Seahawks vs. Bears how to watch, prediction, odds: Caleb Williams faces toughest test yet

The Bears take their surging offense into Seattle for a matchup with one of the NFL's best defenses Nov 2, 2026 at 7:37 am ET • 5 min read In the Week 8 edition of "Monday Night Football," the Seattle Seahawks host the Chicago Bears. Seattle enters this game fresh off a victory over the previously undefeated Kansas City Chiefs, snapping a two-game losing skid. The Seahawks' defense is settling in and once again looks like one of the best units in the league, but faces one of its toughest tests of the season on Monday night.Chicago enters having won both of its games since starting quarterback Caleb Williams returned from injury, improving to 5-2 in the process. The Bears have looked like one of the best offenses in the NFL whenever Williams has been on the field, but they, too, face arguably their toughest test of the season on Monday evening.Will Seattle make it back-to-back wins, or will the Bears ruin their evening with a road upset? How to watch Seahawks vs. Bears liveDate: Monday, Nov. 2 | Time: 8:20 p.m. ETLocation: Lumen Field (Seattle)TV: ESPN/ABC | Streaming: Fubo (try for free)Follow: CBS Sports AppOdds: Seahawks -3, O/U 46.5 via DraftKings Sportsbook When the Bears have the ballChicago has scored, 59, 31 and 30 points in the three Caleb Williams starts that were not played against the Minnesota Vikings in a driving rainstorm. The Bears piled up 552, 368 and 405 yards in those three games, and turned the ball over only twice in those contests. For the season (including the game against Minnesota), Williams has completed 71% of his passes at an average of 8.2 yards per attempt, both of which are career-high figures. He has thrown five touchdowns against one interception and rushed 24 times for 128 yards and two additional scores. Williams has generally thrown short passes, with an average depth of throw of only 7.0 yards, according to Tru Media. Despite that, he has created explosive passing plays at the third-highest rate in the league (10.7% of dropbacks). That's thanks in large part to the fact that the Bears are averaging 6.4 yards after catch per completion on his throws, the fourth-best mark in the league. The Seahawks, though, limit YAC as well as just about any team in football. They've allowed only 4.5 yards after catch per completion, which ranks third-best in the NFL. They play shell coverages a lot of the time, and they rally to the ball and tackle as well in the secondary as anybody. Their defensive backs and linebackers rarely miss opportunities to bring ball-carriers to the ground. The Bears generally want to run the ball more often than almost any team in the league, with a 48.7% rush rate, according to Tru Media. The Seahawks are elite at stopping the run, however, as we saw last week against Kenneth Walker III. D'Andre Swift and Roschon Johnson will have their work cut out for them here, even against a defense that plays a lot of nickel and dime and doesn't load the box.The Chicago offensive line will have to do a lot of work to move Seattle's defensive front off the ball, which has proven extremely difficult for opposing lines this year. When the Seahawks have the ballSeattle's offense is built almost entirely around the exploits of superstar wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. JSN leads the NFL with 867 receiving yards, 43 receiving first downs and eight receiving touchdowns. He has been targeted on 36.3% of the team's pass attempts, which ranks as the No. 1 mark in the NFL. So does his 33.9% targets-per-route-run rate, which is narrowly ahead of CeeDee Lamb's. Smith-Njigba has more receptions than the next three closest players on the Seahawks: AJ Barner, Cooper Kupp and Rashid Shaheed combined for 53. His 867 yards are also considerably more than the 562 that trio has combined as well. They are ancillary pieces at best, and typically they are scarcely involved in the offense. Shaheed is also out on Monday night, which means the secondary options will be even more limited than usual.The Bears, like everyone else in the league, do not have anyone who can cover Smith-Njigba. It's not possible. The best chance to limit him is to get to Sam Darnold and force hurried decisions that lead to turnovers. Darnold, despite missing time due to injury, leads the NFL with eight interceptions. Under pressure, he has been dreadful, completing only 26 of 66 passes for 331 yards, two touchdowns and four picks. He ranks second-to-last in the league in EPA per dropback on pressured plays, per Tru Media. If the Bears can get into his face, they can force him into mistakes and flip the game on its head. Something that will help them in that effort is the arrival of defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, who is a game wrecker on the interior. Simmons is among the league leaders in both pressures and sacks when lined up inside. He'll have to deal with what is now one of the best guard duos in the league in Quenton Nelson and Grey Zabel, and Simmons could also see his snaps limited in his first game with his new team. (Nelson is likely to play a full complement in his Seattle debut, given how reluctant teams are to rotate offensive linemen.)The Seattle running game should get a boost from the expected returns of Zach Charbonnet and Jadarian Price. Charbonnet hasn't played all season after tearing his ACL during last year's Super Bowl run, while Price has been out since Week 3 with a chest injury. The combination of Emanuel Wilson and George Holani has largely been ineffective, and even if Charbonnet and Price can generate slightly below-average efficiency, they'll represent an improvement over the incumbent duo. The Bears have given up an average of 4.4 yards per carry this season, which ranks 23rd in the league. PredictionSeattle's defense is looking like the unit we expected it to be coming into the year. The Seahawks just shut down Kenneth Walker last week; they should be able to do the same to D'Andre Swift. That puts the entire game on Williams' right shoulder. He can handle that, of course, but it's incredibly difficult to do against Mike Macdonald's unit. That's especially true if the Seahawks get Price and Charbonnet back in the lineup at running back and can run the ball with some degree of success. Pick the Seahawks to take care of business at home. Prediction: Seahawks 24, Bears 20