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I wanted Raimann earlier than he was drafted.

Crazy to think that the Bears could've had the best record in the NFL if games were called evenly.

Definitely, especially with an in-season injury.

There are 4 teams that have a positive EPA/P of +0.02 or greater on offense and -0.02 on defense. Surprisingly, the Bears are one of them (for how bad the defense has been lately): LAR, NE, BUF, and CHI. DEN would be the 5th but are only +0.01 on offense. Every other team either has a negative offense or defense that are in the playoffs. What does all of that mean? Those are the 4 most consistent teams and are most likely to progress thru the playoffs because probabilities are stronger in the playoffs. Home field advantage goes up 10% in the playoffs, meaning home teams win 10% more than they do in the regular season. LAR @ CHI and BUF @ NE for the Conference Championships would not be surprising at all.

Honestly, the way we play, it'll be a fight till the end with any team we go up against. I'll take home field and roll up my sleeves...

I think Laporte getting injured hurt them a lot. A few OL are different this year but BJ being gone is a big hit.

Who would you prefer to face in the first game? GB, SF or LA? IMO the Packers are the weakest of those three. LA lost to Atlanta last night and looked beatable. I least would want to face SF that's running hot right now.

Ha ha! I just had to...

I expected Washington to drop, last year was super fluky. BAL is a weird team. They have an elite run for a few years, a down year, then are back at it. This was their down year. I expected KC to regress, they had no business being in the Super Bowl last year. I did not expect DET to miss the playoffs. I figured a few game regression. Th Ben Johnson effect was bigger than I thought.

I hope Poles moves away from the "traits" guys in the 3rd round and later. Go with the production and proven dudes, like Monangai. Poles just doesn't seem to do that very often in the middle of the draft. I still laugh at taking a punter in the 4th with Malik Mustapha, Bucky Irving, and Ray Davis on the board, all went within 6 picks. Zacch Pickens was the 1st pick in the 3rd round (after they selected Dexter). WIthin a few picks: Tank Dell, Byron Young, Tucker Kraft, Josh Downs, Diaby, Achane. Velus went before Abraham Lucas, Christian Harris, Bernhard Raimann, Dylan Parham, and Rachaad White. I clearly remember mocks with Lucas and Raimann on them for the Bears.

Over 2,220 Yards from Scrimmage and 13 TDs from rookies (Loveland, Burden, Walker).

The Bears probably need a better DL Coach. They all seem slow off the ball, outside of Booker. Something is fundamentally wrong. Dexter has not improved, and it seems like every game we are talking about either being gashed in the run game or not having any pressure.

The Bears have the 3rd best offense in the league in terms of yards. So there is not much wiggle room other than passing more to rush less. However, the run game controls the clock and sets up the pass. The kickoff changes have reduced every drive's potential yardage by about 15 yards. Previously starting at the 20, now at the 35, at least 4-5 times per game adds up. Offenses as a whole are gaining fewer yards per game because there are less available. Teams averaged 353 yds/g from 2018-2020 in 16-game seasons. This season, teams are averaging 328.6 yards per game, 25 yards per game less. For the Bears, that would equate to 14.3 passing yds per game or 244 for a season in passing yards. Even with the 17th game, a team in 2018 that averaged 350 yards per game would have more total yards at the end of the season than a 2025 team averaging 329 for 17 games. Previous 4K Passers, 250 per game x 16 games = 4K With new kickoff rule, that reduced the potential for passing yards by 14.3 per game, down to 235.7. However, with an extra game, 235.7 x 17 is 4,006. So the extra game actually perfectly negated the loss from the kickoffs. So a 4K passer in 2018 would be equivalent to a 4K passer in 2025.

Congrats to all the winners this year. We did have one GM not pay their dues which makes them ineligible for any winnings. I distributed the remainder of the pool evenly to the other 3 winners. Leaguesafe payouts will go out this week. 1. Bum Fights - $480 2. Scotty Doesn't Know - Ineligible for winnings 3. SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS! - $120 4. Hock Tua on my Chubby - $75 ---------------------------- 5. Win in Rome 6. The Bunny 7. Nips&Tips 8. My Team Sucks 9. Trench Warfare 10. Nopper 2026 Draft Order: 1. Nopper 2. Trench Warfare 3. My Team Sucks 4. Nips&Tips 5. The Bunny 6. Win in Rome 7. Hock Tua on my Chubby 8. SAVAGEw/LOOSEMORALS! 9. Scotty Doesn't Know 10. Bum Fights

Well said - doing it a year early is the key. If you can draft well consistently, even trading down for more assets, you keep that pipeline full. Trade good players a year before the last year of a deal, and get draft capital out of those moves as well as clear cap space, if they arent special core players like a QB or a dominant edge. hell the Patriots traded Akeim Hicks to us that way. We got and paid our guy, but they sure didnt suffer. They kept winning super bowls while we thought we got the prize. Free Agency is for priming the pump until you get this circle going, and for filling holes, but long term, when its rolling you can pretty much go BPA + trade downs, and smart trades of the guys you have peaking and amass lots of talent and then coach em up - that's the way to be sustainable. And every GM knows this in theory, Poles spoke about it at length when he first got the job. But saying it, and doing it are two different things. I think Ben Johnson is bringing accountability to all corners of the building.

That is what they have done. Reality is DJ is under contract and Rome, Burden, and Loveland are here a while…even Kmet too. Now they can obviously trade any of them or make a cap play, but do this right and don’t hold onto guys too long and play smart with draft assets and find guys and keep on rolling. You won’t always hit but be smart, let drafts come to you, find the value when you are picking later, trade down and get some future capital again, and when you need to sell on a guy a year early trusting you can reload.

I guess the competitive answer to that is to go with hard to defend, and draft and develop your own receivers so you don't need free agents. Easier said than done of course. But that's probably what Ben Johnson would think about it.

Bears have always been a "Winter Team". A history of great running backs and defenses. It makes sense. At one point someone (was it Muhsin Muhammad?) said "Chicago is the place where receivers go to die" and barring a couple exceptions, like the Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffries era, it's been mostly true. That's on WRs and QBs alike. So now we finally have a modern coach, who understands the pass game, thankfully combined with that throw back hard ass leader of men we've always needed, but been McCaskey-afraid of for so many years. As a result we're aiming at 50 points a game territory here, like the Lions are/were, and at the same time the passing records here really are low hanging fruit - having been that winter team for so long. The combination of those two things tells me that in short time Caleb will break all the records; 4,000 proper, and 4250 (17 game adjusted) both as well as a whole mess of other team bests pretty quickly. If the progress Caleb has shown continues, he's gonna be an elite franchise QB by the middle of next year. Does anyone here have a nephew who can play on the D line?

Bingo. Good if not great OL and everything changed. Now the Bears are suddenly an offensively oriented team with weapons all over the place. A team to be feared. Getting kudos on a national stage. Ranked highly. Caleb is being called a budding superstar. Etc. OL is why the draft class looks good.

A good oline is critical to being a good team. Fact that Caleb went from 68 sacks to 23 (with one game left) really is the most shocking stat of the season. Huge kudos from the line to coaches to front office and of course Caleb. But it is like night and day in terms of his development.

I noticed this too. It carries positives and negatives. Positive: hard to defend Negative: superstar WRs are not likely to come here due to the lack of targets

I don’t think so. I think it all correlates to what I’ve been saying for years about the OL. Fix the OL and suddenly other players can perform. With last year’s OL, people would be saying Williams might be a bust, Swift is wasted money, Burden can’t get open, and Monangai can’t find a hole.

That's how I saw it too - the Browns game was the first one of this new level. And not just that crazy throw to Moore, but his footwork, how he was decisive, his timing, and his body language - you could see it slow down for him, and his accuracy has been a lot better from then on too. I couldnt agree with you more.

Browns game is where it looked like he took another jump and it’s continued past two weeks. Hopefully we see that same trend and crazy part is I think he still has quite a bit of upside left which is what is most exciting. And he seems to really be putting in the extra work with Ben and his teammates. Almost feels like that lows of year 1 made him want everything even more and kind of pushed him to push himself like never before and combining that with a coach like BJ….match made!!!

Beg to differ. Brees threw for 5,000 yards in five seperate seasons. All before the NFL went to 17 games in 2021. And point taken about “never being done” …for Chicago. It is a record to be noted considering it’s for one of the founding teams of the NFL.