Which Chicago Bears were winners from Week 15 vs Eagles?

Chicago Bears Week 15 Winner No. 2: Jaylon Johnson

Another winner from this week comes from the cornerback position. It is easy to say that the corners played poorly considering that A.J. Brown and Smith both had over 100 yards, with Brown pushing 200. Still, these plays mostly came on jump ball opportunities with Jalen Hurts just throwing the ball to a perfect spot.

This was a type of game we have not seen always from Jaylon Johnson this season. He has been a bit soft in his coverage giving receivers too much cushion at times. Johnson is not very fast, and he does lack a bit of athleticism. Yet, he makes up for that with sound footwork and fundamentals, and now more physicality. We saw a lot of him playing at the line and bumping Brown to slow him down.

Brown is a super elite receiver with size and speed, so Johnson being up on him led to him being burnt on a few plays. Many fans will remember those plays and say Johnson was actually a dud in this game, but we saw a different type of effort from Johnson that led to multiple pass breakups, especially on some key third down-plays.

Johnson was also second on the team in total tackles with a total of six. Without Roquan Smith and now with Jack Sanborn potentially being out with injury, the defensive backs have had to make more tackles. Johnson continues to do well in that area. He is one of the defensive leaders on the team and played like it in this game. We saw a lot of emotion out of him as he took the challenge of going up against one of the best in the game. Hopefully, his rib injury is not serious because it will be great to see him against guys like Stephan Diggs and Justin Jefferson to close out the year.

Jaylon Johnson has shown the ability to be a shutdown cornerback. While this season has been a bit inconsistent, he has improved steadily. It is never okay to allow almost 200 yards from your matchup, but Johnson still played well today aside from one or two big plays. He will learn from this and hopefully, we see an even better performance next week against Diggs.