The Bears will play their next two games without their most productive pass rusher, and the calendar makes it worse than the stat line suggests.
Montez Sweat has been suspended two games without pay for violating the NFL’s Performance-Enhancing Substances Policy, Adam Schefter reported Tuesday. Sweat misses the game at Atlanta against the Falcons and the Thursday night game against the New England Patriots. He becomes eligible to return for the matchup with the defending champion Seattle Seahawks.
Nobody involved has said anything publicly. There is no statement from Sweat, and nothing from the Bears or the league beyond the discipline itself. So the only useful conversation right now is about what Chicago’s defense looks like for two weeks without its left-side starter.
What the Bears actually lose
Sweat’s numbers this season are modest: five tackles and two sacks through five games, which is third on the team in sacks. Judge him on that alone and the suspension looks survivable. Judge him on what he has been and it does not. He put up 53 tackles and a career-high 10 sacks a year ago, and he was a Pro Bowler in 2023.
Austin Booker is expected to take over on the left side. That is a real opportunity for Booker and a real downgrade in the margin Chicago’s defense has to work with, and both of those things can be true at once.
The deeper issue is that the Bears were already thin on the edge. Dayo Odeyingbo is questionable with a quad injury, so there is a scenario where Chicago walks into Atlanta without two of the players it planned to rush the passer with. The team did activate defensive lineman Shemar Turner from the physically unable to perform list on Tuesday, which helps the interior rotation, but a defensive lineman coming off PUP is not a replacement for a 10-sack edge rusher.
The timing is the problem
Chicago is 3-2 and just got taken apart 31-7 by the Green Bay Packers. That is the kind of loss that puts a defense’s answers under a microscope, and the answer to “who rushes the passer” just got two games shorter.
Then there is the short week. The Bears go to Atlanta, then turn around and play New England on Thursday night. Two games in five days with your starting left edge unavailable for both is the sort of stretch that decides whether a 3-2 team is a playoff team or a .500 team sorting itself out in December.
The offense is not in position to cover for it either. Caleb Williams has been out since the second game of the season and is listed as questionable. A quarterback situation in flux plus a pass rush missing its best name is how close games turn into the 31-7 variety.
What it means for Chicago
Two games is short. Sweat comes back for Seattle, which is the game on this stretch of schedule where Chicago will need him most, and there is no cumulative penalty beyond the missed checks and the missed snaps. In the medium term the Bears get their starter back with ten-plus games to play.
In the short term they have to generate pressure with Booker in an expanded role and a questionable Odeyingbo, against two offenses in five days. Chicago’s record says this season is still in front of them. The next 11 days will say a lot about how much of that depends on one player.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.