Breaking news :  Commanders fans confident of a win on Sunday no matter which QB plays against the Chicago Bears

There may be bigger games and higher peaks ahead for the 2024 Washington Commanders, but, right now, the Week 8 game against the Bears feels like the most critical point of the season to-date.

Washington is 5-2 and leading the NFC East. The Bears, while they are actually in last place in the NFC North, are 4-2; the two teams — Washington and Chicago — have had similar seasons, collecting wins against teams with sub-.500 records while losing to teams with winning records. This week feels like a game that should separate the contender from the pretender.

For Chicago, the toughest part of its regular season schedule is in the second half of the season, when they play every team in their division — each currently with 5 wins — twice each, along with games against the 4-3 Seahawks and a road trip to San Francisco. A loss this week could signal tough times ahead for the Bears.

Washington, of course, needs to keep winning to hold onto the lead in the NFC East and, hopefully, secure a strong playoff seeding. Amazingly, if the playoff seedings were to be decided on current records (they won’t be), then Washington would have the #2 seed in the NFC behind the Lions and would face the #7 team — the Bears — on Super Wildcard Weekend.

We all know that there has been intense national interest in this game because it features two winning teams, each led by rookie quarterbacks that were selected first & second overall in April’s draft. The excitement of that matchup has been somewhat blunted because of an injury that Washington’s QB Jayden Daniels suffered on the first play of last week’s game. He did not practice on Wednesday or Thursday, and the question of whether he plays or not could be a game-time decision.