adam

Deebo questionable too, clearly not 100%. The Bears have to take advantage.

McLaurin and Noah Brown out, so outside of Deebo and Ertz, this is going to be a run heavy attack. Looks like Johnson announced Benedet will be starting at LT.

O-Line, RB, and Edge have been issues for most of Poles time as GM. Wasted picks could've easily filled those gaps. Not even counting 2025, Poles drafted Johnson and signed Homer, but passed on James Cook, Rachaad White, and DeVon Achane. The ripple effect of the picks is huge too. 2022 Brisker Cam Jurgens - OL, Trey McBride - TE - 2511 Yds, Luke Goedeke - OL, James Cook - RB - 3088 Yds, Nik Bonito - ED - 30 sacks Jones Jr Bernard Raimann - OL, Terrel Bernard - LB - 169 Tackles, Rachaad White - RB - 1296 Yds, Kerby Joseph - DB - 20 INTs 2023 Pickens Tank Dell - WR, Byron Young - LB - 21 sacks, Josh Downs - WR, Tucker Kraft - TE, DeVon Achane - RB, Kobie Turner - DL 2024 Amegadjie Puni - OL, McMillan - WR

The Bears have one of the lowest snap counts for drafted players, yet have had extra higher draft picks in the last few years which should translate into more snaps. I feel like he is at about a "D" at this point. If you auto-drafted based on mock draft pre-draft rankings, you would be a "C" as a GM. Poles has drafted worse than that. If you look at the trades, the Bears have lost pretty much every one of them, except for the Carolina trade, and even that one was a no-brainer. So it is not like Poles worked the Panthers into a crazy return. It was market value and he got Moore instead of Burns, which forced him to overpay for Sweat who has underwhelmed. Same with getting Ben Johnson, it was a no-brainer hire. He drafted a punter over Bucky Irving when there was a need at RB. Velus Jones, Pickens, and Amegadjie. You can't miss in the top 75 every year, yet he does. I liked the Thuney trade, but didn't like the Bates trade. I like the Dalman signing, but he overpaid for Odeyingbo. So if you just assessed each move as a plus, minus, or push, he would have more minuses than pluses, which lands him with a D for me.

For how well Mayfield and Darnold have turned it around, that is definitely a strong class, just without a SB win.

Yeah, rarely does that work out.

OFF vs DEF EPA Comparison Right now the worst component for either team is CHI's Offensive Rush attack that has a -0.16 EPA/P which is downright terrible. On the flip side, the best component is WAS's Rush attack at +0.09. CHI OFF (Pass +0.01 / Rush -0.16) vs WAS DEF (Pass +0.03 / Rush -0.07) Pass +0.04 / Rush -0.23 Composites Diff +0.27 WAS OFF (Pass +0.04 / Rush +0.09) vs CHI DEF (Pass -0.05 / Rush +0.01) Pass -0.01 / Rush +0.10 Composites Diff +0.11 The bottom line is the Bears either need to magically fix their running game, or pass more to offset how negative the run game is. The Bears have faced the 1st, 3rd, 26th, and 31st defenses while WAS has faced 9th, 12th, 15th, 25th, and 26th defenses. WAS is 22nd in EPA, so they are closer to OAK/DAL than they are to DET/MIN. CHI is 20th in EPA, which is closest to 15th (GB), who WAS lost to. So there is that too.

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.