adam

Tennessee lost Henry (1167 Rushing Yards, 12 TD, 214 Rec Yards) and gained Pollard (1005 Rushing Yards, 6 TD, 311 Rec Yards). So it looks like they lose a little in the ground game, but gain some in the passing game. The Bears lost Foreman (425 Rushing Yards, 4 TD, 77 Rec Yards), and gained Swift (1049 Rushing Yards, 5 TD, 214 Rec Yards, 1 TD). So they gained a lot in the both the ground and passing game by adding Swift.

I am sure he has improved and he does have a better WR Corps and pass-catching RB (Pollard), but I don't know how far that takes him, especially considering he had 9 games last year in a different system. So this will be his first real game in the new system. For the preseason, he had 13 pass attempts. That feels like an incredibly small sample size to determine anything.

He was a rookie last year, but regardless, he was still one of the worst QBs in the NFL using any metric: QBR 33.2 (2nd to last, 30th between Zach Wilson and Bryce Young) EPA/DB -0.09 QBP% 44.5% (3rd to last, only Fields and Wilson were worse) CPOE -3.2% (last in the NFL) Levis had 2 good games, and 7 bad games. His 2 good games were against ATL and MIA. The Bears defense is infinitely better than those two units. In the 2 good games, he had 5 TD, 1 INT, 3 sacks, and one fumble lost. In the 7 bad games, he had only 3 TDs, 3 INT, 25 sacks, and 3 fumbles lost

First thing I thought of, they literally are clueless.

Titans Message Boards are hilarious. https://www.titansreport.com/topic/47869-week-1-titans-vs-bears-discussion/ Here are some nuggets from this 26 page thread: They spend 20+ pages infighting about Caleb Williams and then it starts a personal war between a few posters. 90% of the posts are personal attacks against each other. However, when they did post. It was basically Williams is overrated and Levis is amazing. One of the best ones is the guy who said the Bears were the worst team in the NFL last year because they drafted #1. That is all you need to know about the competency level of their fanbase. Clueless.

Going off EPA/Play which is ultimately what drives the scoring, the Bears have a very easy schedule in terms of defenses they will face. The best defense in terms of EPA/Play is SF, which was 8th. NE is the next best defense which was 9th and JAX was 13th. All other defenses were worse than the Bears defense, so 14 games against inferior defenses. From an EPA perspective, the Bears have an overall better team in 7 games outright, a huge edge in 2, and are comparable in 7 other games (probably split), and have only one overall disadvantage (against SF). CHI OVR ADVANTAGE: CAR, WAS, ARZ, TEN, IND, MINx2 = 7 CHI HUGE EDGE: NE, SEA = 2 CHI COMPARABLE: JAX, GBx2, LAR, DETx2, HOU = 7 CHI DISADVANTAGE: SF = 1 This is using last year's numbers. Obviously, teams can improve, stay the same, or get worse. To me, it is hard to say the Bears didn't improve this offseason, and with Williams and Odunze, more than most other teams they play. This type of schedule really looks like 10+ wins.

Weaknesses: cornerbacks, interior defensive line, running back, quarterback, and wide receiver. In other words, majority of the team. Funny that they don't see TE as a weakness, that should be one as well.

Listening to the most recent Adam Rank Podcast with Tyler Scott. Scott remarked about how he could tell that the game was slowing down for Williams, which is huge if true because that is one of the few things that crush rookie QBs.

Yeah, their TE1 is Okonkwo, who is decent, but would probably be TE3 on the Bears.

Surtain getting a bigger contract than Jaylon is crazy. I don't understand the Surtain hype. Last year he had 1 INT, the 11th most air yards against (483), an 88.2 Passer Rating against and allowed 12.2 yards a reception. Johnson had a 50.9 Passer Rating against, 4 INT, and allowed 8.7 per reception against. Surtain is closer to Stevenson than Johnson and Stevenson had more INTs. Stevenson: 4 INT, 492 Air Yards against, 93.7 Passer Rating Against, and 11.9 yards per reception against. Like what am I missing about Surtain? His PFF Coverage Grade is on the 3rd page at 64.7 (63rd amongst qualified CBs). Terrell Smith 65.4, Gordon 68.2, Jaylon 90.4, Stevenson 59.1. So again, he is closer to Stevenson and Smith than Jaylon. So what gives?

He is different. I think he breaks all the trends and looks elite right out the gate. It would not shock me if he breaks several rookie passing records. 4,374 Passing Yards, 31 TDs, 627 Passing Attempts, 396 Completions, 13-3 Record.

QBs that are #1 picks are 0-8-1 in Week 1 games dating back to David Carr in 2002, who was the last #1 QB to win his pro debut in Week 1. I understand the perceived correlation, but in reality, this just points to the fact that #1 QBs normally go to really bad teams. Here are the previous 9 QBs that formed the 0-8-1 record and how their team did in Week 1: Bryce Young - 2023 - 24-10 Loss, 146 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT, 2 Sacks Trevor Lawrence - 2021 - 37-21 Loss, 332 yards, 3 TD, 3 INT, 1 Sack Joe Burrow - 2020 - 16-13 Loss, 193 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 3 Sacks, 1 Rush TD Kyler Murray - 2019 - 27-27 Tie, 308 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 5 Sacks Jameis Winston - 2015 - 42-14 Loss, 210 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT, 4 Sacks Andrew Luck - 2012 - 41-21 Loss (to Da Bears!), 309 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT, 3 Sacks, 1 FL Cam Newton - 2011 - 28-21 Loss (Holy crap, Cam threw for 422 and 432 yards in his 1st two pro games), 422 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT, 4 Sacks, 1 Rush TD Sam Bradford - 2010 - 17-13 Loss, 253 yards, 1 TD, 3 INT, 2 Sacks Matthew Stafford - 2009 - 45-27 Loss, 205 yards, 0 TD, 3 INT, 1 Sack, 1 Rush TD So in 6 of the 9 games, the QB's teams allowed 27+ points. I doubt the Titans score 20. Only twice were opponents held under 20 pts. 4x 300-yard games, only two QBs under 200 yards passing. Average: 264 Yards, 1.3 TD, 2.1 INT, 2.8 Sacks, 0.3 Rush TD

It might be on Hard Knocks. I couldn't find any totals. I was just being sarcastic about Davis and his one injured vote for himself.

Odunze is the wild card for me. If Allen is replacing Mooney, Odunze is replacing Claypool, which is some crazy upgrades. I also did not recall that Roschon had the 4th most targets last year behind Moore, Kmet, and Mooney. He had more than TE2 and WR3. Now that is Everett and Odunze with Swift ahead of him. If all QBs combined can throw for 3400 yards and opponents can throw for 4200 on the Bears defense, I still don't see why Williams is not throwing for 3800+ with his eyes closed?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Also, for some reason, we match up very well against the Lions. So even though they may be a top 5 team, we should be good for a split with them. Besides them, SF is really the only other top 5 team. In SF, chalk that up as a loss. It feels like all other games are winnable. It makes sense because they did lose 3 games in ridiculous fashion, so they could've been a 10-win team. Everything else points to that as well. So I think 10 is the floor, 13 is the ceiling. Injuries or Caleb completely choking (a ton of turnovers) would be the only thing preventing that, IMO.

I have been trying to find something that points to the Bears having a bad season, or be worse than they were a year ago. I can't find anything, and everything points up. Waldron > Getsy Caleb > Justin (as a passer) Swift > Foreman Everett > Tonyan Shelton > Patrick Allen > Mooney Odunze > Claypool Byard > Jackson Taylor > Gill One of the easier schedules, with a net rest advantage.

What I find kind of weird is that the Bears defense was tied for 3rd for EPA/Rush and allowed the fewest rushing yards at 86.4 yards a game last year. To me it just felt like the rushing defense was below average, with only Billings as a true run defender. Jones and Ngakoue were both bad against the run, and those two are gone. If Dexter and Pickens can improve, with the elite secondary, this defense may be better than we think.

Absolutely. This team is going to go wherever Caleb takes them. If he has a "normal" rookie year, we will probably end up with 7-9 wins. If he has a year that many expect him to have (just based on historical trends), the Bears should win 10+. I just found it interesting that the Bears were 11th (higher than expected) and had the biggest DVOA jump that I could find (ever). This year's team should be better, if not as good as that team was but for an entire year. The 11th best team is a 10 win team, which tracks with pretty much all other metrics, SoS, WAR, AV, PFF, etc. I like that kinda party!

So the Bears ended up as the 22nd-best team for Total DVOA for the season. However, they finished 11th in Weighted DVOA (games later in the season have more value) which was somewhat surprising to me. 26 teams remained within 4 spots +/- when comparing season DVOA and Weighted DVOA. That leaves 6 teams that moved more than normal, 2 teams jumped up 11, and 4 teams dropped between 5 and 7 spots: 1. CHI +11 (+13.8) 2. LVR +11 (+12.7) ------------------------ 29. CLE -5 30. HOU -6 31. JAX -7 32. PHI -7 So a few things. I am not giving CHI or LVR enough credit for last year's last season surge and I am probably giving HOU, JAX, and PHI too much credit when they benefitted greatly from hot starts. PHI for example, ended the season 21st in Weighted DVOA. That projects for them to have a losing record this year. Going off Weighted DVOA, this is how the season projects for these 6 teams: CHI 11-6 LVR 10-7 CLE 9-8 HOU 8-9 JAX 8-9 PHI 7-10 Obviously, more data goes into outcomes, but it is nice to see the Bears projections matching up across multiple data sets whereas a team like PHI is all over the map. https://ftnfantasy.com/dvoa/nfl/team-total-dvoa

lol good one, the vote is day to day.

It was his own vote.

Nate Davis snubbed, he had one vote.

That is a good list. Lewis is also like a dad/uncle to some of the younger guys as he is the age of their parents lol. He is like a team elder or shaman. He has seen so much football that he can provide something that no other player can (outside of Scales). Adding him as a coach would be a smart move.

Yes we have 2 spots available. You can move a player, then add another.

Another comparison, if you just use record and pts differential, here are the Bears comps over the last 15 years. Anything older doesn't seem like a valid comparison because how the game has changed. 2019 - Ravens 4-0 +66 > 14-2 2013 - Seahawks 4-0 +74 > 13-3* (won SB) 2012 - Seahawks 4-0 +78 > 11-5 2011 - Lions 4-0 +67 > 10-6 So the last 4 teams to go undefeated in the preseason with a +60 pts differential went a combined 48-16 (12-4 average record) in that upcoming season. If you average the two sets of comparisons (PFF Grades + Record/Pt Diff), the Bears are projected to finish 11-6.