adam

One of the flaws of QBR, is that it really penalizes incompletions. It also doesn't punish enough for INTs and FL. So Caleb doesn't benefit from his lack of turnovers. Him and Penix played very similar games: Caleb 37.2 QBR - 17-29, 58.6%, 252 Yds, 8.7 Y/A, 1 TD, 0 INT, 3 Sacks Penix 33.3 QBR - 20-32, 62.5%, 250 Yds, 7.8 Y/A 1 TD, 0 INT, 2 Sacks EPA/P also plays a huge role, and Daniels ended up with a +7.1 EPA total, which equates to +0.20. Caleb had his 2nd best game in terms of EPA +1.1 while his TTT was his lowest of the season at 2.65. I don't like the fact that a QB can run out of bounds behind the line of scrimmage and it just be called a rushing attempt for -3. That is a sack, he can throw at any time behind the LOS. The score keepers have no way to know if it was a designed run, a play action, an RPO, etc. That really saves Daniels because he gets a lot of those which penalize him less than others.

The shear number of bogus calls is hard to even comprehend, and it happened on every drive. In total, there was a 13 pt swing in WAS favor, -4 for them and +9 for the Bears. The score should've been 34-21, or 31-21 with a kneel down at the end vs a FG. Benedet was not offsides, flag was thrown after the TD. Caleb hit helmet to helmet by Lulu, no call, then: Brisker gets pushed into Daniels, hits him low but above the knee, result of the play is incompletion, so they throw the flag. Phantom call on Wright for facemask, WR was just running with his head down, then: Defender has choke hold on Odunze, which is a clear hands to the face, not called. Moore was not lined offsides, he was on the line, they still called it and negated a positive play. Loveland within 5 yards, legal contact, the defender should've been called for embellishing as he falls back 10 yards like Loveland is super human. Did I miss any?

So crazy that the Bears win back to back games 25-24 with so many bad calls. It would've been a devastating loss. Swift looked like a different player. Moody came up huge. Glad the offense closed it out after Daniels choked.

If the Bears lose this game by anything less than 10, they got screwed.

Loveland OPI kills one drive. Both Odunze and Moore had DPI against them not called. Dude never turned his head and didn't allow Odunze back to the ball. That is called every time. On Moore, the DB is tackling Moore before the ball touches his hands, another easy call. Those all killed drives.

The Bears lead the turnover battle 2-0, have more time of possession, more passing yards, more rushing yards, and are only up by 6 at half. This is how you know the officials are impacting the game.

and now a no-call on helmet to helmet on Caleb, wtf. How is that not called, you could hear it on the broadcast. Refs doing whatever they can to keep this game close. Has to be frustrating for the Bears.

Refs taking over the game, very frustrating. 8 pt swing in WAS favor so far. Should be 17-3, now WAS with the ball down by 6, just 13-7. Non-fans of WAS and CHI are even saying the fix is in for WAS lol.

Bears up 13-0, rushing game is looking solid. Benedet and Co look great. Defense already forced 2 more turnovers. 10 turnovers forced in last 10 quarters. One team is averaging 5.1 YPC from their RBs, the other is averaging 2.8 with a fumble lost. This is the perfect recipe for winning.

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.