The Chicago Bears are in Landover, Maryland, this weekend for a match-up against the first-place Washington Commanders, so we had to get the skinny on the Bears' opponents from someone who knows them well. On her latest Making Monsters podcast, Taylor Doll previewed the upcoming game with some help from Craig Hoffman, host of The Craig Hoffman Show on Washington D.C.’s The Team 980 (WTEM am). Craig is as dialed in as they come on the Commanders, and this was an outstanding interview.
Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels is a game-time decision, but Craig says that if he's able to play, he should still be effective.
"This has been a guy who has been really, really good about developing a routine and can mentally prepare without having to be at practice because -- people have probably heard about the virtual reality stuff that he does -- so they can load up all these plays and have Kliff Kingsbury in his ear, he can see defenses, study, do all these things without actually having to throw. So, if they’re trying to rest that rib and still get him mentally ready, he can do a lot of what they’re doing.”
If Daniels doesn't go, it'll be Marcus Mariota, and while he's not the quarterback that Daniels has shown to be, he'll still be able to do stuff with his legs.
“So that's the part that doesn't really change a whole lot because, like, Marcus Mariota is a really good runner. If I'm Chicago, I'm trying to force him to play as a passer as often as possible because I think I could probably create some turnovers. He's not a very good rhythm passer. But for the running game, they will use quarterback run quite a bit this weekend.”
As far as Chicago's offense, Craig says the Commanders don't have an answer for DJ Moore.
“This is tough because, as Commanders fans well know and as Bears fans love to remind anybody here in DC, DJ Moore put up 75,000 yards on this team last year and scored 42 touchdowns. Yeah, he’s nasty, and I don’t think that they have a great matchup for him because I don’t know how many exist.”
In fact, Craig said Washington's secondary has been bad all year, and Chicago's passing game should find success.
“DJ Moore and Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze scare me. Like Rome wouldn’t scare me as much if he was a two or a one for them, but as a three, like man... And then Kmet, I mean, they don’t have a great solution all the time against tight ends.”
It's another fantastic show, so check it out in the embed below or wherever you get your audio.
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