Chicago Bears coordinators met with reporters at Halas Hall in Lake Forest on Wednesday as the team prepared for its rematch with the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night at Soldier Field.

Saturday’s game will be a tough test for coaches on both staffs. They’ll need to make quick adjustments as the two teams play against each other for the second time in 14 days. Not only that, the Packers’ loss of star defensive end Micah Parsons for the rest of the season after a torn ACL will make scheming even more challenging.

Who adjusts better could go a long way in deciding who wins an important game Saturday with major playoff implications. Here are three of the most interesting things the Bears said Wednesday.

On managing an injured wide receiver room

The Bears could be without two of their top wide receivers Saturday. Rome Odunze and Luther Burden III didn’t practice Wednesday with injuries, and Bears head coach Ben Johnson didn’t provide much of a timeline for their return when he spoke with reporters Tuesday.

That would leave the Bears with DJ Moore, Olamide Zaccheaus, Devin Duvernay and Jahdae Walker as the only receivers on the active roster. They could also elevate Maurice Alexander and JP Richardson from the practice squad.

Johnson and the Bears offensive coaches will need to adjust if Odunze and Burden can’t play. Moore and Zaccheaus are the only ones amongst the remaining receivers who have made an impact this season. Moore has caught 43 passes for 567 yards, while Zaccheaus caught 37 passes for 280 yards.

“Any time you’re late in the season, you’re always kind of in flux as far as who’s going to play in the game, and all those things as you evaluate things throughout the week,” Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said at Halas Hall in Lake Forest. “That’s always a challenge, to try to put our guys in position to go have success, whoever those players may be. That’s really our focus this week.”

Sunday’s win over the Cleveland Browns was a good moment for Moore to have one of his better games of the season. He caught two touchdowns for 69 yards as he and quarterback Caleb Williams had a good rapport for most of the game.

Chicago will need more of that if Odunze and Burden can’t play.

“It was good to see him go kind of have a little bit of a breakout there,” Doyle said. “But, really, nothing changes moving forward. We’ll continue to try to – the defense changes every week, and we’re trying to put our guys into good spots, and he’s no different. We’re really trying to allow him to shine and show off what makes him himself."

On Dennis Allen’s impact

When the Bears hired Johnson in January, it was soon also reported that he’d bring in Dennis Allen as his defensive coordinator. It seemed like a perfect marriage at the time. Allen had been a head coach twice and was considered one of the best defensive minds in the NFL. Pairing him with Johnson, a first-time head coach, seemed like a no-brainer.

That marriage has worked out well for the Bears this season. The defense leads the league with 30 takeaways and has played a major role in the Bears’ 10-win season.

A lot of that came true because Johnson let Allen run his defense. Allen said Johnson is the head coach and is involved with the defense. But for the most part, Johnson has let Allen execute his scheme that’s worked well in the league for so long.

“I think there’s a trust level, and that’s earned over time,” Allen said. “I don’t know that it was necessarily that way from the beginning, and yet I think my resume would say that there’s a little bit of a trust level kinda going into it. But I’m appreciative of the fact that he’s given me an opportunity to really step in and do the things that I think we need to do to be successful defensively.”

Although Allen has years of experience, he’s also used Johnson to his own benefit. They communicate about the defense daily, and Allen has used Johnson’s offensive expertise as a sounding board for some things he wants to do defensively.

It’s led to some changes defensively for Allen that have paid off this year.

“There’s some times he has some thoughts and ideas,” Allen said. “Some of those fit into what we’re trying to get accomplished, and we’re able to kinda incorporate those things. I think he’s a good sounding board for me, too. He sees the game from an offensive perspective. And so when you’re thinking about attacking an offense, who better to communicate with than the guy that’s kinda running that thing.”

On a strong special teams showing

Special teams played a major role in starting Sunday’s game on the right foot.

Returner Devin Duvernay returned the opening kickoff 52 yards to give the Bears the ball in Browns territory. The special teams unit then pinned Cleveland on its own 1-yard line after Josh Blackwell made a nice play to stop the punt from going into the end zone. Chicago took advantage of forcing Cleveland to go three-and-out and scored on the following possession.

“I mean, it’s a credit to the guys for going out, executing the game-plan,” Bears special teams coordinator Richard Hightower said. “I really loved the way we started out the game. It’s something we really wanted to do.”

It wasn’t a perfect performance, though. Kicker Cairo Santos missed a 35-yard field goal in the second quarter that stopped the Bears from putting up points on a nice 60-yard drive. It was the first kick Santos had missed within 40 yards since he joined the Bears in 2020.

“It was good to see him go kind of have a little bit of a breakout there. But, really, nothing changes moving forward. We’ll continue to try to – the defense changes every week and we’re trying to put our guys into good spots and he’s no different. We’re really trying to allow him to shine and show off what makes him himself."

—  Declan Doyle, Bears offensive coordinator on DJ Moore

Hightower said the frigid temperature didn’t play a factor in the miss. Santos just missed a kick that has to be made.

“The protection is excellent,” Hightower said. “We’ve got to make that kick. It’s under 35 yards. He knows that. I mean, anything under 40, we got to make that kick, alright. So the operation was not clean enough. Cairo knows that, Tory [Taylor] knows that, Scott [Daly] knows that. But anything that close, we have to come away with points.”