Fantasy Football Week 5: Chicago Bears vs. Washington Commanders start 'em, sit 'em, how to watch TNF and more
We have completed the first month of football and that means a whole lot of things. Week 4 brought with it the first game played overseas in 2023. It also marked the end of weekly 32-team action as we will get bye weeks until everybody is back playing in Week 15 by mid-December.
Oh, and of course, it also has us looking at the worst TNF matchup of the season to date — at least, on paper, and judging by both teams' outlooks and records.
Enter your Chicago Bears (0-4) and your Washington Commanders (2-2).
Nobody counted on the Commanders being relevant this year, but the vibes are nice and although they have split their games through the first month they came close to beating the Eagles and started the season 2-0. Not bad!
Nobody counted on the Bears doing anything … and in fact, they are entering Week 5 having lost 14 consecutive games dating back to last year. Ugh.
The Commanders are the obvious favorites to win Thursday's matchup; the oddsmakers are giving them a 5.5-point advantage over the Bears. Chicago got things completely right last Sunday ... until it didn’t, for a plethora of reasons, but this game should offer a good amount of points scored between both teams boasting plain bad defenses and entering TNF with an O/U of 44.5 points.
How do the Bears and Commanders arrive at their TNF matchup?
If you’re a Chicago Bears fan, I feel for you. It’s not been good, to say the least. The most promising thing about Bears football this season is how the 2024 NFL Draft is shaping up, isn’t it?
The Bears are 0-4 and although they came supremely close to winning their first game of the season last Sunday against the Broncos they ultimately fell short. They could have kicked a game-winning field goal but refused to do so. They could have won the game before reaching overtime but instead fumbled the rock. They could have extended the play but got intercepted.
On and on it goes …
Chicago has not been good on the actual football field, and the Bears players have also been a landmine in the fantasy realm. Other than Justin Fields (and just because of his career-type game last Sunday), no member of the Bears is ranked inside the top 50 players of the season with WR DJ Moore close but not quite there.
Washington started the year flying, winning its first two contests only to lose its latest two. That said, those two losses came against two Super Bowl contenders, so it’s not that they aren’t at least partially excusable (the Week 3 disaster perhaps wasn’t, actually).
Last weekend, facing the Philadelphia Eagles, QB Sam Howell proved to be capable of bouncing back after throwing four interceptions a week earlier. He completed arguably his best game as a pro, led his team into overtime and although he couldn’t beat the Eagles he was solid across the four quarters and extra time.
The Commanders, in contrast to the Bears, have a handful of playmakers in their squad putting up numbers weekly. Howell is barely a top-30 player among all fantasy-eligible performers and much worse than Fields through four weeks, but WR Terry McLaurin and RB Brian Robinson have produced good returns in the early season.
TNF Week 5: Injury Report
Even though it’s already been a month of grueling football, these two squads enter their TNF matchup nearly with a clean bill of health.
The Bears won’t have Chase Claypool available for this game and most probably going forward after he was a healthy scratch last Sunday. His situation will eventually lead both parties to part ways sooner rather than later.
Other than that, Chicago won’t miss any skill-position player Thursday as they didn’t enter this week with any injury putting anybody in a dangerous position. The Bears will also enjoy the return of offensive lineman Teven Jenkins, a projected starter who is coming off Injured Reserve. Defensive backs Eddie Jackson and Jaylon Johnson missed the second consecutive walkthrough Tuesday and are expected to sit Thursday’s game.
The Commanders are in a little shakier situation, although not overly concerning judging by what went down Sunday and the latest injury reports coming from the franchise.
Washington started the week listing two players as DNP, two as limited, and two as full participants on Monday’s walkthrough. That changed for the better Tuesday with everybody back participating even if limited.
For fantasy purposes, WR Curtis Samuel is nursing a quad injury while WR Jahan Dotson suffered an ankle injury last Sunday that put him out for a few snaps although he returned in time to catch the touchdown that forced overtime. Both are expected to play on TNF.
Finally, RB Chris Rodriguez missed Week 4 due to illness but he should return. TE Logan Thomas suffered a concussion that ruled him out for Week 3 but he already played last Sunday and was not listed in the injury reports released ahead of TNF at any point.
One stat that can swing the balance
The Bears have the second-worst defense in football, allow the second-most FP to QBs and RBs and are worth exploiting in fantasy football.
First things first: none of these two defenses is what you would consider otherworldly. Picking on the Bears unit without mentioning the Commanders’ own struggles could be understood as an undeserved dig, so there’s that.
At the end of the day though, this TNF matchup comes down to which offense you trust more when both face below-average defenses. That has to be the Commanders.
Just so that’s not based on pure feelings but actual data, I have run a little calculation of the volatility of all players involved in this matchup who have played at least three games this season. Five of the seven most volatile performers expected to play Thursday belong to the Bears, with Fields and Kmet leading the way.
Chicago’s defense as a whole has two sacks through four games, the fewest across the NFL, and they only apply QB pressures on 15.1% of the snaps they defend (third-lowest in the NFL). To put the cherry on top, the Bears defenders have missed the seventh-most tackles (30) through Week 4.
Every team Chicago has faced has scored a passing touchdown while averaging 2.5 pass TDs per game. They have only intercepted two passes and they did it against Kansas City’s backup Blaine Gabbert. Go figure.
Chicago has been better at stopping rushers (they allow 3.8 yards per attempt) but they have surrendered four rushing touchdowns already and given up 115.5 rushing yards per game. The problem is that running backs have destroyed the pass defense of Chicago to the tune of 234 receiving yards and four touchdowns on 23 receptions (27 targets) through four games.
I haven’t mentioned Brian Robinson in the start/bench section below because he’s an obvious weekly start (he’s rostered in 92% of all Yahoo leagues), but you might want to give a chance to fellow RB Antonio Gibson on Thursday considering how horrible the Bears defense has been against players at the position.
Robinson has one receiving touchdown to Gibson’s zero, but the latter has out-targeted his teammate and has more receiving yards this season.
Two players to start, two to leave on your bench
Start: QB Sam Howell (WAS)
First things first, the Bears have allowed opposing fantasy quarterbacks to average 22.1 FPPG through Week 4. Yes, Patrick Mahomes is in that group, which doesn’t help Chicago, but Mahomes “only” scored 25.68 FP, so it’s not like he is skewing the average all by himself.
Sam Howell hasn’t been impressive by himself this season, mind you, but he’s done enough for me to believe in him and the Bears' defense is a match made in heaven for Howell to keep putting up numbers.
Howell had a game to forget in Week 3 against Buffalo (19-of-29 for 170 yards, four interceptions) but other than that he’s easily been a top-15 player at the position. He’s completed 19, 27 and lastly 29 passes in the other three games he’s started this season. He’s thrown four touchdowns against just one interception in those games and he’s starting to grow comfortable scrambling the rock: Howell logged a season-high six carries for 40 yards at Philadelphia on Sunday.
Each of Jordan Love, Baker Mayfield, Russell Wilson and Mahomes completed at least 15 passes against Chicago while not throwing a single interception in 122 pass attempts. All of them except Mayfield (one) scored three touchdowns.
You can clearly see where this TNF is going to end, can’t you?
Bench: QB Justin Fields (CHI)
Justin Fields is coming off, arguably, playing the best game of his professional career. Justin Fields is coming off, also, the 14th consecutive loss of the Chicago Bears getting back to last season.
Fields completed 28 passes Sunday, reached 335 passing yards and tossed four touchdowns, and he added 25 rushing yards on four carries. All of the passing numbers marked career highs. That’s fantastic!
Only, you know, don’t buy the sudden hype.
Fields had completed more than 20 passes in a single game once since Christmas of 2021, when he did it hosting Green Bay at the start of the 2023 season. He had tossed more than two touchdowns once before throughout his 29 starts. He needed TE Cole Kmet and WR DJ Moore to have their best game of the season to date and also enjoyed a perfect day by WR Darnell Mooney (4-4-51).
Simply put, Fields had a career game in a rather fluky, weird, unexpected, un-repeatable afternoon … that still ended in a Bears loss.
Fields once looked like a great hybrid quarterback and a potential fantasy darling, but it feels he’s closer to getting benched forever rather than breaking out once and for all.
Start: TE Logan Thomas (WAS)
Logan Thomas has long been one of my favorite fantasy players, but he’s also one of the most frustrating ones because of the multiple injuries he’s sustained throughout his career and because it always feels like he could go down again any minute now.
The veteran tight end is a great fantasy target if you don’t want to bet on one of the three equally used wide receivers of the Commanders (they have 26, 25 and 20 targets) while still getting someone who is rather solid at catching everything thrown his way for good yardage.
Thomas has appeared in three of four games this season, catching 9-of-14 targets for 106 yards and a touchdown. In each of the three games he’s played (he missed Week 3 after suffering a concussion in Week 2), he has either caught three-plus passes for 41+ yards or scored a touchdown.
Coming off a game in which he finished with the second-most yards among his teammates, he’s simply one of the best streaming tight ends widely available on most waiver wires (12% rostered). The Bears are surrendering 8.7 FPPG to tight ends this year and they gave up at least three receptions and 41 yards to each of the starters at the position in the first three weeks of the season.
Bench: TE Cole Kmet (CHI)
One of the main beneficiaries of Fields’ supremely great Week 4 was Kmet — or the other way around, depending on how you look at it.
Kmet finished Week 4 with an astonishing receiving line, catching seven of the nine targets he received for 85 yards and two touchdowns. No need to mention that was the best performance of the week by a player at the tight end position.
Before Week 4, though, Kmet had been mediocre at best and bad at worst. He caught five, four and two passes in the first three games respectively, with diminishing returns each passing week (from 44 receiving yards to 38 and 22). He had not scored a single touchdown through Week 3.
Even more worrying is the fact that Kmet appeared in fewer than 80% of the offensive snaps taken by the Bears for the third game in a row while being incredibly tied to Justin Fields’ production on the field.
Kmet is one of the two viable/usable/capable weapons Fields has available weekly (along with DJ Moore) but Fields is more prone than not to fail weekly so it’s not a good idea to bet on a hot game repeating itself four days later.
One player to scout as prospective waiver-wire pickups
WR Darnell Mooney, Chicago Bears (25% rostered)
Darnell Mooney is definitely not the typical player who would feature in this section of the article because he’s a rather known commodity in both the real and the fantasy football worlds. Mooney is a veteran already and he’s playing his fourth season of professional football in 2023, none of them really enjoying a good quarterback to help his numbers.
Mooney racked up 631, 1,055 and 493 yards in his first three NFL seasons and after four games he’s on pace for a career-low 442 yards in 2023. That, however, might change for the better considering the Bears have already moved on from supposed WR2, Chase Claypool. Mooney has only gotten 12 targets this season but his role should grow going forward.
Mooney exited Week 2 with a bruised knee after logging just 15 snaps and has missed time in prior seasons too, so that’s the risk baked into this gamble. He’s also playing under Justin Fields, which certainly doesn’t sound too promising. Although the environment isn’t the greatest, at the end of the day Mooney should be the team’s WR2 for the remainder of the season and get more looks as the season progresses. Worth keeping a close eye on, and potentially a waiver-wire addition for fantasy GMs in deeper leagues.