adam

Welp

For Goff, in his first year in Johnson's offense seemed to flip the script after Game 8. Through 8 games, DET was 2-6 and he had 14 TD and 7 INT. In the last 9, they went 7-2 and he had 15 TD and 0 INT. Something clearly clicked for him. His worst QB Rating in the final 9 games was 83.0 which would've been better than 5 of his first 8 games. He had 4 games below 60% Comp in his first 8, then only 1 in his last 9, and that game was 59.5%, in a game where he had 355 yards, 3 TDs, and 0 INT, so the lower Comp% was meaningless. So hopefully we are near that point with Caleb.

Swift's lack of carries following back to back 100 yard games now makes more sense. However, he extends his streak of never having a 3rd good game following back to back 100 yard games. I would assume Moore will get a few extra carries as well. I don't want Homer to touch the ball unless he has to.

Swift, Roschon, Burden, and Robinson out for Sunday. Looks like Monangai gets the start with Homer as the only other RB on the roster?

CJGJ is a ballhawk. 18 INTs in 64 career starts. Jaylon Johnson has 7 INTs in 71 starts and Stevenson has 7 in 36 starts. So as long as they can keep the attitude in check, he will be an upgrade over McCloud, Owens, or whoever else they were plugging in there.

He was but there is a defender off screen who dropped off their guy and Rome is literally running straight at him. If Caleb leads him, Odunze is probably on a stretcher in a neck brace.

Hopefully this helps out the entire group.

Flacco is nursing an injury, they may have to go with Browning, who has looked absolutely terrible in his recent starts.

Looks like he is going to play the Slot CB, which is a massive upgrade over McCloud who has arguably been the worst starter on defense.

One of the worst parts of it was Loveland was injured and missed a good chunk of the offseason. So the Bears knowingly drafted him with the knowledge that they may not get full production out of him until mid season? This goes back to Poles thinking he is the smartest guy in the room, similar to Pace. Then once he makes a bad out of position pick, it has a ripple effect for multiple years. Like Bowers + Egbuka instead of Odunze + Loveland is an example just using two position groups in back to back years. You can do it for more picks from the first year he drafted. So every year, the Bears fall further and further back against the top 12-15 teams in the league who at least draft average every year. The Bears are always in the bottom 3rd.

On INT, Loveland 6 yards downfield being held by Roquan, literally on his back, prevented him from moving. Another missed call.

Both Caleb and DJ not running out of bounds when they could gained like 4 yards but took 40+ seconds off the clock when time was more important than yardage. Between net yards lost on penalties and special teams the Bears would be 6-1 right now, and the DET game would've been a lot closer.

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.