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Wow. Time to buy a jersey! For the record my Jersey collection: Sayers, Ditka, Urlacher, Butkus.

The Strength of Schedule thing is so skewed when you play more than one super bad team. RIght now the Titans, Jets, Raiders, Giants, and Saints have 2 or fewer wins. So if you played any of those teams a few times, your SoS is gone. NE has played the Titans, Jets, Raiders, and Saints, and the Bengals, Dolphins, Browns, and Falcons. That is 8 games against teams with 4 or fewer wins, and they are 7-1 in those games.

He told Ramsey, don't make me go Javon Wims on you boy.

LAR is for sure, they are humming. I am not sold on PHI, DET, or SF. PHI is 4-3 in their last 7, and lost to NYG and DAL in that stretch. See my post about Barkley, he has been off all year. For an 8-3 team, there is a lot of drama. DET is 3-3 in their last 6, and needed OT to beat NYG. They already have twice as many losses as last year. Goff playing in CHI in January should be fun in Week 18. SF is 4-4 in their last 8. People talk about the Bears wins. SF's last 3 wins have been against ARZ, NYG, and ATL. Their defense is not the same w/o Warner.

I think I like DJ G-Johnson a little more after sticking up for Caleb.

I was just joking around but I totally understand. I live locally so I get all Bear games and am a prime member but have to remember lots of people live everywhere else.

IMHO I think right now Detroit, LAR and maybe Philly are all better in the NFC. I’d even throw in SF because of Shannahan and that both Purdy and Kittle are back.

Yeah between that and the heavy focus on the run after the bye, I personally saw times where Johnson would make the adjustments necessary to score. The first couple of weeks of the season were rough . He tried to gameplan ( I think) more for the passing game. But for whatever reason Caleb wasn’t quite getting it or he (Johnson) was getting impatient. I think thar was partially why we didn’t see a lot of the optimal use of the 12 man scheme. Especially with the top two TEs and moreso this years’ #1 pick. If executed correctly the zone run offense will work every time. He had what he needed in Swift and Monangai and turns out good enough players on the oline to make it work. We saw a few times as the season progressed where the offense (specially Caleb) struggles in the RZ. Sure he looks great between the 20s but for whatever reason, with the need to think quicker he locked up a little. There was one game in particular (think maybe the Giants) where Ben called at least on trick play in the red zone that ended up with Caleb catching a TD from Moore that shook things up. This added another element that opposing defenses had to account for. Call it a little of the Campbell moxie if you will. Johnson comes by way of the Parcell’s coaching tree . Having started out with the 2012 Dolphins as an assistant. Since then he’s added some of Bill Walsh’s West Coast Offense and a hint of the spread offense. With the WCO you don’t have to have a superstar QB run it, just one that can play within the system. I think Ben will work to fix the inconsistencies and tics t and hopefully have a more finished product in the coming years.

Halftime adjustments exist:

Some context to Year 2 QBs, McCarthy starting in his 2nd year, who sat for a year, taking over a 14-win team with arguably a top 3 WR in Jefferson, a great defense, and a QB Whisperer HC is one of 3 QBs since 1980 to pass for less than 1K yards, less than 10 TD Passes, and 10 or more INTs in their first 6 starts to start their careers. He joins DeShone Kizer and Ryan Leaf in that category. Williams is the first QB in NFL history with more than 6K Passing Yards, 750 Rushing Yards, 35 Passing TDs, and 10 or fewer INTs in his first 28 starts, and that includes 17 games in a season where his HC and OC were fired.

Yeah something is going on in PHI. I have not paid attention enough. Barkley has only 3 games with a YPC over 4.0, 4.8 against the Giants (12 carries), 5.0 against DEN (only 6 carries), and his best game of the year 10.7 against the Giants (had 150 and a 65-yarder). However, he has had 7 games with a YPC of 3.3 or less. In 6 of those he had 18+ carries. On the season he is averaging 3.7 YPC, but against any team but the Giants, it drops to 2.99 per carry, wild.

The Congunkulator says PHI 23 - CHI 20 based on EPA/P, # of plays, and PPG. With it being in PHI, 3 more pts go their way, and with the officials, probably another 3-4, which makes it more like a 9-10 pt game. This is all assuming no Jaylon or Gordon as right now the DET blowout loss accounts for a lot of the bad averages. If you just use the last 9 games for both teams, the Bears should be favored by 3.

The Congunkulator has predicted 3 wins with pretty close margins of victory (scores have been a little off). I need to have it weighted for more recent games as Week 1 and 2 impact the numbers but really are not relevant now.

If they can't beat CLE, they don't deserve to be in the playoffs. So that leaves 5 other games, PHI, GB, SF, GB, and DET. 1-4 in those 5 would be bad, I am hoping no worse than 2-3, which is 3-3 the rest of the way for a 11-6 finish. I think that locks you into the #6 Seed. The #5 Seed is tough unless the Bears beat SF, and if they do that, they are probably winning the Division at 13-4.

Williams now 10th in Passing Yards, ahead of Jordan Love, Bo Nix, Baker Mayfield, Jalen Hurts, all with the same number of games. Stafford (MVP) and Hurts are the only QBs with more Passing TDs and fewer INTs than Williams. EPA/DB is 13th 26 QBs have been sacked more times

We dont have a good defense with all the injuries but we still are capable of big plays. You can see adjusting being done during the game and it led us to a win. Its kind of hard to say now we havent played any good teams. Pitt is not a juggernaut but is a winning team and leader in their division. This was a physical game and we held up. Backups weren't terrible which isnt normal for us. Clear to see we have a great coaching staff and finally have depth on this team. Culture has changed and we now believe we can beat anyone. That makes us a dangerous team going forward.

It is easy to look at Philly and say we are going to get our butts kicked but that vaulted Eagles defense gave up almost 500 yards of offense and only had one sack. Both Ss and one CB got hurt in the game and on a short week are in doubt for the game. A big key will be if any of our D will be back for this game. JJ and Gordon have a good chance of coming back. We still lead the league in TOs and they will come into play. Barkley isnt the same guy he was last year. He had 345 carries last year and the bounce year always suffers because of that. We have more sacks than Eagles do. They have given up over 20 points 8 times this season. Hurts will be a problem because of the pass/run flexibility but the scary defense isnt so scary anymore. We have a chance and if Caleb shows some magic, maybe we win.

Barkley vs these LBs will be dangerous. This will be a huge challenge for Caleb and offense too. I’m expecting a tough slog and don’t think they have enough - but hoping bears play their best game of the seasons and pull it out!!!

I'm still processing what I saw in today's game. There is far more good than bad. We scored 31pts and we're still complaining. At least I'm complaining about the missed plays. I can't tell you how refreshing that is. Offensive pre-snap penalties are way down and that is not just this home game but the trend has been favorable the last few games. We did that today with Ozzy making his first start at LT and Luke Newman taking some snaps both as 6th Olineman and subbing in at RG until Jonah was able to return. Oline struggled all day in the run game. Pass pro was better for the most part. I found it interesting that TJ Watt looked awesome until he rag dolled Darnell Wright. Then, just as quick as we gave up a TD on a sack fumble, TJ seemed to disappear from the game. Then the run game got better, not great but effective enough, and the passing game got better. TJ stats ended the game with 5 tot tkl, 2 solo, 1 sack, 1 QB pressure, 1 TFL. Most of that I believe I saw in the first quarter. I'll wait for the film studies to see if we schemed differently after that or did Darnell wake up and control him on his own? Did I notice Luke Newman on the field? No. Doesn't mean he played well just means he didn't play like a 5th round rookie. That alone makes me smile. Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy....I was concerned coming into this game how our LT would hold up because Pitt has two really good edge rushers, and some good LBs. The game ended with me still wondering how our LT held up. I don't recall seeing the usual left edge pressure Theo gives up. It did feel like we ran to the right side more than the left side. If true, was that by design to make it easier for Ozzy to focus on pass pro in his first NFL start? I'm not sure Theo gets his job back. Caleb just keeps getting better. No big leaps but each week is better. I know it was ugly early on but these chunk plays are seemingly on repeat week after week under Ben Johnson. Defense... in the Pitt first offensive series, maybe two, our LBs were largely static until the play was well underway. Dennis Allen and the LB coach (or someone) clearly got on them because you could see and feel the shift when they started playing downhill. After that there were still some misses but we also started getting some negative plays. It was enough that ,despite giving up big yards in the running game, it helped stall out some Steeler's drives. Maybe doing this meant giving up some pass plays because LBs were out of position in converage but the strategy worked against Rudolph. Might not have worked against Rodgers but that's the type of decisions and strategy coaches are supposed to do.

Ozzy might have just won the LT job which would be pretty awesome. Caleb had a nice run in middle of the game. If you watch - his reads are getting better and better. His timing and footwork is still off - the change in offseason and just not yet being all the way there are impacting him - but I see him throwing more and more guys open and I truly believe as he keeps getting more comfortable we are going to see a huge step forward in terms of accuracy. When that happens - top 5 qb!!!

I think it would be wise to sign Wright and DJ G-Johnson to contracts. Also Sweat has 7.5 sacks today and should easily go over 10. Imagine if we had one other strong pass rusher to help him out.

Poles has made a lot of bad decisions over his term, but he deserves kudos for adding some talent in back up roles. Stevenson went out early, no JJ or Gordon, the top 4 LBers were out once Hyppolite went down. Dybo and Turner are out for the year. They made enough plays for us to win this game. Trapillo played well. If you look at the overall picture I would not think we are a winning team but yet we are 8-3. Caleb still has a long way to go yet we are in the top 5 offenses in the league. Once he arrives this offense is going to be dangerous.

Barkley and a wake up game is enough. If we win, I've totally underestimated our talent.

Probably, but I think the short week could be more beneficial to the Bears. The drama in Philly is always loud. They won't have a lot of time to do much prep work and learn from their mistakes this week. The Bears are playing with house money, and could end up getting Gordon and Johnson back for this game. I do really worry about Barkley against these LB'ers, though. Really, really bad matchup there despite his struggles up to this point.