ESPN’s Jason McCourty on the Bears & Bills as a Super Bowl Frontrunners

Are the Bears the new team to beat? ESPN's Jason McCourty was in Seattle for their Monday night win, and when Rich asked him on The Rich Eisen Show, he didn't hedge. "It sure as hell feels like that," McCourty said.

His story started before kickoff. In pregame, McCourty talked with Jeffery Simmons and could see the unease on his face about the trade. Simmons was excited to be a Bear, but had spent his whole career in Nashville and didn't really know how to feel about leaving.

Then the game started. "He started throwing grown men out of the way, throwing them out of the club, and tackling quarterbacks," McCourty said. "And it was just like, oh, Nellie. Like, this is a football team when he's out there with those bright orange sleeves."

The impact showed up in the play calling. McCourty said Dennis Allen "didn't blitz nearly as much as he'd been doing all season long to try to generate pressure because of Jeffery Simmons' presence." Offenses kept double-teaming Simmons, and Montez Sweat kept ending up with the sack.

On the other side of the ball, McCourty pointed to "the Iceman," Caleb Williams. Outside of the Vikings game, when he played the whole game and the offense got shut down, the Bears have put up 30 points in every game Williams has started and finished. "He's been just a multiplier out there on the football field," McCourty said, whether he's getting the Bears into the right play at the line or scrambling to make a throw downfield. "I think the ceiling is sky-high for him."

His conclusion: "You still have no idea how good this football team is going to be by the time January hits."

Rich noted the Bears have a third straight national TV game, Sunday night against the Buccaneers, and expect a very different defense than Seattle's. Tampa, Rich said, will be "blitzing the minute that Todd Bowles lands at O'Hare Airport." Having just handled the Super Bowl 60 teams back to back, the Bears feel like must-see TV. Then Rich made his pitch: would McCourty put his finger on Bears-Bills for Super Bowl 61?

"I wouldn't mind," McCourty said, though he didn't want to dismiss a Jacksonville team that had just beaten up on the Ravens.

What sold him on Buffalo was the defense coming out of the bye against Baltimore. "They were aggressive, they blitzed a lot more, they were playing a ton of man-to-man," McCourty said. That was a change from the first few weeks of the season, when the Bills were giving up 30 points a game. "I know Josh Allen is incredible and he's going to be potentially an MVP again, but you can't play like that on defense" and get where you need to get.

This week is the test, McCourty said. Do the Bills blitz Carson Wentz? Do they go one-on-one with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison outside? He's intrigued to see what Jim Leonhard comes up with.

The bigger picture is that Buffalo has found another gear under Joe Brady, the one fans hoped for, whether it's James Cook running the ball a ton or Allen scrambling "and doing what he's always done."

"This just feels like a complete football team if they can get rolling on the defensive side of the ball, because offensively they're just so hard to stop," McCourty said. "They can put all the tight ends on the field and run you over, they can spread out and use the arm of Josh Allen and throw the ball all over the field."