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Clearly BJ is fixing problems on the run. He got the running game going and playing a lot better against the run. He will work into the offense the TEs. Its a work in progress , we are just the tip of the iceberg. If Caleb becomes more consistent it adds to the number of O plays a game and that adds more options for other weapons to the get touches.

Well if Baltimore is as putrid as you think they are then it should go to reason. Unless somehow Monangai supplants him and does better with his opportunities. The only things I see changing the running game from its current domination are Caleb doing better at passing (overall) and the involving of Kmet and Loveland more than they have so far.

He hasnt all of a sudden turned into Barkley or Robinson. He is an above average NFL back that has a OL that is jelling. BJ and Beiniemy has lit a fire under him and he is productive. With the threat of a good passing game, the other teams arent loading the box to stop the run. Now if Monangai takes off, we have the two back game DJ is looking for. Caleb gets his act together and we have the offense BJ wants to see. We are scoring over 21 points in every game. I cant wait to see where that goes once the offense goes into cruise mode. Every game takes on its own script. Balt is dangerous because they are 1-5, had the bye week and getting some injured players back. I expect it to be a close game and we have a chance to win, but this is a must win for the Ravens . That may be the edge they need. IF we stay physical and can run the ball, we will stay in every game from here out.

Since the bye week, Swift has been a different back than Id ever seen from him before. If he continues like this, it's easy to say we should keep him. That doesnt mean we wont draft a better prospect, or that Monangai wont challenge him for RB1 - anything is possible, but on his own merits, Swift has been a completely different back than I'd ever seen from him before. It's great to see unexpected growth from players, especially unlikely from veterans, and i think it speaks loudly about how effective our coaching staff is.

I know it is asking a lot, but I want to see it for at least one more game. Why? Because Swift never had 3 great games in a row. It is really baffling. Here are his games before and after 100 yard rushing games in his career: 2020 - 22, 116, 27 2021 - 27, 130, 136, 0 2022 - 144*, 56 *-Week 1 2023 - 3, 175, 130, 56 2024 - 91, 129, 51 2025 - 38, 108, 124, ? His highest total in any of the 3 games that follows a 100-yd game is 71. The most likely yardage for him following a 2nd 100-yd game is 53. He has never had 3 straight games with 75+ rushing yards in his career.

Yeah good find. Offense up 7.4% and defense down 7.1% (which is better). Interesting nugget when looking at those. The Bears have the 2nd lowest penalized defense with 30 penalties for 209 yards. That is hard to believe considering how many bogus calls they have received. The offense is the 8th most penalized unit with 53-454 yards. So as a team, the Bears are a net -245 in penalty yards. That is almost an entire game's worth of yardage over 6 weeks, or 41 yards per game. That is way too high. The Bears lead the league in Turnover Differential at +11, which is the total of the 4th and 5th best teams combined at +6 and +5.

If you're looking for reasons for optimism, I think this run game could be legit. If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there some analytic after the first few games that showed Swift was 31st in EPA/rush or maybe it was just YPC, but the Bears OL ranked in the top 2-3 in yards before contact? If I have that correct, that means the run blocking has been good all year, it just took Swift a few games to figure out his timing in order to get in sync with the blocks. There's an old saying that a good run game travels, and I agree. The Bears were 31st in the NFL in rushing before the bye, and now they're 7th. If that trend continues, along with their newfound ability to (maybe?) stop the run on defense, that's going to keep them in a lot of games. They just need to get more consistent play from the quarterback.

Lamar has not practiced yet, so this is something to watch. If he is out, this becomes much easier.

We're going to see a lot of difference in QB play between Rattler and a returning Jackson...after a bye. Add in they are 1-5 and they're looking for a strong and convincing bounce back game. Right now the Bears rank 26th total defense and 31st in Rushing defense - a strong concern when you have players like Jackson and Henry on the slate. The Ravens offense (without Jackson) is ranked 29th in Passing and 23rd in total offense. They are 10th when measuring their rushing production. Sure the Bears leading the NFL in takeaways is great but the offense needs to be able to do something with it when given the chance. Conversely (and as Adam pointed out) the Ravens defense ranks 29th in total defense, 28th in pass defense and 26th in rush defense. There is the chance the Bears can go go back and forth with them throughout the game but they'd have to start scoring from the minute they step out of the tunnel to do it...Or so I think.

Beyond the struggles of Caleb during this last game, I noted a few things that were interesting: 1) the running game seemed to focus more on inside zone rushing this time vs outside zone (or so it seemed from a TV viewership perspective). And as is typical with Swift, the more he ran, the longer the gains...especially late in the game. Monangai even benefitted and of the two is a much better inside runner. 2) despite the promise to improve on it, our TEs were still pretty un-involved. Unless you count their being used for blocking. This could be in part because Caleb kept looking long (and predominantly #15) but still, after halftime it seems that would have been discussed at least and changed to some level

Look at our 3rd down efficiency on O and D. It's a pleasant improvement.

Since the Hail Mary game, Daniels has now went 14 games without passing for 280 yards and has went 8 straight without a Comp% over 75. I still think it is wild that a QB can be getting so much hype for passing for 222 yards against TEN.

Now thru 6 games, the sample size is more meaningful. In 2024, the offense had a league low 283.5 yds a game (32nd), averaged 18.2 pts per game (28th), with a -0.13 EPA/Play (26th). In 2025, the offense is 13th in YPG at 346.5, averaging 25.3 pts per game (11th) with an EPA/Play of -0.01 (T-13th). So points up 7.1 pts per game, yardage up 63 yards per game, and EPA/P up 0.12 per play. I would say that is tangible improvement across the board from last season. QBP Rate and sacks are also down. On defense, the Bears are 25th in pts allowed, at 25.8 PPG, 25th in YPG at 350.0, yet their EPA/Play is -0.09, good for 8th. Last year the defense was 27th in YPG at 354.2, but only 13th in PPG at 21.8, and their EPA/Play was -0.05, good for 14th. So the team is allowing 4 more pts per game, 4 fewer yards, and are 0.04 better per play. The net differential is basically a FG, which makes sense that the Bears are now winning close games they were losing last year. That all equates to the 12th best offense and 19th best defense thru 6 games, the 16th best team, and they currently hold the 7th seed in the NFC heading into MNF.

D'Andre Swift has the 2nd most runs of 10+ yards with 15. Taylor leads the league with 18. However, Taylor has 42 more carries than Swift, so Swift technically has more +10 yard rushes per attempt than anyone in the NFL (16.9%). Gibbs+Montgomery have 15 combined.

This game is a completely different story if the refs called an even game. It is a 40-10 blowout. Same for last week. The silver lining is the old Bears would shit their pants and lose. This is a different team.

Caleb is currently 19th in QB Rating, 17th in Passing Yards per game, not that you would know it, but he has a higher per game average than Nix, Daniels, and Rattler. Penix has him by 9 yards and Maye by 24 yards. There are 18 QBs who have taken more sacks than him and only 5 QBs with fewer INTs with the same number of attempts. Caleb's biggest issue is accuracy which impacts the Comp%. If that improves, he magically becomes a top 10 QB overnight from a top 15-20 right now.

As much as the passing game and Caleb need to improve, they have scored 21 or more in every game. I think there was so much emphasis put on the run game over the bye that it may have impacted the passing game a little bit. Again, no excuses, Caleb has to be more accurate. Odunze needs to catch the ball, and the Bears need to get some calls go there way or at least not have bogus calls against them.

I think it will be close, maybe a team scores late to make it look worse, but I think the game will be back and forth all game within a score. The Ravens haven't scored much with Jackson out, but that doesn't discount the fact that their defense has allowed 37, 38, 41, and 44 pts in 4 of their 5 losses. I think the Bears will be in the mid-20s again, maybe hit 30, while the Ravens will be in that same range. Either team can win 31-21 and I would not be surprised. Would it have made a difference if the Bears scored on the last drive instead of running the clock out to make it 33-14?

our defense was a double edged sword. all in all our run defense has improved a lot. our pass defense was good and bad in coverage. the scheme was also up and down. when we went into the soft zones they ripped us apart. limiting our rush on the qb didn't help. if we go into these soft zones, every play will give up 5-10 yards with an easy reception. most of these came when their qb had open lanes and all the time in the world with no hurry. if this were even a mediocre team we could have lost this game.

Exactly with quicker recognition and accuracy. Better decision making would help to . Several of those throwaways he could have run. These are the same issues Fields had, but Caleb have shown to be better than that. What bothered me was he was always good at throwing on the run, and Im not sure he hit one of those passes. I am the thumbs up guy so Im all in but this year will determine his being great or being average. The rest of the year will tell the story.

I disagree, I think if we get less penalties and Caleb improves his % to his average 62% we will stay close. After two losses, people were saying we have no identity and that was true. Now after the bye week we found it. Run the ball and play the run defense better. The TOs are huge and as much as we struggle to get sacks we are putting enough pressure to force some of those TOs. I think most games are going to go down to the wire because whether we great play from the QB or not, we are reliant on the run game to set the tempo. The play action is the key to improve the QB play. Caleb is still making bad choices, he is honing in on one target and missing other open players. When he holds the ball he is great at avoiding the sack but needs to get in position to see the dump off target. Several times he could have run and moved to buy time to throw down field. When he holds the ball to long, it allows the coverage to catch up to his target. I remember one throw to DJ over the middle, the announcers said DJ took to long to look at the ball. The ball was 3 ft behind him. Had Caleb led the WR, the ball would have been where the WR eyes were fixed. I find it interesting that our hope for the future is a high end QB, yet in Doug Buffone speak, run the ball and stop the run is what has got us to 4 wins.

Different defensive coordinators are trying different methods to get into Caleb's head. It worked today. That will give Caleb and Johnson a week to learn from it. Every new thing Caleb sees and then learns is one less thing that can trip him up later. Its a process. And Tremaine Edmunds has been moved to SLB from MLB, and thats going to get him more tackles and put him in good positions to be impactful

I can't put a finger on Caleb yet. What I do know is he is not Justin Fields. He can work the middle of the field. Caleb also shows the ability to work through progressions and stay in the pocket. What I want to see is quicker recognition and accuracy. IMO, the arrow is up and can't wait to see it ...

Caleb looked far less comfortable today than anytime since the first 2 weeks of the season. Lately he's looked very good early on in games and then some struggles settle in as adjustments are made and we get off script. I have to wonder how much the short week played into that where he gets one less day of reviewing the game plan. Given how much focus Ben has put on getting the running game going, which I think is the right thing to do, is that taking practice snaps away from the passing game? Overall Caleb had time to throw on most downs either he didn't read the defense right or nobody was open on a lot of these. Film studies will be out tomorrow but my take is this was not a good game for him. The running game continues to shine and that just feels good. Who is responsible for making Tremaine Edmunds a beast? Lately he's playing like he's on a mission. Until the last few games I don't recall seeing him play with violence like we've seen in recent games. To be fair the entire D is playing with that intensity. The D still has some holes to fill but playing with effort and (mal) intent is how it should be done. Dennis Allen has them doing that.

I see a side of Dennis Allen I’ve never seen before. Then just like that it’s over and he’s on to next week.