Smith, Johnson both questionable for Bears game against Houston Texans
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago Bears seem to have a good shot to get back in the win column on Sunday against the Houston Texans, but they could be without two of their best players on defense.
Linebacker Roquan Smith and cornerback Jaylon Johnson are both questionable, and another linebacker Matt Adams is out.
Smith hasn't practiced all week dealing with a hip injury. Johnson has a knee injury he suffered at practice.
On the offensive side, the Bears will be looking for more balance after quarterback Justin Fields threw just 11 passes against Green Bay. Part of that is Fields running on some called pass plays and part of that is just going with whatever's working.
"Good balance is always about what it takes to win the game," said head coach Matt Eberflus. "So if it take to run the ball to run the clock out, that's great. If we're down, you got to pass the ball. If you're out of possessions, you got to pass it more … It's to keep the defense off balance."
The Bears offense is also getting set to face a defense that looks a lot like the one they face in practice on an almost daily basis.
Eberflus said Texans coach Lovie Smith both use that Tampa 2-style defensive scheme and come from the Tony Dungy coaching tree. Both stress forcing turnovers.
"There defense and our defense kind of come from the same family branch, so [it's] a lot of the same stuff," Fields said. "They play hard … they play fast. They play similar to us so it's going to be a hard fight all game."
For Smith and the Texans, so far their defense hasn't been great yardage-wise through two games, but they've forced turnovers and are allowing just 18 points a game.
Smith, who's 10 years removed from his time in Chicago, has his guys focused on slowing down the Bears rushing attack with that defense that he also acknowledged is a lot like they're running in Chicago.
"We say we're at least maybe second cousins as far as how we play defense," Smith said. "There's a commitment to it. I think every defense you start by trying to stop the run. I'm looking at us and thinking 'OK, what do we need to do first?' You need to stop the run and you make that commitment to it. I'm sure they'll do the same thing. We understand that too and we got to be able to run the football."
Fans can watch Sunday's game at Soldier Field on CBS 2 at noon, immediately followed by our postgame show.