Cowboys vs. Bears preview: Fast facts about the Week 8 game

Getting into some of the numbers for the Cowboys and Bears.

Week 8 for the Dallas Cowboys involves one of the oldest franchises in the NFL dating all the way back to the formation of the league in 1920. The Chicago Bears come to AT&T Stadium for an afternoon of pigskin. DraftKings Sportsbook has the Cowboys as 10.5-point favorites in the game, a number that has slightly grown as the week has progressed.

Dallas and Chicago have met 27 times in their history when you include playoff games, with the Cowboys holding a 15-12 series advantage. They are 8-4 versus the Bears when they are at home. They have two playoff games between them with Dallas winning both. The Cowboys won a 1977 divisional game 37-7, and a 1991 Wild Card game 17-13.

The ‘85 Bears, one of the best teams to ever grace a football field, beat the Cowboys 44-0 that year. Chicago won the last game between the two, 31-24, which was played at Soldier field in 2019. Dallas has won two of the last three games.

Both teams are pretty middle of the pack when it comes to scoring with the Cowboys averaging 19.1 points (22nd) while the Bears average 18 (25th). The Bears defense gives up 18.9 points per game (8th) while Dallas gives up 14.9 (2nd). In fact, the Cowboys have only given up eight touchdowns all year. That is the fewest in team history through the first seven games of a season.

These teams differ when it comes to defense, especially around pressuring the quarterback. The Cowboys have the most sacks in the NFL with 29, and also lead in pressures. The Bears have only 12 sacks on the year and are also middle of the pack in pressure. They don’t blitz much, and they don’t generate a lot of havoc in the backfield in the passing game.

What they do extremely well as a team is run the ball. As a team they average 181 yards per game which is tops in the league. They average that out by being the worst in the league in passing yards per game with 126 per game.

The Cowboys may also have an advantage on special teams. Both teams are fairly average in yards per punt, but it’s on punt returns where the Cowboys can pick up some hidden yardage. The Bears rank 26th on punt return average, while the Cowboys are third. And everyone knows that KaVontae Turpin will eventually break one to the house. Turpin already has a 63-yard kickoff return and a 53-yard punt return.

The Cowboys and the Bears have converted the same amount of field goals on the year, but Brett Maher leads the league in touchback percentage (97.1%) while the Bears are 24th at 53.1%. That could lead to some more opportunities for Turpin.

Both Anthony Barr and Jayron Kearse have history with the Bears as they both formerly played in the NFC North. Barr has played Chicago 11 times with 56 tackles against them.

Ezekiel Elliott has had good games in the past against Chicago, but he is likely to miss this week with a knee injury. Tony Pollard will have to be the one to take advantage of a bad Bears rush defense. Another guy who might like to see Chicago again is Michael Gallup, he went off for 148 yards the last time the two teams met.