adam

Holy crap, how bad have the penalties for and against been? The worst since at least 2009. I could not find another team within -10 yards per game. The Bears are -39.9 YPG in penalty differential. The worst team since 2009 was 2017 SEA with -29.0 YPG. Just think about those numbers, 32 teams x 17 seasons, and the Bears are 544 out of 544 in Penalty Yard Net Differential. It is actually a miracle this team is 4-3.

The Bears are getting screwed at an unprecedented rate this year. The bigger number is the Bears have a net -279 yards on penalties. The 2nd and 3rd worst teams in the NFL COMBINED do have that many negative net yards (DEN -142, JAX -134 = -276). The Rams on the flip side have a net positive of +209, so there are 488 yards difference between the Bears and Rams on just penalties, which equates to roughly 50 POINTS!

Thru 7 games, Williams has more passing yards than Allen, Goff, Stroud, Tua, Rodgers, Geno, and Lawrence.

I would hope they would make some adjustments, and not having to worry as much about the scrambling QB, so the LBs can drop back deeper into the zones should help.

I will have to take a look at the splits. It is crazy how 2-3 plays can change an entire game good or bad.

Week 8 Tankathon Standings. 1. NO 1-7 2. NYJ 1-7 3. TEN 1-7 ------------ 4. CLE 2-6 5. MIA 2-6 6. NYG 2-6 7. BAL 2-5 8. LVR 2-5 9. ARZ 2-5 10. CIN 3-5 17. CHI 4-3 The Bears are trending to draft between 10-18 right now, with 14 as the median.

To start a career, thru their first 24 games, there are 3 QBs in NFL history with over 5K Passing Yards, 25 Passing TDs, and 10 or fewer INTs, Caleb Williams, CJ Stroud, and Dak Prescott. If you add 500 Rushing Yards, Caleb is the only one left. For how bad Caleb was sacked last year, he is now 10th for sack rate (worst being 1st) from 2024-2025. Drake Maye has a higher sack rate, and he is 0.5 from Daniels, who is 11th. That is a promising stat, because he was taking too many sacks last year.

Should TB consider a QB change? Mayfield only had 152 Passing Yards, 0 TD, and 3 sacks against the lowly Saints. In the game before that, he had 228 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, and 4.6 Y/A against DET. It is actually quite ironic how close Caleb's numbers are to Baker's (outside of Mayfield's crazy number of attempts) against these two teams: Baker - 43-74, 58.1%, 380 yds, 5.1 Y/A, 1 TD, 1 INT, 7 sacks Caleb - 34-56, 60.7%, 379 yds, 6.8 Y/A, 2 TD, 2 INT, 5 sacks Williams - 13th Passing Yards Per Game, 20th in QB Rating, 9th in Y/A, 21st in Sacks

The Bears open up as 1.5 favorites on the road against the Flacco-led Bengals. The Bengals just lost 39-38 to the lowly Jets, which followed allowing 31, 27, 37, 28, 48, and 27 since Week 2. So no team has scored less than 27 against the Bengals since the Browns in Week 1. So this has to be the breakout game for Williams. Anything less than 27 pts on offense and a solid passing game overall, will be a failure. I am losing faith in the defense that allowed 30 to Huntley, but think the defense rebounds enough for a Bears win 31-20.

Here is a graph of Caleb's Comp%, QB Rating, and QBR. I will add PFF Grades once this week's grades are out. To me, this looks like he is regressing across the board. With 7 games, you can take out the middle game, which was right before the bye, and assess in 2x 3-game increments. In his first 3 games, he had 7 TD-1 INT, with 3 games at or above average. Then in his last 3, he has 1 TD, 2 INTs and 2 of the 3 lowest graded weeks this season.

Hiring bad employees is where it starts. By the grace of God the Bears got Johnson and he actually wanted to come to Chicago. At first, I thought Poles was ok, but every year, it feels like he gets worse. Winning GMs win transactions, get more draft picks right than wrong, sign FAs that contribute, and make trades that benefit the team. If you used the big board to draft the Bears players since Poles was hired, the Bears would have at least one All Pro and several Pro Bowlers. The only thing he got right was hiring Johnson.

Week 8 - Maye is playing like a top 5 QB. I really did not expect him to be this good. 1. Maye - 67.5 QBR - 282 yds, 3 TD, 1 INT, 6 sacks, and 50 rushing yds. 332 Total Yards. Won. / Season QBR: 76.2, 2,026 yards, 15-3 TD-INT 2. Nix - 82.8 QBR - 247 yds, 4 TD, 1 INT, 0 sacks. 246 Total Yards. Won / Season QBR: 58.7, 1803 yards, 15-5 TD-INT 3. Williams - 62.5 QBR - 285 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 1 Sack, and 24 rushing yds. 309 Total Yards. Lost / Season QBR: 52.9, 1636 yards, 9-4 TD-INT 4. Daniels - DNP, sore rear groin. / Season QBR: 50.9, 875 yards, 7-1 TD-INT, 2 FL 5. Rattler - 14.3 QBR - 136 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT, 3 Sacks, and 12 rushing yds. Lost. / Season QBR: 50.8, 1450 yards, 8-4 TD-INT, 1 FL (benched for rookie) 6. Penix - DNP. / Season QBR: 49.1, 1409 yards, 5-3 TD-INT, 1 FL 7. McCarthy - Always hurt / Season QBR: 23.9 (Last in NFL), 301 yards, 2-3 TD-INT Williams on pace for 3,973 yards passing, would need to average 236 yards per game for the remainder of the season to break 4K. His TD to INT keeps dropping, he is now projected to have 22 TDs and 10 INTs. Since the DAL game, Williams has 2 Passing TDs and 3 INT in 4 games, and shockingly, 3 wins. He has looked like a completely different QB since that game though, and it feels like he is not improving anywhere. Is there anything he does "good" right now?

Too much bad all around. Even without the TD after the INT, the defense still allowed 23 other pts to Huntley. Not good. The offense and Williams are still playing bad. I don't know what is going on, but Loveland gets 2 catches, then 1 for the rest of the game. Swift only had 11 carries. Williams had the 2 intentional grounding penalties, the bad INT, and several other inaccurate passes.

A crazy pass and catch by Moore, but knowing you can't stop the clock he doesn't run out of bounds? Then all chaos breaks loose and the game is over.

This is the defense without forcing turnovers. Hard to blame them but Huntley is not an NFL starter and pretty much did whatever he wanted all game. Offense still looks out of sync. Swift had 11 carries after back-to-back 100-yard games. Game was not out of hand until the last drive, so why abandon the run game that was so successful?

Yeah, the refs are clearly controlling these games. Helmet to helmet. Hopkins hands to the face. Odunze also was held on the long throw to Duvernay. Every week, the officials shape the game.

I don't know how long they are going to give Caleb time to figure it out, but it feels like he is regressing.

Game over.

He is easily the worst coach and shouldn't last another season with this team. The Bears lose 5-10 yards on every change of possession on Special Teams alone. When you add that to all the penalties, that is a lot to overcome.

Damn, Swift has a convoy and out ran them right into 3 defenders lol.

O-Line is not having a good day. Why are 3 guys blocking one guy and allowing 2 free defenders into the backfield on a running play?

I guess we should've expected this when your top CB is your 3rd string.

Caleb's worst play was sliding instead of running out of bounds. Time was more important than yards once he had the first down.

If you watch the intentional grounding plays, there was nowhere to go with the ball. Where is the outlet? The hot route? I didn't see one on either. That was already a bad play, which was made worse by the penalty. They need to fix the blocking or have the routes to account for the pressure.

There is no reason for Swift to only have 4 carries unless he is hurt. Moore has 2.