adam

Bears Receivers have been hit with the drop bug, I believe they have 17 drops now. If half of those were caught, that would bump Caleb's Comp% to 62%, much closer to his 2024 number, but with an ADOT over 0.5 yards farther.

As Bears fan, we all should be enjoying this ride. No QB is perfect halfway thru their 2nd season in the league. Williams biggest issue from last year was taking too many sacks, and he has not only improved on that exponentially, he actually has become this magician avoiding sacks. So not only is he not taking unnecessary ones now, he is avoiding almost sure things. It is still Year 1 in a new offense that is new for all players. They changed his stance, they have him playing under center and with play action more than he ever has in his life. Now it is the time to work on ball placement and accuracy. Once he improves there, he will be a top 10 QB until he retires.

That was ALL he did though, he was on the winning team. Just like Stetson Bennett, Georgia was 29-1 the last two years, and he actually threw for 4K passing yards. The biggest red flag on McCarthy was his inexperience. That reminded me of Trey Lance. There are so few QBs that work out when they have limited college experience. McCarthy can still improve but I don't know if he will even get to a Mac Jones level.

Line has slid to CHI -3, I am sure it will move a little more once it is official on Rodgers. They are saying 50/50 right now lol.

I am sure their fanbase is split, some will want to give him more time. Others are probably done with him. He did nothing in college to warrant being a first rounder. Williams, Daniels, and Nix all had the pedigrees. Maye had a shorter period of success but that plus his stature made him at least enticing. Everyone knew Penix wouldn't last with 50-year-old knees.

The one thing PIT does well is prevent TDs. That has saved them. They are also 2nd in the NFL in missed tackles (Loveland game). I still can't believe how good the Bears defense has been on 3rd downs. Now they need to stop allowing first downs on first and second down so much. 3rd Down Defense: CHI - 2nd (33.7%) PIT - 24th (41.7%) 4th Down Defense: CHI - 11th (53.3%) PIT - 27th (72.0%) Red Zone Defense (TD Rate): CHI - 14th (58.3%) PIT - 6th (51.4%) Yards Allowed per Drive: CHI - 22nd (32.5) PIT - 28th (35.1)

then I would love that, he is a team leader and playmaker. He never was a speed guy, so the age doesn't bother me at all. Make him retire as a Bear.

I didn't realize PIT had the worst passing defense in the league, worse than DAL and CIN (in terms of yardage) and in the bottom half of the league in terms of QB Pressure: PIT OFFENSE: 22nd Passing 29th Rushing PIT DEFENSE: 32nd Passing 13th Rushing

Bears OFF +0.02 x PIT DEF -0.04 / -0.01 x 66.7 plays= (-0.67 DIFF) 25.8 Bears O x 23.2 PIT D + DIFF = 23.8 (24 pts) PIT OFF -0.04 x Bears DEF -0.05 / -0.045 x 57.1 plays= (-2.57 DIFF) 24.6 PIT O x 26.4 Bears D + DIFF = 22.9 (23 pts) Congunkulator shows a close game 24-23, but that is with Rodgers at QB. If it is Rudolph, you have to believe that is at least 3 pts less for PIT, making it a 24-20 game.

The Congunkulator was pretty close, and predicted wins the last two weeks.

Yeah, I am glad all of that is over. This truly is a new era. Hopefully we get Johnson+Williams for the next 15-20 years and the coaching and QB musical chairs finally stop.

Poles finally took the North.

PIT is a common opponent in the Division race, so this game does have tie-breaker importance beyond just a Win vs Loss. 8-3 with 6 games left would really set the Bears up for no less than a Wild Card berth.

He won't last long. They will give him this year to fail and I would expect them to draft another one or sign a proven vet if he does not improve (which he won't). If anyone watched any Michigan games, he handed the ball off 80% of the time, and was only asked not to make mistakes, but because he was a good kid and the ultimate hype man, MIN bought into the "winner mentality". I also think the league got over their skis on KOC. Solid coach, etc, but a little overrated. Not hard to beat teams when you have a Flores defense holding team to under 20 pts and giving you great field position.

If DET and CHI finished at 11-6 each, there is a good chance they both have the same Division record (3-3), Conference record (7-5), and record in common games (8-4), which would then move to the Strength of Victory criteria, which just based on their schedule, DET would more than likely win it. What sucks is you benefit from beating a good team, but are not penalized for losing to a bad team with Strength of Victory. For CHI to win the division outright, they will need to beat DET by at least one game on the season, which may be decided in Week 18. With GB having a tie, that takes all the tie breakers out of the equation. The easiest route to the Division is sweeping GB and beating DET. That would give the Bears a 4-2 DIV record and DET would end up at 3-3. They would then only need to win 1 game against PIT, CLE, SF, and PHI to finish 11-6. Win two of those and you more than likely win the division outright at 12-5, but it still would come down to Week 18. There is crazy scenario where the winner of Week 18 wins the Division, and the loser misses the playoffs (because of GB's tie).

Looks like Rodgers won't play, still possible, but unlikely. So it will be Mason Rudolph. Can't lose to another backup QB after losing to BAL. They need to take care of business and get right at Soldier Field on Sunday. Sunday weather is forecasted in the high 40s to low 50s, partly cloudy, perfect football weather. Bears by double digits!

There it is, 2/3 of his drop backs he was blitzed on. On the other 12, he was at least pressured on half of them (will have to watch the game to get exact number). So potentially, he had no blitz or no pressure on 6 or fewer drop backs the entire game. Wild stat if that's what it ends up being. Johnson has to draw up more blitz beaters.

In their last 8 starts each, Nix and Maye are 8-0, and Williams is 7-1. So combined those 3 are 23-1 in their last 24 starts. Has there ever been a trio of QBs from the same class do that ever?

PIT only sacked Flacco once. Chase Brown had 99 yards rushing on 5.5 YPC. Flacco targeted Chase and Higgins 18 times and they only had 6 receptions. Rodgers had a 38.2 QBR and Rudolph had a 25.1 QBR against CIN. For Rodgers, that follows a game against LAC where he had a 4.5 QBR. Rodgers has looked really old and slow the last two weeks.

Week 11 - 1. Maye - 83.4 - 281 yds, 1 TD, 0INT, 1 sack, 2 Rush Yds. 283 Total Yards. Won. Season QBR: 73.9, 2,836 yards, 20-5 TD-INT, 36 Sacks, 2 TD (11g) 2. Nix - 53.4 QBR - 295 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT, 2 sacks, 8 Rush Yds. 303 Total Yards. Won. Season QBR: 54.8, 2,421 yards, 18-8 TD-INT, 12 Sacks, 3 Rush TD. (11g) 3. Penix - 90.1 QBR - 175 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT. 175 Total Yards. Lost. (Injured) Season QBR: 56.6, 1,882 yards, 9-3 TD-INT, 13 Sacks, 1 TD 4. Williams - 24.1 QBR - 193 yds, 0 TD, 0 INT, 2 sacks, 26 Rush Yds. 219 Total Yards. Won. Season QBR: 54.6, 2,329 yards, 13-4 TD-INT, 16 Sacks, 3 Rush TD, 1 Rec TD. (10g) 5. Daniels - Gumby Arm. DNP. Season QBR: 51.2, 1,184 yards, 8-2 TD-INT, 17 Sacks, 2 FL. 6. Rattler - DNP. Season QBR: 49.4, 1,586 yards, 8-5 TD-INT, 18 Sacks, 1 FL (benched for rookie). 7. Nine - 22.5 QBR - 150 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT. 150 Total Yards. Lost. Season QBR: 26.7, 842 yards, 6-8 TD-INT, 15 Sacks, 2 Rush TD. Caleb's 2nd lowest QBR game of the season, only the NO game was worse. He now needs to average 239 yards passing per game for the last 7 to hit 4K.

Gonna have to rewatch the game as it was hard to assess everything in real time. It felt like MIN blitzed or had instant pressure on almost every drop back and instead of some quick routes, they were longer developing plays that didn't match with the protection. I would say Caleb tried extending 2-3 plays when he could've just dumped it off. He had for sure 2 overthrows, one on a scramble, and one on a designed pass. Outside of those plays, it just felt like he never had time to do too much. Play calling was suspect. Johnson got cute, using Homer on a critical 3rd Down, giving Smythe targets, and trying some fake trick plays with Bagent on the field instead of an extra blocker. I don't remember any turnover-worthy throws, so I believe Caleb was clean in that respect and he is finally throwing the ball away when nothing is open, which is a slight change where he would take an unnecessary sack or make a risky throw. He escaped 2-3 more sacks and ended up with only 2 for minimal lost yards, so I would say that was a success considering the pressure rate. One time during the telecast they said Flores had blitzed 70% of the time, the most he has done all season. Receivers are still dropping passes, and now they are on the chest drops. Burden, Odunze, and Moore had at least one each. Very frustrating considering they were in a dome with zero elements to deal with. To me play calling and protection from instant pressure were bigger issues than anything Caleb did or didn't do. Special Teams coverage units are still getting gashed. Hightower needs to go and they need someone to fix the coverage units. Outside of Duvernay's long kick return, the return units were terrible, especially on punts. Duvernay should not be tackled by 7 defenders with only one Bear in the frame. The Defense continues to fold in the 4th Quarter when they go into Prevent. They had zero sacks, and very little pressure. Watching Dexter a few times, it didn't even look like he was trying to get to the passer, he looked like a Dancing Bear at times. Jarrett was getting more push than anyone in the middle. Refs continue to screw the Bears, who had more penalties and yards than the Vikings, the 9th time this season. The worst was the missed face mask on Homer within 5 yards of the ref who is looking right at the play, no call. That is 15 yards and an auto first down.

Yeah, there is a good chance that CHI, DET, SEA, and SF all end up at 11-6, and GB finishes at 10-6-1. The Bears would still make the playoffs, but probably as the WC6 or WC7. DET would more than likely win the tie breaker, even if the Bears beat them in Week 18 due to the Bears lower SOS. So that would put the Bears in the Wild Card as the 5th, 6th, or 7th seed with SEA and SF. So they need to beat SF to get the H2H tiebreaker, and they would have a chance to have the tiebreaker against SEA within the conference. WC5 will play on the road against the South Div winner, currently TB. That slot might actually be better than winning the division, then getting DET, SEA, or SF coming to you.

I still can't believe they kept rolling with Eberflus into Year 3. He didn't win his 7th game until his 29th game. At that point, the Bears were 7-22 under him. It took Johnson 10 games to hit 7 wins.

10 4th quarter TDs allowed in 10 games, 6 in the last 4 games, 5 in the first 2.

The MIN first half: Punt, Punt, FG, Punt, INT, INT. 3rd Quarter: Punt, Punt 4th Quarter: Bears up 16-3: TD, Punt, TD To me they are allowing the easy passes over the middle to prevent the 50 yard chunk plays, but in doing so, they are making it easy enough that a middle school QB has 5 TD drives against this defense in the 4th quarter in 2 games. Against MIN and McCarthy in 6 quarters (1st-3rd in both games) have allowed a total of 9 points. Then in 2 4th quarters, have allowed 35. So 1.5 pts per quarter for the first 3 quarters to 17.5 in the 4th. I will have to check the splits but that just seems bonkers, like the CIN game too.