One team is coming off an NFC North title and a playoff win, the other just fired its coach mid-season and hired a new one — Saturday's dress rehearsal in Nashville is about as lopsided a résumé check as preseason football gets.
Share
Show fees
SAT AUG 29 · 5:00 PM CT
Spread
ML
Total
Bears
Titans
Caleb Williams enters year 2 with Ben Johnson after a season that ended with 3,942 yards, 27 touchdowns and a 90.1 rating — real growth, and Johnson has already said he wants Williams' completion percentage to climb even higher in 2026. On the other sideline, Cam Ward is also in year 2, but everything else changed around him: Tennessee fired Brian Callahan last October after a 1-5 start, finished 3-14, and brought in Robert Saleh as the new head coach. Whatever Ward shows Saturday at 5:00 PM CT is the first real look at how he fits a new staff.
Chicago's roster turnover skews defensive — Tremaine Edmunds, Nahshon Wright, Kevin Byard, Jaquan Brisker, C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Jonathan Owens are all gone, which means first-round safety Dillon Thieneman is already ticketed for real snaps as a rookie. Tennessee spent its offseason rebuilding around Ward instead, taking receiver Carnell Tate 4th overall, signing Wan'Dale Robinson, and getting a healthier Calvin Ridley back in the mix. Neither team's line is fully settled — Tennessee in particular still has real questions up front — which is exactly the kind of thing preseason snaps are meant to expose.
This is Week 3 of the preseason, the week teams generally treat as the closest thing to a real tune-up before roster cuts, so expect more starters and longer looks than usual. It's an odd venue for a form check given both teams are 0-0 on paper, but the last several months of actual roster-building — one team defending a title, the other starting over — say plenty about where each side stands walking in.
Chicago Bears
Tennessee Titans
Chicago's last stretch of real football was a mixed bag — wins over Green Bay bookending a brutal shootout loss to San Francisco and a home playoff exit to the Rams — but it came with a division title and the franchise's first playoff win since 2010 attached. Tennessee's finish was uglier across the board, a 7-41 blowout loss to Jacksonville the low point of a season that got the previous coaching staff fired. None of that carries over to a preseason scoreboard, but it's the backdrop for why one fan base is annoyed by a three-score loss and the other is thrilled by any competent execution.
Chicago Bears
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Tennessee Titans
(0)
Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Keep an eye on the receiver rooms on both sides — Rome Odunze said this offseason his surgically repaired foot feels different but shouldn't limit him, while Ben Johnson has been talking up Luther Burden III's start to the program. For Tennessee, Ridley's return from an injury-shortened 2025 and Tate's early polish give Ward more to work with than he had as a rookie, even if the results won't mean much until the games start counting in September.
