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I believe Caleb will be great for us. Not perfect, since no one ever is, but great, top 3 in the league. I think that's where this trajectory is headed. People can disagree, but then when it happens, remember who wanted to keep him and who was thinking of dumping him. The rest is up to time to tell. I could argue why I think this is true, what my evidence is, but it's a waste of time. We will see.

I don’t want perfection. I want to see obvious progress in simple scenarios. He needs to hit the guaranteed passes that prolong drives and create scoring opportunities.

No. I’m comparing Lovie’s ending with Caleb’s beginning. It’s kind of apples and oranges, but it has the same purgatory feel.

No doubt the first half had more opportunities to criticize Caleb. He was terrible in the first half and it’s almost as if they didn’t trust him to throw the ball. But if the first half was terrible, and the second half has obvious issues that largely cost the team the game, that’s not a good starting point.

I wish the Ben Johnson effect would have used more running, especially early in the game. BJ is getting too predictable especially when he passes when you should run on 2nd and short. The Bears are at the top for running the ball, so please play to your strengths more so than trying to out smart the D.

The bigger question is are these our "New Bears" or the same old? We are gonna find out the rest of the wat this year. My money is on the New Bears showing up and making a statement.

Agree, Caleb didn't exicute the play properly. Kmet went up for the ball and Caleb didn't put enough zip on it. Had Caleb threw to the corner, Kmet would have kept going to the ball. If we got this TD, we still had to get a 2 point conversation, so I'm not sure if we would have won the game. BJ said he would have went for 2. It would have been a lot more interesting to see the call Ben makes for the 2 points.

There's lots of pundits breaking that play down. IMO, if continues to the sidelines, he easily beats his chasers but he slowed down to do his reads. DJ wasn't open yet but did get open after he committed to throw to Kmet. I think he threw where it went thinking Cole could climb the ladder against a 5'10" S but he didn't zip the ball. I think if he threw to the corner, Kmet could have reached the ball. Caleb failed on execution, it was a great play call.

I get the impression, you will only be happy with perfection. I get the growth we have to see from Caleb but I'm afraid, this year, we're only going to see small increments from him. I think a lot of his flaws will only be fixed off season but at this stage we are still winning games and can't be unhappy about that. I think we have to look at this as his first year with BJ and accept it's not all going to happen at once. Because he was the first pick, I, as others, expect it quickly.

You are comparing Lovie's ending with Johnson's beginning.

I think Caleb didnt see the defender who picked it off because he wasnt on Kmet, he peeled off of another player, so he wasnt in Calebs vision when he tossed it so softly to Kmet. Is that on Caleb? Sure, fine. But it's understandable, and Im not hating on him for it at all. I also think Kmet, who COULD see the defender peeling off in front of him should have run a more lateral route to mirror Caleb's rollout. For me, if you want to criticize Caleb, the first half had more opportunities.

Many games of the last 20 years or so have felt like this. A journeyman or worse QB comes in with bad stats and/or receivers, and everyone expects the Bears to dominate. Then that average-to-below average dude starts carving up the Bears’ D. I’ll be honest fellas; this game concerns me way more than it should. It should be a win by 14 or more, but I think it’ll be close.

Kmet COULD have run a slightly different angle, but that INT is 100% on Caleb’s slow read and poor throw. Kmet was open way early and all Williams had to do was lead him.

Yes, it makes us happy, but it doesn’t erase obvious flaws. Wins DESPITE a player can’t be ignored. And that’s how it feels far too often with Caleb missing open receivers. We appreciate the 11 or 12 wins, but yearn for the potential of greatness. It kind of reminds of Lovie’s end. Great, 10 or 11 wins. But then what? Glaring holes and a Divisional round loss? Again, what makes this worse is seeing his potential. His ceiling is extremely high. And if he just cleaned up the singles and doubles, it would be a lot easier to love the home runs. And that goes right back to the accuracy.

To your point - I'm presuming the primary read was a shorter pass and/or him running for 1st down vs. Kmet or Moore...which means by time you get there its too late. I think a good throw still works but that is not that easy when you are on the run in the cold with pressure.

I'm rooting for Rams hard - I think if Rams beat Lions that helps out quite a bit. Reality is we are in control of the playoff destiny - but the probability/odds are tough. I still think if we win 2 games we should be in, but that is easier said than done. Have to show up and play strong against Browns....lose this game and the road gets a lot tougher (and it's already tough enough).

It's interesting because the Bears could win their next two games and still miss the playoffs if they lose to SF and DET. Beating CLE or GB + SF and DET guarantees you a playoff spot because you'd win the tiebreaker against the 49'ers if you both finish with 12 wins. With 11, you'd need them to lose to SEA in that last game, which would be so terrifying to have to sit through. Either way, this is quickly becoming the most important game left on the Bears schedule, especially if Detroit beats the Rams this week.

This is very fair. I'd go as far as saying not getting that completion percentage up above 60% next year would be a major red flag. This year given all of what Caleb is being asked to do, you can accept it. But if in year 2 he is still that low, it trends into a problem. I'm not asking for a jump to 65%+, but he has to get into the 62/63% range and it sure would be nice if we saw him have a breakout game next week with like a 65% rate and he finished the season on a bit of an upward trajectory (since in season it has really declined). I'd say 2nd half was probably one of the better accuracy streaks he's had in a while (which doesn't say a ton). I will note that mechanics and footwork (even just being behind center and shifting his lead food) are pretty big changes and he entered this year making 2 huge ones plus a new system, so I fully expect it will take an off-season of work from Caleb to materially help his side of the equation and I also expect another off-season in the system and training camp / offseason work with receiver's/te's will all help with the passing game.

I think our strength and conditioning coaches will be replaced this year, along with Hightower. All are holdovers from the Eberflus era.

This is what I think happened too. I dont think the defender that intercepted the ball was assigned to Kmet, but he read the broken coverage and made a play. The league is full of great players who make plays, so to expect Caleb to always be better isnt realistic. I think instead, it's fair to say Caleb wasnt good enough in the first half and that contributed to the loss. That's a fairer criticism than the final pass.

Quite frankly the play is a touchdown 80% of the time, if the QB sees that read and hits it early. Heck, if he threw when he did and made a better throw, I think it is still a TD 60% of the time. But pressure was all over and people say he had it if he ran, I'm not sure that he has that first down. That Packer Dline is ridiculous and Caleb is a damn good scrambler but I don't know that I put the odds at a 1st down with him scrambling at >50%. I also don't know if Caleb saw the defender late (thinking he wasn't on Kmet) so he kind of floated it initially but just missed it when the Packers defender recovered and went there). The Packers player said it was a busted coverage and he just identified it - so maybe that contributed to it looking worse. Bottom line - you win some you lose some. They were the better team in 2nd half, worse in 1st half...but they played and held up and got a 2nd straight week against an elite defense...back to iron testing iron....competition is going to test our unit and force them to elevate and be better. They got to experience it, to raise the bar and set an even higher standard, and to kind of provide more of the 201/301 defensive concepts that you just can't practice vs. game time. Force Caleb to see how elite defenses react and play and get him to learn from those habits.

This. Caleb absolutely has to get better and he's still leaving a lot out there, but he is also elevating the team at times and making special plays. He is reading the field better but still has his moments...no surprise, he's a year 2 player in a 1st year offense that is complex. He's also highly athletic and with it you'll see those are the types of QBs that sometimes take a bit more time to find their accuracy (i.e. Josh Allen / Lamar Jackson). I expect a big year 3 jump for Caleb but in fairness if we don't see it and this is who he is, than I think you can start asking yourself some of these questions...but saying it now, nuts to me. I wish he had every boxed check in year two...but very few do that, especially when you see how defense has made a comeback in this league. Just look at the Chiefs game vs. the Texans. Mahomes was all over the place and turned it over 3 times. It was sloppy, he looked flustered and didn't look like a guy who was playing on schedule. It was against a great defense - but Mahomes is an all time great. So it happens. Same with Josh Allen against that defense. If you told me we were here and Caleb is doing what he is doing, I would have been pretty happy. Now that we have 9 wins and were the #1 seed, I think expectations elevated a bit faster and probably a little too high given where we are at in the journey. That is okay and I think it is awesome that the Bears are going to get challenged like this in year 1 - can be a huge cultural lifter / franchise builder. Really hoping they can find a way to get 2 more regular season wins - but I also acknowledge that is going to be really hard to do and I see plenty of scenarios where it is 0-1 quite frankly. I fully expect the Browns game to be the only game remaining they are favored in and we know in football a few bad bounces / infortune turnovers and a game can get flipped.

Bummer about Gordon. When people are knocking Gordon, I won't pretend to know what caused the soft tissue injury. I haven't heard anything about work ethic, I did hear maybe some thoughts that he might have stressed his body too much during off-season training (which would imply the opposite)...but not sure. JJ was same - he was putting in work and injured himself and than when he was supposedly out for the year he kept grinding and came back early. I don't love injuries and soft tissue ones can be the most frustrating (since on paper they seem less severe but end up ruining a whole season). I'm hoping we hear in the cold it was just too much and they didn't want to chance it vs. he reagged it and he's back to square 1.

another difference is who was on the OL for those seasons. The Eagles made that pretty clear in the Superbowl this past year.

It won't be a discussion again until next year. Winning always buys you time. What they do in the off-season with the QB room will tell you a lot about how they view Caleb. I don't think he's in any danger right now to where the Bears are going to start looking into drafting or acquiring his replacement.