It was not an easy win for the Chicago Bears, who entered their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers down over half their defensive starters to begin the game. After another dramatic win that came down to the wire, head coach Ben Johnson's fiery locker room speech was once again a must-see moment.
"It takes a village. I'm talking about players. I'm talking about coaches. I'm talking about training staff," he said.
"Here we are towards the back half of the season and our depth is being tested. It would've been so easy to (say), 'man how are we going to win this game? We got no linebackers. We got no linebackers. How we going to win this game?'"
It's true. The Bears were down all three starting linebackers in TJ Edwards, Tremaine Edmunds and Noah Sewell. Fans would be lying to themselves if they said they weren't at least a little worried about the defensive depth to start this game.
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"You guys don't bat an eye. Jonah Jackson goes down for a minute, Luke Newman steps up. Theo's down, Ozzy steps up. I could keep going on and on and on man," he continued.
Johnson very well could have kept going. Guard Jonah Jackson went down during the game and so did a few other players like linebacker Rueben Hyppolite and cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, just to name a couple.
For the entirety of the game, it seemed like the wave of injuries simply wouldn't end. They just kept coming.
And, the Bears just continued to fight. This team's depth was tested more so in this one than it was all season, to this point. But, the defense, specifically, had a couple of players in particular who rose to the occasion. That includes one of Johnson's game balls.
"Like I said man, we had a lot of guys go down on defense. This guy stepped up. He wore the green dot. He had us going all game long," Johnson said of fill-in linebacker D'Marco Jackson.
Jackson, the former fifth-round pick back in 2022 by New Orleans, ended the day with a whopping 15 tackles. He was all over the field and was the glue that held this unit together, allowing them to bend but not break in the end.
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Hopefully by the quickly-coming Black Friday matchup with the Philadelphia Eagles, this injury report gets a bit cleaner.