, one of the worst feelings as a sports fan or just in life is when something really bad happens and then you know when you wake up the next morning, it's the first thing that you'll remember, Oh wait, that bad thing happened.
That's happened a lot.
For Chicago fans, they get to wake up in the morning and go revisit the box scorer where Justin Field's average almost ten yards in attempt he threw four touchdown passes.
Excuse me, it was five, right, correct? Four? It was four.
Touchdown passes according to the spots my bet. And you'll look at DJ Moore, the guy that was brought here. That was his job was to be a true number one for this kid court that you believed in that you traded the number one overall pick away for it because you thought, if we just give him a surrounding cast and we give him a true number one. He will blossom and after a very poor start to the season, you've seen that these last two weeks, Fields all of a sudden does not look helpus.
In fact, he looks quite.
Dangerous with DJ Moore, who has, yes, like you said, one of the great performances in the history of Thursday night football, which has been on for about ten years now. So yeah, we don't know what the rest of the season holds, and maybe this is a blip in the radar, but it's also possible mark that the Bears, after a horrendous start to the season, are finding their footing on
offense now. And while they're probably not going to the playoffs and they're probably not going to the super Bowl, that does not mean that this is not a season where they can continue to grow. And it's just that it's a night that creates optimism in Chicago, and the thought of that even being possible a week or so ago, it was, you know, it felt impossible.
Yeah, And I think like we live in a world football wise with no patience. It's like, oh, you're rebuild, You've got five weeks to rebuild the program. It's like this team was a disaster, a year ago, and part of it is coaching. But if you're Matt Eberflus and you're not onlike those Bears fans, you wake up tomorrow morning and you can look at where you were at halftime, because I think it's like these games get a little
bit out of hand. But like at halftime, the Bears had three hundred and seven yards of offense and his defense, Matt Eberflus's defense against a solid weapons not I wouldn't say weapons rich, but weapons equipped Commander's offense. They had eighty four yards twenty minutes of nineteen minutes of possession for the Bears, one hundred and twenty two yards of rushing thirteen for the Commanders. I don't know what happened
to their ground game to night. It vanished. They dominated in every possible way, And part of me a little bit, it's like everyone is killing Eberflus left and right, and for good reason. Okay, but it's Ron Rivera a little bit to me that stands out in these game situations because this is the guy that, uh, I think everyone is. We respect Ron Rivera. He's a nice person. He's gonna give you a nice, solid season year of to year. You're not gonna go too high, You're not gonna go
too low. But it's like there was one decision tonight that stood out for me that's separated a difference making opportunity for the commanders. They're down twenty seven to eleven late in the third quarter, fourth and two from Chicago's thirteen, and he kicks a field goal. I mean, like this was riverboat ron The riverboat at this point has been shot down by alien nuclear satellites. Like what are we
doing here? Like why, like why are we not taking our young team and saying we believe in us, We're going to go for it. I get there's a lot of time left, but I just I don't know it just it seems to me like a bit of a departure from the norm where it's like what makes this coaching staff special? And like you're kind of leaving the entire year like that, you're you may not get that close again. And it's like that fourth and two from the got it you have to go for it.
I see why you would. And I'm wondering what the analytics said the old Gopher or kick where they came down on that in terms of win probability. I was okay with it only because it just seemed the way these types of games go, you could feel that you could sense it, like with respect to Claybond, the momentum had clearly shifted and they had a chance to continue
to put points on the board. It was still early in the second half, and to that point, Joey Sly lines up for a forty six yard field goal, which in today's game is a kick. You expect your kicker to pipe and he makes that kick, and it's a seven point game with five minutes to play, and he doesn't make the kick. And so I think the way he played it taking the points then was looking at the long game and feeling like they had really they were starting to really gather momentum in this game.
So I didn't have a big issue with it.
But I see what you're saying, like, this is the guy that in Carolina had the nickname, which is one of the great all time coach nicknames of Riverboat Ron, and you expect him to roll the dice there and he didn't. And yeah, and if you're a Commander's fan
and you agree with Mark's take, I get it. In general, this was a deeply frustrating night because, like we said, this felt like it was supposed to be a celebration for the organization and instead, you totally know show you give up a touchdown on a vicious coverage bus to start the game, and you go down, You go to the locker room down twenty seven to three, and it's just like, what what are we doing here? So there's
a lot of frustration on the Washington side. I think the second half mark was very it felt predictable, and it was my concern because I really was rooting hard for Chicago.
I just I don't know.
I guess happless teams they stick together, and these are kind of two happless teams in the last twenty years or so. But when they started to get a little more conservative and they were having these like ninety second drives and then they were letting Sam Haug up and down the I really had an ominous feeling that this was going to be a second collapse.
There was a play that I was.
Certain would be the one you would remember from this game where the Commanders had scored maybe even had scored ten points to cut into the lead, and on a third and about five Fields rolled to his left. Feeling pressure, he goes. He sees Khalil Herbert, who's all by himself on the sideline. If he can get the ball to Herbert, he's walking into the end zone forty yards for a touchdown. Instead, Fields in the with a hand in his face out
of fairness, shorts the ball. It skips to Herbert, who wrenches his knee and is out for the game pretty much from that point with an injury. And then they punt, which leads to I believe, another score for Washington. It was like, oh my god, this is happening. So credit Chicago for not letting this thing get away, and credit to Matt Eberfluse and the offense for getting aggressive mark on that last touchdown to Dj Moore after the slid miss.
They could have done the thing that so many coaches do when they're scared and trying to just run out the clock and run the ball three times and then punt again. But he called to pass from Fields to More, which had worked beautifully all night, and one more time. Dj Moore was the better player. He took it to the house and away we go. At celebration time.
Yeah, It's like this was the coaching scenario, coaching effort that you would want from Eberflus and the Bears coaches like it. It looked like a team that is rebuilding, that's taking steps. I could point to a play too. They're down twenty seven to eleven. The Commanders logan Thomas he basically the bar like the ball jar loose from by Terrell Smith at the Bears forty six. Like in that that to me, like that, like the Bears defense
made a big play. There was also hidden among all the other Dj Moore big catches, a thirty two yard grab that basically set up a field goal that made it two thirty to fourteen. Like these little moments where the Bears could have collapsed. And like, I mean, we were texting during this, and I was like, you know what this is like NF Every NFL game, it's gonna go I know, it's gonna go to overtime. We're gonna deal with the Bears and Commanders in like a fifth period.
And instead, like the Bears found their way out of these little moments over and over and we haven't seen them do that. They just haven't done that, And like it was a bit of a different coaching scenario, bit of coaching effort, and so like I appreciate that from that side of it. If you're a Bears fan, like I don't know if you're rooting for this coaching staff to survive or not. Like I mean, we haven't seen a lot, and so this is a little ray of hope,
a little open window. I don't know what like a game like this, Like I struggle to make toop to put too much meaning on a Thursday night game between the Commanders and Bears and say, we're in a new direction here. I think that's what that's what happens with TNF. But it's like, we'll see, we'll see. It's a strange. It's a strange setup for me, Chicago, Like you needed this, you got it. We'll see, we'll see what the carryover is.
Yeah, I hope it's not coming off that way all of a sudden. The Bears are fine and Justin Fields will so potential.
But that's two.
Straight games now to where they started the season. This he actually it's interesting. He did run the ball effectively, but he was again it's not like when Fields was hot as a pistol in the middle of last season. Last November or so, where he was just carving teams up for one hundred and twenty yards on the ground and just running rough shot over defenses. Like these last two games, he's looked a lot sharper as a passers, which that's.
What will make him a star.
And if you can continue to build off these last two weeks, you have a lot to be excited about. And you look at their upcoming schedule. The Vikings defense up next, that's not overly daunting. You have the Raiders after that, and then they're in Los Angeles so against
the Chargers after that. So there's a chance here. Maybe the Bears aren't gonna win all or any of these games, but I feel like the runway is now set up for Fields to really kind of find himself and start building in what's such a pivotal year for him development.
So good stuff.
There's there's a couple of things, Mark, a couple other things here. Did you have any other thoughts on the other side of the ball before we move on about watching?
Well, the one thing I'd say is like, because I when I say that the game doesn't ultimately have like universal meaning, you know it maybe it will, but like I think that, Like I came out of it being like my biggest note was my fifth week of watching Sam Howell and the you know, five weeks now, maybe it changes, but like there's something about him. He's not
a massive physical specimen. He's not perfect. He's not teaching us how to throw the ball compared to all of the quarterbacks, but like there's something about him that I believe in and like I I kind of just want him to be in a situation that's stable, that allows him to grow, and like he's got some weapons around him, but it's like he's fascinating to watch and like I know they lost and he's getting killed behind it is like that he walks into sacks like he's making some mistakes.
But there's something about him that I dig. And it's not just I know he seems a little Baker mayfieldish, but it's like I don't know what his future is. But like I came out of this again being like there's something about Sam how that I just dig, Like it makes me want to watch the Commanders.
You know, I like him too.
There's only he had the one wipeout game, what was it against Buffalo, But otherwise has been really fun to watch. And again, like he's more athletic than Baker, Like he's more athletic than Ryan Fitzpatrick. Some other guys that might kind of come to mind in terms of his bill, the way he some of those scrambles, fran Tarkan din or something, the way he dodges, bounces off tackles. He had one scramble in the red zone where it was a third and forever or second and forever.
I think it was a third in forever.
And he he bounces off numerous guys. He toe taps along the sideline then cuts back in, which is not necessarily what you want from your quarterback, but that's just his character and he's he's a guy that kept slinging. He's he's kind of exactly the quarterback you never want to be down twenty. But he's the type of quarterback that can throw you back into the game like a Baker, like a Fitzpatrick if he starts feeling it and the
other defense starts to let up a little bit. So that's part of the reason this game became a game in the second half. So I'm with you totally on that, and it's fun to watch now A couple of things from FedEx Field. You know, we have Young and Sweaty, the combination of Montes sweat and Chase Young. Today they combined in a losing effort. Let's let's not get over the moon about Washington's defense. Today they combined for two
sacks and five QB hits. In general, they're starting to fulfill that promise together and it helps that they have Deron Payne and Jonathan Allen there as well. The movement, the Young and Sweaty nickname movement gains some significant steam. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you could see the tweet that Big Funk is putting up. Right now, we have Melissa Buckley, thank you. The tradition lives on,
and she's got a young headband. It's it's a head white head band that says young across it, and then a buddy doing the plus sign, and then her her friend. I assume her friend could be her enemy. Maybe that's what in between with a headband that says sweaty. So I think it's real. And now it's just a matter of us continue Washington fans to send us Young and Sweaty support for the great nickname of that.
This is Dan. This is you know, we part of our job is to come up with monikers, nicknames and move and attempt to start movements, and some of them go dry, some of them take off, and like I think this is a big step here. What I love the most about it is when they get separated and you've got the girl on the right walking around the stadium. Yeah, she's got to go do what she's gonna do, and she's got to we're in a headband. Just that says Sweaty, which it's not a bad thing, it's just like it
raises some questions. I'm not sure what she's attempting to tell people. But when you get them together, you get it.
So quite frankly, it's the better it's the better trade off. But another one just walking around the concourse with a headband that says young on. It is also kind of a weird thing if you want to think it is that it's a.
Bit of a brag. I guess I don't know. It's like it depends who like she Both of them fit. Both of them are doing fine in the role, Like a different pair of representatives would struggle potentially, like Sweaty would work with a lot of people that I know, like Young not so much.
Another news item around the Bears on this otherwise joyous evening in Chicago, Bears general manager he ended any thought that Chase Claypool will ever play another snap for the Bears, the wide receiver who they acquired for a thirty second overall pick last year, just last year. He was on ESPN one thousand, their pregame radio show today and this was his quote, Mark, I don't know if you saw this. I think Chase, which is Claypool, is going to learn
from this situation. We all will. He's like, I won't trade basically a first round pick for a malcontent wide receiver. We all will, and I wish him luck moving forward throughout his career he go.
He go, I mean, it's like it's an interesting This was sort of the flush out tocsins week for the NFL because we just saw like J. C. Jackson, who completely failed with the Chargers, go back to New England. He's going back home. It's like Chase Claypool not gonna
go back to Pittsburgh, I'd imagine. But like, you know, the one thing I'd say, like some of these gms, it's like I guess if you wanted to be real, Like we talked about mission accomplished and way to go Brownie during our show today, It's like, if you really want to taking yeah, you just but you could just stick with these guys that you failed with, like we're gonna keep you because we just refuse to acknowledge. We feel it's like we're gonna flush these guys out. We
get it, like we're moving on. I like that at least, like, let's I don't want to hear four more weeks of Chase Claypool drama in Chicago. I don' don't to hear about that anymore.
I don't know if it.
Helps Ryan Poles's trade leverage, but I don't imagine he had much to start with. And he in that same conversation, he also talked about the reasoning behind the Doom trade. He said they wanted to add another receiver to the offense not only to help us be more productive, but also to help Justin take the next step.
So that was the thought process.
Then, and I think again, trying to on a positive night for the Bears, they now have that guy, the guy that they wanted Chase Claypool to be, and they miscast him from the very beginning is DJ Moore and they in that trade where they sent the number one overall pick to Charlotte getting more in their building. What you've seen in these last two weeks that that could
change the entire trajectory of fields his career. So Ryan Poles still has a job after one of the worst trades of the decade, and maybe DJ Moore will help save it going forward.
Finally, Mark, this.
Is a bittersweet day for the Bears because the on the same day that they wiped out the Commanders on Thursday Night Football, we learned that Dick buckis one of the most famous of all Chicago Bears, passed away at the age of eighty. Hall of Famer, a nine year career started in nineteen sixty five, known as like a Giant amongst his peers, a middle linebacker who was well known and feared by contemporaries as a guy that was vicious in terms of how hard he would hit you.
He said in interviews after his career, like he wanted to be the type of player that when you get hit by him, they don't even have to get up and say who hit him? They say this by feeling it. You knew it was a Dick Buckets hit, And in a lot of ways, he's emblematic of what the NFL was in the mid twentieth century and kind of a legendary figure and icon of that era of the sport.
So to lose him today is very sad. But the man lived an incredible life at that span, not just football, but also as a very well known celebrity pitch man and also actor. He showed up in movies and TV shows. Just kind of an American giant in terms of what he did in his life.
Yeah, it was like sort of the first multi platform star in a way. I mean we were relatively the same age where we grew up, where you know, Dick Bucket finished his career. He played from sixty five to seventy three with the Bears. I was born in seventy three, so it's like we didn't watch him in person, but there was no way you became a football fan in the eighties early nineties without not having Dick Buckets like lead off, kind of like the highlight reel that would
lead you into pregame shows. It's like he was still a massive figure in terms of like the way that someone today would think of frankly like Peyton Manning, like it's like he's removed, but not that far removed, and it's like still the star that you look back on, or if you're a basketball fan of Michael Jordan, where it's like everyone knows this person and you know the Bears are the weird team out there. That's like somehow have spent six decades fashioning their image off of inside
and linebackers in general. It's like there's no other team doing that, but they they are, And like I think it started with him. And I mean I grew up watching and buying like VHS tapes about like the NFL's most devastating hits from nineteen eighty six. It's like they don't they don't produce that anymore. But like, but guests in general would always be like on these like historical biggest hits, devastating and I knock you out with a
forearm kind of guy. But then, like you and I watched TV shows that he suddenly became I wouldn't say cuddly, but he kind of play his tough self but be have a cuddly side of his On mc guiver, I think I saw about two hundred episodes of My Two Dads. He was featured on that like largely. It's like I knew him in two different ways, and it's like, Dads, No, it was definitely not no, no, no, he would not have played that role. But I will say this is a really weird side note, but the daughter on My
Two Dads, Stacy Keenan. I was in a screenwriting class, okay, and there was a competition in our little class to have your screenplay red, and mine got to the end, and like they brought in some our guy that like taught the class, started different strokes that show, and so like he knew all these actors and actresses and brought in Stacy Keenan to lead like the fit in the main female role. And I'm like sitting there as like a twenty something year old like freaking out because it's
the girl from My Two Dads. But that is like the Mike Kevin Bacon one step removed from Dick puckis like she's spent a ton of time on set with Dick Buckets and it's like he spanned all these different roles and stuff. But really his imprint on the NFL, I would say he's like a top five, top ten person that moved the NFL from stage A to B two C and gave it a national presence. And then as an actor, I think always you hark back to who he was just an incredible figure and an incredible
Chicago Bears. It's like the Bears really haven't changed that much to me, and who they are, who their fans are, what they love, what they fall for, who they fall for, and he's still at that center, at that epicenter. And it's like, man, it's you lose you. We're at the point where we're losing these NFL people left and right, and people a lot younger than Dick Buckets. But like this is a legend gone into the mist.
Yeah.
Yeah, everything you're saying about, you know, the linebacker like that, he's the Midwest. He is that sensibility and that's part of the reason he was so beloved. And he was a son of Illinois. Like he was born in Chicago. I played high school ball in Chicago, went to school the University of Illinois, became a star there, then played his entire career with the Chicago Chicago Bears. So I
mean he he is Chicago. In fact, we have a good clip here that Big Funk dug up from a press conference where he was honored, I believe at his college where he's an alumnus of Illinois, and he was talked a little bit about, you know, the game and why he loved it.
It's very a humbling deal, and.
You know, and you wonder, you know why, Man? You know, I did what I thought I was supposed to do, and I you know, I had fun knocking this out of people. You know, so if it was that unusual, I guess you take it.
You know, I had fun knocking the out of people. He was one of one rest in peace, Dick Buckets. You're right, though, Mark, like we lost Jim Brown, We lose Buckets. And it feels like all these kind of heroes of the twentieth century, you know, you you know the passage of time, undefeated, Mark, undefeated, as you yourself coming up upon your fiftieth birthday, time stalls for.
No one, not, you know, not something. I'm like, I'm not one of these.
Uh.
I don't know who's doing this. I don't want to tag like target or tags certain genres of types. But they want to celebrate their birthday for two months in a row and go to like forty eight dinners with seventy two friend groups, like I will allow it to come and go. I can't believe that will be my age. I don't see myself that way. But you know what, no one does. And then suddenly time tells you good luck with your own wishes. You don't know what you're doing, so.
I don't know what.
Like also that statement, where are we going?
My favorite all time article ever or at least headline from the Onion, another Chicago based legendary product, and how do you pronounce this inexorable? Inexorable? Yeah, inexorable. March of Time brings TV's Jerry Mathers one step closer to death. And the whole article is just about Jerry Mathers. He was leaving to beaver, He's just getting older.
That is an article.
It's sad, it's it's accurate, it's logical.
Okay, good stuff, anything else Mark before we say goodbye?
No, but I want to go track down this mcguiver episode or episodes that Dick Buckets was on, Like you know, that was a complex show. There were a lot of like problems being solved. I don't know what role we played. I would say, probably a villain. I want to go find out.
Right, and I yeah, we are separated by a few years. So while I remember my two dads the show, I remember Stacy Keenan from was step by Step, which the Patrick Duffy Suzanne Summers vehicle. And I'll tell you what, but a ten year old Zuzzer found Stacy to be someone that I would have wanted to marry at that time of my life, like, that's what I want my
wife to look like. So the fact that you shared a some type of classroom or hall in the corridors off USC's campus is I'm pretty jealous, I must say.
I well, so wait, I will add no more than ten seconds context of this, but like so my professor created step by Step and that's how we knew her, and so.
That's how he kind of said, hey, come, like take time out of your day to do this and not get paid for its states.
Remember again read.
This, come read this like non Ruffians, like totally failed script and like she read the main female part. But like the whole time, I don't know what my role was in that class other than then at that point we had already written the thing. I was just sitting there like listening to it, and I'm like, what is the girl from my two dads doing here? I was my sensibilities were very aligned with yours, and I was
like internally freaking out. Like I've been in LA for like six months, and I was like, this is the craziest thing that's ever happened to me. And like, I think at some point I attempted to speak to her. It probably went very poorly, and then everyone vanished. It's like, I don't know, you got one shot and I did. I totally whiffed on that shot, that's for sure.
Listen, we all if you shot your shot, that's the most important thing, because then you can't live with regret.
Let that shot it into I shot it into the bleachers. I think, you know, It's like, I think the basketball hit a woman in the head who was like trying to like drink a glass of milk.
But you shot it. That woman's in a coma at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center. But you shot the ball. And that's what's most important. Kids.
Don't forget that. Leave it all on the court, all right. By the way, Dick played Earl dent On mcgiver and like a funk coming through again. Check it out on YouTube. There he is, you know, a real man, a Midwestern man, has broad shoulders and a nice mustache and a masculine face.
That was Buckus he was. He kind of checked all the boxes.
I'm not surprised at all that he was able to transition into a successful career in Hollywood. All right, that's it, good stuff, good conversation. Congratulations to you Bears fans out there, Rest in peace, thick buckets, keep the young and sweaty movement alive, Commander's fans, even.
In this dark knight. The next time, keep a cop