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Absolutely, Caleb is such an anomaly. Also, his rookie year has really skewed his numbers. btw, he is now #1 in the NFL in QBR thru Week 7 at 79.6. Rookie Year 43.3, 2nd Year 58.2, now 79.6.

EPA/P is basically a wash: Bears Offense vs Seahawks Defense -0.19 at 21.8 pts per game Seahawks Offense vs Bears Defense -0.18 at 22.2 pts per game Considering the Bears stats are without Williams for 3+ games, the Bears should have the slight edge.

SEA is coming in as the 3pt favorites at home, which is an even game on a neutral field. Seattle's defense is stout, but they go about it a different way compared to MIN. SEA blitzes less than 20% of the time, they use 3 Safeties a lot. On offense, everything runs thru JSN who has been targeted 28 times in the last two games combined. This feels like a low scoring game, which means it will be close. I am going 23-20 Bears. As much as SEA looked dominant against KC, I am not sold on them just yet. They are 2-3 in their last 5. They lost to Mariota and the hapless Commanders and to Bo behind the Stix Nix, and barely beat the Chargers. btw, I can't believe it is Week 8 already.

Dayo's cap number probably keeps him around another year, but the other 3 would free up over $50M with about $17M in dead cap. At that point, they are worth more off the team than on it. Johnson $9M Dead / $16M Savings Sweat $4M Dead / $21M Savings Jarrett $4M Dead / $13.5M Savings

Yeah, 7-3 with 7 left. 4-3 the rest of the way is 11 wins. If they get to 8-2, then you are talking #1 Seed. The crazy part about the playoff path is, not that you try for it, but the easier path may be the 1st or 2nd Wild Card team because those two teams will play the winners of the NFC East and South, who are both pretty bad. Otherwise, the NFC North winner is also assuredly playing another NFC North team or SEA in the first round.

I am in your camp. Mack doesn’t do much to me - he’s a solid player and makes bears better but it is a marginal improvement and short term. Not doing much there unless we trade a 5th and get Mack and a 6th or something like that. Now if they want to go all in for Simmons…fine…that is a big time impact player so I get that.

IDK Booker, as a rotating player, has 4 sacks and 2 forced fumbles. Before going on IR, Dayo already had 3 sacks. Sweat had 2 sacks before missing the last 2 weeks. Unless the player we target for a trade is far more productive than what we already have, do we want to give up draft capital we can use to retool our defense? Pay big bucks, limiting our FA acquisitions? IMHO, he needs to be a huge difference-maker, not a complementary piece, to justify the move.

Whatever they do, they need to come out of it with at least 1 DL and 1 CB, and it better not just be a Joe Tryon-Shoyinka type of move. Mack is fine, but he needs to be a complimentary piece to a larger acquisition, in my opinion. They should aim as high as possible for someone like Crosby or Jeffery Simmons, and then work your way down the tier ladder. Mack is a rotational piece, not an every down DE/LB anymore. I'd still be excited for nostalgia reasons, but he's going to be more of a tier 3 pass rusher, not a major needle mover. If Simmons and Crosby aren't getting traded, Chase Young and the other guy from the Chargers, Tuipulotu, would be the next highest upside moves at pass rusher because of their youth and productivity. However, there's a decent chance they also may not be available for that same reason, even though their teams are terrible. Those would be the tier 2 guys. The most realistic options are your Khalil Macks, your Deforest Buckners, and your Riq Woolen's. I'm leaving out a few guys, but like I said, aim as high as possible, but give me at least two players, and I'll be satisfied.

If they don't shit the bed against TB or N.O, they should be 7-3, at worst, before rolling into DET for Thanksgiving. Normally, you need 10 to get in. 8-2 would virtually guarantee them a spot, but even at 7-3, they'll be in great position to make the playoffs. Given MIN's 6-0 start and Detroit's easy schedule, if they want to repeat as NFC North champs, they're almost certainly going to need a better than 2-4 record inside the division to do so. Those games still remain a major issue for Ben Johnson.

I think Buckner makes the best sense. I don't see Mack providing much more pressure than what we have. Buckner yes, and he's very tall in the middle, causing sight issues and potential batted balls. Next year, we should draft extremely heavy on D. Getting rid of Sweat, Dayo, Grady and Jaylon will open 65 million in cap space.(Not sure how the dead money would work and really don't care) I'd mentioned trading Rome earlier last week, but with Cole going down it changes my thoughts...

Yeah with him on IR and in the last year of his contract, there would be little benefit to an acquiring team.

Braxton is the most logical trade IMO. We don’t need 3 LTs. The IR issue doesn’t help. I think he’s only earning 5m so perhaps frees up 2m.

Crazy how just a few years ago we would be looking at the Tankathon rankings to see how high a pick the Bears would get, and now it's their playoff odds. Through Week 7, the Bears have a 71% chance to make the playoffs, the 3rd highest in the NFC, only behind MIN and SF as the 5th Seed (best non-Division winner). They would play CAR if the season ended today. The 8th Seed right now is SEA. GB is the 7th Seed. The Bears just have to beat out one of them to make the playoffs, preferably both. GB owns the tie breaker right now. So the MNF game against SEA is huge.

I would take either of those guys. Buckner has 4.0 sacks, Mack has 3.0 (in one fewer game). Mack also just had a bye, so he will have some fresher legs, especially with another bye for the Bears coming up. Cap hit is going to be the biggest factor. From my own math, Mack would cost $4.89M to the acquiring team. Buckner would cost $7.94M. So both could be had under the Bears current cap. Since they would be taking a spot within the top 51 salaries, they would bump Loving off, reducing the new cap hit to the salary cap by 891K. The Bears have approximately $9.2M available, so Mack would cost about $4M to that number, leaving just over $5M on the cap. Buckner would cost $7.1M, leaving just over $2M on the cap. I don't know what performance bonuses are out there, and those have to be taken into consideration. So my assumption is Mack is way more realistic than Buckner unless the Bears are able to move a player on their top 51 who has cap savings if traded post-June-1. A Jaylon trade would be amazing. Save $15.5M on the cap, get Buckner and Mack AND save $4M in cap space.

In all fairness, I don't think KC was nearly as good as their record was coming into that game. Their last 4 games were against the Chargers, Raiders, Dolphins, and Colts. All terrible in their own way. Mahomes is a shell of his former self; Kelce is a HoFer, but past his prime, and once they committed to stopping the run, Walker had nowhere to go. SEA's entire offense is JSN. SEA has 4x 3pt wins. This was their first by more than a TD.

I watched Seattle and KC tonight. Their run defense is very good but they gave plenty of opportunities for open receivers. Mahomes just looked really bad and missed quite a few open receivers. When they did catch the ball it was often low or behind them. We will need to be better. Darnold is still the same and gets nervous under pressure. He will make bad throws. Jaxson is insane and can’t be stopped. Their Australian punter is better than ours.

There’s a lot of noise that Poles is making calls. It does appear we’re going to do something before the deadline. Most of the rumors are centered on Mack returning. There is also a fair amount of smoke around DeForest Buckner.

As an aside, Atlanta knocked off formerly unbeaten SF. As a reminder the Bears beat ATL at home a few weeks ago at their home. I’m not as concerned of SF as I once was. Let’s go Lions!

All based on the assumption the past predicts the future. It doesn’t fit an ascending player.

Also, a weird split. The Bears are 0-4 when Caleb passes for 320 or more yards, are 12-3 when he passes from between 220-320, and 7-12 when he passes for fewer than 220. So 220 is the magic number for him, and it seems that once you get too high (over 320) that they are trailing or in a shootout.

It's pretty insane. Last year thru 7 games, the average TOP was 29:34 with only two games over 30 mins out of 7. This year, the average TOP is 35:30 with 2 games over 40 mins, 6 over 30, and the lowest game of 29:36. So there is essentially a 6-minute gain in TOP from last year. The Bears current TOP is the highest I could find dating back to 2000. No other team was over 35 mins, and only 3 teams were over 34, the 2018 Ravens, 2001 Steelers, and 2000 Titans.

What is the TOP and total offensive plays difference? I think that is huge...

Thru 7 games, the Bears are a game ahead of last year's pace at 5-2. They lost to BAL to fall to 4-3 last year before rattling off 5 straight and 7 of 8. The offense is averaging 1.7 extra pts per game, 3.4 extra first downs, 40 more yards on offense with +0.7 extra turnovers per game. The only flaw being the extra turnovers. Honestly, I am surprised how close the numbers are. They would probably be a little better if Caleb didn't miss time, but it feels like the Bears offense has a floor, and 24 pts a game is the new 17 (in the Fields era). The defense is pretty shocking. They are allowing 6 fewer pts, 4.9 first downs, 37 fewer yards, and are averaging 0.86 fewer takeaways per game. The run defense is the biggest change from last year for either unit, averaging 55.7 fewer yards per game. The reason for the change is that the Bears are playing with the lead this year. They had 180 pass attempts with the lead for the entire year in 2025. They already have 121 thru 7 games.

Only if they are up by 30, then get cute and have fun.

I never want to see that play, inside the ten, again.