The Bears are coming off their best season in years; the Jets are still picking up the pieces from one of the worst finishes in the league. Sunday, October 4 in Chicago is an early gut-check for both.
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SUN OCT 4 · 12:00 PM CT
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Caleb Williams gets a full training camp with the same coaching staff for the first time in his career, and the early reports out of Chicago describe a quarterback who's finally trusting what he sees instead of second-guessing it. Across the field, Geno Smith is the clear-cut starter after arriving from Las Vegas, and camp buzz out of Florham Park has been loud — one team period reportedly saw him go 11-of-11 with 3 touchdowns. This isn't a playoff-math game in Week 5, but it's exactly the kind of measuring-stick matchup Aaron Glenn needs his team competitive in after the way last season ended.
Both rosters spent the offseason retooling on the fly, and both have new bumps and bruises to show for it. The Jets went shopping on defense — Joseph Ossai, Minkah Fitzpatrick, Demario Davis, Nahshon Wright — but Ossai is already banged up in camp and T'Vondre Sweat is out too, thinning the front that was supposed to be the whole point of the makeover. Chicago's issue hits closer to a key piece: safety Coby Bryant, fresh off a big free-agent deal, suffered a serious knee injury in padded practice that could keep him out into the season, and left tackle remains an open competition behind Braxton Jones.
None of that is slowing the outside expectations tilting hard toward Chicago. The Bears won the NFC North for the first time since 2018, picked up their first playoff win since 2010, and backed it up this summer by locking up right tackle Darnell Wright to the richest offensive line contract in NFL history. The Jets are still finding their footing under Glenn, and there's real rebuilding left to prove out before anyone takes them seriously as a threat.
New York Jets
Chicago Bears
That five-game slide to close last season wasn't close — the Jets got run off the field by Miami, Jacksonville, New Orleans, New England and Buffalo in succession, and it's the kind of stretch that gets a coaching staff gutted and a roster rebuilt from the ground up. Chicago's last five tell a different story: two wins over Green Bay, a wild overtime loss to the Rams in the divisional round, and a group that was in every game down the stretch. The gap in recent form and roster continuity is the whole story of this matchup heading into the fall.
New York Jets
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Chicago Bears
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Fully healthy — no injuries to report
Kickoff is set for 12:00 PM CT at Soldier Field, an early-window measuring-stick game more for what it says about where each team is than what it means in the standings. Chicago's the team with something to protect; New York's the team trying to show last year's collapse was the exception, not the rule.
