adam

Right now the 2024 Class is trending as the best "top 5" ever. There are groups with a better top QB, or top 2, but as a top 5, this group is trending as the best. Here are the last 3 classes with at least 4 QBs that had 4K Passing Yards in their first 2 seasons. 2022 - Herbert, Burrow, Hurts, and Tua 2018 - Jackson, Allen, Mayfield, and Darnold 2012 - Wilson, Luck, RG3, Tannehill, Foles, and Weeden The 2024 class will have 5, maybe 6 depending on what happens with Penix, and Rattler who already has 2300 yds. Williams, Daniels, and Nix are already there, and Maye needs 463 more to hit 4K.

I wasn't crapping on them. It is just funny when their defense basically gives them the win, regardless of what they do in that game, they did amazing. The 2024 QB Class may go down as the best ever, and it won't be close. Williams, Daniels, Nix already with big numbers in 1.25 years, Maye and Penix coming on too. Rattler is technically a part of the class, losing a lot but playing better than McCarthy. So they could end up with 5-6 "starters" going into Year 3. Williams, Daniels, and Nix in their first 20 games each (60 games) have combined for over 12,000 Passing Yards, 90 TD Passes, and 31 INT.

I would say I would've included BUF, BAL, LAC, and PHI to go along with DET as the 5 teams before this week, but BAL w/o Lamar is a completely different team, and their defense has never looked worse. LAC w/o Alt scored 10 pts, and have lost their last 2 to NYG and WAS. It still feels like BUF always comes up short in big games. Looking back at their schedule, they may be a little overrated. They beat the bad BAL defense in Week 1, a winless NYJ team in Week 2, a bad MIA team in Week 3, a terrible NO team in Week 4, and lost to their first real competition in a month. So I would still keep PHI and DET in that category. SF and TB are close.

Bo Nix is gritty, DEN defense holds PHI to 17 pts. Jayden Daniels is elite, WAS defense holds LAC to 10 pts. Drake Maye had his coming-out game, 0 TDs, NE defense holds BUF to 20 pts. I still get a kick out of the narratives.

With BUF losing, there are no undefeated teams. So the Bears are only 1 loss out of being the best team in football right now, and 2 wins from being the worst lol.

They will need to limit the penalties and the drops. If they can do that, they can hang with most teams. The refs also get a say, unfortunately. If they call a fair game, the Bears have a shot.

Yeah, with most of those teams being bad outside of one season of Nagy and one of Trestman, I am sure you can find hundreds of common themes. When you are consistently bad, you will be bad pretty much everywhere. Opening game, before the bye, out of the bye. On the road, short week, MNF, etc. When you are bad, you are bad. I don't know if 2-10 out of a bye is really telling when it also matters who they played out of the bye, at home, on the road, etc.

The good thing is Daniels didn't look that good vs LAC. The bad news is Croskey-Merritt and the WAS Defense did. I don't know what they did on defense, but they allowed 27, 24, then 34 before shutting the Chargers down with only 10 points. WAS is 3-0 when the hold the opponent to 24 or less, and are 0-2 when they allow 27 or more. CHI is basically the same, they are 2-0 when the opponent scores 24 or less, and 0-2 when they score 27 or more. So there is your script for this game. The team that scores 27 is going to win. I don't like how good WAS is running the ball and how bad CHI is at run defense. The top 3 RBs all average over 5.0 YPC. With McLaurin out the main threat at WR is Deebo.

With all 4 NFC Division leaders at 4-1, the playoff race for the Bears is going to be for one of the 3 WC slots: GB 2-1-1 (Bears have 2 left against them) MIN 3-2 (Bears need to even up the series) SEA 3-2 ----------------------------------------- WAS 3-2 (Bears need to beat them next week) LAR 3-2 DAL 2-2-1 (Bears already beat) ATL 2-2 CHI 2-2 The WAS game is huge because it is a conference game and the Bears are 1-2 in the Conf. A Bears win and they would own H2H tiebreakers with both WAS and DAL, but since DAL tied, they will more than likely not end up with the same record as them. It seems like all 8 of these teams will be "in the hunt" in late December.

Week 5 - Williams - BYE Week / Season QBR: 64.8, 927 yards, 8-2 TD-INT Maye - 64.1 QBR - 273 yds. 0 TD, 0 INT, 4 sacks, and 12 rushing yds. 285 Total Yards. Won. / Season QBR: 63.7, 1261 yards, 7-2 TD-INT Penix - BYE Week / Season QBR: 57.5, 918 yards, 3-3 TD-INT Nix - 63.7 QBR - 242 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT, 2 sacks, and 22 rushing yds. 264 Total Yards. Won. / Season QBR: 54.8, 1003 yards, 8-4 TD-INT Daniels - 71.7 QBR - 231 yds, 1 TD, 0 INT, 1 sack, and 39 rushing yds. 270 Total Yards. Won. / Season QBR: 45.4, 664 yards, 4-0 TD-INT McCarthy - Always hurt / Season QBR: 21.5 (Last in NFL), 301 yards, 2-3 TD-INT 2nd Year QBs were 3-0 this week. 7-0 the last two weeks. By virtue of how opponents did today, Williams is now the highest 2nd Year QB for QBR passing Maye by 1.1. Watching the games today, it almost seemed like half the games didn't matter for 3 quarters, then the teams starting playing.

We will see what he looks like this weekend against LAC. He is a completely different QB without his mobility.

I did not know Moore, OZ, and Swift grew up near each other and played football together before college. Moore and Swift are really close.

Yeah, I forgot about that. He is trending for the low 30s. I will have to look but I think cutting sacks in half with a comparable amount of attempts has to be unprecedented. Guys like David Carr took sacks every year.

Pretty cool chart for Caleb/Ben. With all the penalties and non-existent run game, this becomes even a bigger example of how good he has been when it is needed.

WAS gives up the 9th most passing yards and are the 5th worst in EPA/Pass against. WAS has faced Wilson, Love, Smith, and Penix, and the last 3 threw for over 289 yards and combined for 7 TD and 1 INT in the last 3 games. Geno passed for 289 yards and 3 TDs against WAS and only 117 and 2 TDs against the Bears. So this is a favorable matchup.

Ekeler was also lost for the season, and Daniels is coming back from injury. Seeing what he looks like this weekend will give us a better idea. Getting Jarrett, Edwards, and Gordon back will help because they are all solid against the run.

Year 2 - 1st Round WRs Pearsall 20-327, 0 TD Odunze 20-296, 5 TD Nabers 18-271, 2 TD (on IR) Harrison Jr 16-208, 2 TD Thomas 12-164, 0 TD Worthy 5-83, 0 TD Leggette 4-8, 0 TD Man, Leggette was a terrible pick for the Panthers.

Caleb Comparison 2025 - 4 games 4 games with 200 yards passing (100%) 4 games with at least 1 TD pass (100%) 3 games with 60% Comp (only game not 59.5%) (75%) 3 games with 2 or fewer sacks (75%) 2024 - 17 games 8 games with 200 yards passing (47%) 7 games w/o a TD Pass (41%), 7 games with Comp% below 60 (41%) 5 games with 2 or fewer sacks (29%) Also, Caleb is on a 4-game streak with at least 200 yards passing, 3 games was his longest streak last season. Going back to Week 18 last year, he now has 5 straight games with a TD pass. He has thrown only 8 INTs in 692 career attempts, which is the lowest rate in NFL history to start a career.

I agree, and even if he is "recovered" I don't think he has the same strength he had previously, which was already a liability.

From some reports, that may be where he is headed.

It is baffling to me, because he is out there on Special Teams, and is listed as the 2nd string RB on their official depth chart: https://www.chicagobears.com/team/depth-chart

Bears blockers as a team are 3rd in Run Block Win Rate. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46138675/2025-nfl-win-rates-top-teams-players-rankings-pass-run-block

I just think if the player is going to be inactive, then before you have games with him being inactive, but not for injury, you trade him before you tank his value.

I think there are two parts to this. The player change definitely helped because Jones is not really a mauler. I also think the Raiders gassed themselves a little bit. If I asked you who won the Time of Possession battle, just thinking back about the game, I would assume you would say LVR won it (I thought they did) because of their running game, but in reality the Bears had the edge 33 mins to 27, and ran 64 plays to 52. In the 4th quarter the Bears had the ball on offense for basically 10 minutes out of 15 with 19 plays before the kneel down. The Bears going 7-16 on 3rd Down and 1-1 on 4th Down compared to LVR 2-8 and 0-1 respectively, was another factor. There was a stat coming into this week that the Bears were one of the best teams on yards before contact, but Swift was one of the worst YPC. I think it is a mix of both but for me, with more blame on Swift because Monangai should not have a better YPC than Swift as a rookie.

Huge injury news, Edwards, Loveland, AND Gordon all practiced today, so unless they have setbacks they will all be full goes for WAS in 13 days. Edwards is a tackling machine and Gordon is the swiss army knife they have missed. If Jarrett gets healed up too, it would be the first game with at least 10 starters on defense with JJ still out. Johnson also gets time to figure out the O-Line shuffle and incorporate Loveland and Burden more in the game plan.