Schedule release (building it as it comes out)

[adam]

Week 1 - Vikings at Bears (MNF) - W
Week 2 - Bears at Lions - L (short week, team still gelling) 
Week 3 - Cowboys at Bears - W
Week 4 - Bears at Raiders - W
3-1

Week 5 - BYE WEEK
Week 6 - Bears at Commanders (MNF) - W (2024 rematch with a much better team/coach, bye gives them an extra week to prepare)
Week 7 - Saints at Bears - W
Week 8 - Bears at Ravens - L
Week 9 - Bears at Bengals - L
2-2

Week 10 - Giants at Bears - W
Week 11 - Bears at Vikings - W
Week 12 - Steelers at Bears - W
Week 13 - Bears at Eagles (FRI) - L
3-1

Week 14 - Bears at Packers - L
Week 15 - Browns at Bears - W
Week 16 - Packers at Bears (SAT) - W
Week 17 - Bears at 49ers (SNF) - L
Week 18 - Lions at Bears - W
3-2

11-6

If the Bears can beat DAL in Week 3 at home and handle business in the division at home, they have a great chance at going 8-0 at home with the other games being NO, NYG, PIT, and CLE. 

 

[Stinger226]

33 minutes ago, adam said:

Week 1 - Vikings at Bears (MNF) - W
Week 2 - Bears at Lions - L (short week, team still gelling) 
Week 3 - Cowboys at Bears - W
Week 4 - Bears at Raiders - W
3-1

Week 5 - BYE WEEK
Week 6 - Bears at Commanders (MNF) - W (2024 rematch with a much better team/coach, bye gives them an extra week to prepare)
Week 7 - Saints at Bears - W
Week 8 - Bears at Ravens - L
Week 9 - Bears at Bengals - L
2-2

Week 10 - Giants at Bears - W
Week 11 - Bears at Vikings - W
Week 12 - Steelers at Bears - W
Week 13 - Bears at Eagles (FRI) - L
3-1

Week 14 - Bears at Packers - L
Week 15 - Browns at Bears - W
Week 16 - Packers at Bears (SAT) - W
Week 17 - Bears at 49ers (SNF) - L
Week 18 - Lions at Bears - W
3-2

11-6

If the Bears can beat DAL in Week 3 at home and handle business in the division at home, they have a great chance at going 8-0 at home with the other games being NO, NYG, PIT, and CLE. 

 

I'll take that.

[AZ54]

On 5/14/2025 at 1:29 AM, BearFan PHX said:

I think teams with weak schedules who get the playoffs usually dont do very well. I kinda like a tough schedule, because if you succeed, you know what youve got?

Agreed.  

[adam]

Here are the QB matchups with what we know today. Depending on how you view Caleb, there will only be a handful of games where the other team has the better QB. Right now BAL and CIN? I don't think Goff w/o Johnson is better than Caleb w/ Johnson. I think Caleb is at least comparable to Hurts, Daniels, Purdy, and Love. 

Week 1 - McCarthy (first pro start)
Week 2 - Goff - 6th QBR
Week 3 - Prescott (3rd game back since injury + new HC)
Week 4 - Geno Smith (new team)
Week 5 - BYE WEEK
Week 6 - Daniels  - 4th QBR
Week 7 - Rattler/Shough
Week 8 - Jackson - 1st QBR
Week 9 - Burrow - 3rd QBR
Week 10 - Wilson/Dart
Week 11 - McCarthy
Week 12 - Rudolph/(Rodgers)?
Week 13 - Hurts - 10th QBR
Week 14 - Love - 5th QBR
Week 15 - Pickett/Flacco/Gabriel/Sanders
Week 16 - Love - 5th QBR, Love vs CHI in 2024 (1 TD, 1 INT)
Week 17 - Purdy - 7th QBR
Week 18 - Goff - 6th QBR (Goff outdoors in January)

9 games against top 10 QBR QBs, 8 games against non-top 10 QBR QBs. I expect Caleb to be a top-12 QB this year for QBR. 

[adam]

I have seen a lot of projections with the Bears automatically losing to WAS in Week 6. Besides the Bears beating them last year before that ridiculous hail mary, this is who they faced the last 6 weeks of their season, and they lost to Cooper Rush, then won 5 straight. Their signature win on the season was a Week 3 win over Joe Burrow and the winless Bengals. 

[Stinger226]

You do notice, none of them were juggernaut defenses either.

[BearFan PHX]

Jayden Daniels isnt that great. He is a lot like Justin Fields - amazing arm, great with his feet, but not ready to read a fully dimensional offense.

Kliff Kingsbury has gotten the most out of him - really amazing results. Let's see if it continues this year. It's hard to make a QB look good consistently if they cant read a defense, eventually the NFL will catch up to what you're doing schematically, and force Daniels to play the position, and then i believe he will be exposed..

[adam]

20 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

You do notice, none of them were juggernaut defenses either.

Yeah, but the media is eating them up. Daniels in MVP talks and the Commanders are magically a top 5 team in the NFL. They had a cream puff schedule and then had the easiest path in the playoffs. 

20 hours ago, BearFan PHX said:

Jayden Daniels isnt that great. He is a lot like Justin Fields - amazing arm, great with his feet, but not ready to read a fully dimensional offense.

Kliff Kingsbury has gotten the most out of him - really amazing results. Let's see if it continues this year. It's hard to make a QB look good consistently if they cant read a defense, eventually the NFL will catch up to what you're doing schematically, and force Daniels to play the position, and then i believe he will be exposed..

I think Daniels is a better passer than Fields, but the frame scares the hell out of me. He is one hit away from being out for the year.

I read something about what Kingsbury did, and it was essentially one read, checkdown, then scramble. Pre-snap determines first read, hike the ball, first read yes or no, checkdown yes or no, then scramble. This allowed Daniels to get the ball out of his hands but it also didn't really have him doing too much processing. That can only get you so far. 

[BearFan PHX]

10 minutes ago, adam said:

I think Daniels is a better passer than Fields, but the frame scares the hell out of me. He is one hit away from being out for the year.

I read something about what Kingsbury did, and it was essentially one read, checkdown, then scramble. Pre-snap determines first read, hike the ball, first read yes or no, checkdown yes or no, then scramble. This allowed Daniels to get the ball out of his hands but it also didn't really have him doing too much processing. That can only get you so far. 

When I say passer, in this case, I just mean the physical act of throwing the ball, not including decision making. And I personally have always thought that Fields has an incredible arm. He has a killer deep ball, very accurate. I think Fields' body with Bagent's brain would make an incredible QB, for example.

As for your description of Kingsbury's scheme, I totally agree. If you watch film of Daniels, he locks on to his primary receiver before the snap, and its yes, or run. You almost never see his head turn. A couple plays have what looks like a scripted look off, but i dont see Daniels making multiple reads. Ive only seen him do that a handful of times, overwhelmingly, it is as you described, and I agree the NFL will catch up to it.

But how does Kingsbury get his primary receiver so wide open on so many plays? That's the part thats astounding to me!

[adam]

14 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

When I say passer, in this case, I just mean the physical act of throwing the ball, not including decision making. And I personally have always thought that Fields has an incredible arm. He has a killer deep ball, very accurate. I think Fields' body with Bagent's brain would make an incredible QB, for example.

As for your description of Kingsbury's scheme, I totally agree. If you watch film of Daniels, he locks on to his primary receiver before the snap, and its yes, or run. You almost never see his head turn. A couple plays have what looks like a scripted look off, but i dont see Daniels making multiple reads. Ive only seen him do that a handful of times, overwhelmingly, it is as you described, and I agree the NFL will catch up to it.

But how does Kingsbury get his primary receiver so wide open on so many plays? That's the part thats astounding to me!

I agree on Fields.

I think it has to do with just taking what the defense gave them. I know he averaged fewer intended air yards than Caleb did per throw, so he had a lot of short passes.

[BearFan PHX]

20 minutes ago, adam said:

I agree on Fields.

I think it has to do with just taking what the defense gave them. I know he averaged fewer intended air yards than Caleb did per throw, so he had a lot of short passes.

still, it seemed like the primary receiver was open most of the time. I gotta give credit to Kingsbury for that. And I didnt do any kind of film analysis or anything, but Id love to know how he gets his first read open so much.

But we agree that its basically a one read and run offense for Daniels, and that cant be sustainable?

[adam]

25 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

still, it seemed like the primary receiver was open most of the time. I gotta give credit to Kingsbury for that. And I didnt do any kind of film analysis or anything, but Id love to know how he gets his first read open so much.

But we agree that its basically a one read and run offense for Daniels, and that cant be sustainable?

It is a great question, he did pretty well with Kyler, who peaked in years 2 and 3 in that offense, then the wheels came off in Year 4. 

[BearFan PHX]

I think Kingsbury is a real offensive genius. I also understand him to be difficult to be around. I'm happy with Ben Johnson as our coach, but I think Kingsbury is his equal in Xs and Os, but BJ is the far better head coach.

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, BearFan PHX said:

But we agree that its basically a one read and run offense for Daniels, and that cant be sustainable?

I don't agree.  And honestly, I don't believe you are seeing what he's doing.  Daniels head is very calm in the pocket and that's what you want.  He scans with his eyes then flips his hips and throws.  Not staring at his primary.  Defenders are too smart for this and they didn't have Randy Moss to offset that.  I know you won't agree with this assessment, but it's simply my opinion.  Daniels did some fantastic things last year and I don't see a letdown this year.

[adam]

29 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

I don't agree.  And honestly, I don't believe you are seeing what he's doing.  Daniels head is very calm in the pocket and that's what you want.  He scans with his eyes then flips his hips and throws.  Not staring at his primary.  Defenders are too smart for this and they didn't have Randy Moss to offset that.  I know you won't agree with this assessment, but it's simply my opinion.  Daniels did some fantastic things last year and I don't see a letdown this year.

I will have to find the stat, but I know Daniels was in the top 10 for throwing to his first read and he was #1 in scrambling under pressure. So those sort of lend themselves to the fact that he would throw to his first read or run majority of the time. Not always, but he did one of those two things a lot.

[Mongo3451]

24 minutes ago, adam said:

I will have to find the stat, but I know Daniels was in the top 10 for throwing to his first read and he was #1 in scrambling under pressure. So those sort of lend themselves to the fact that he would throw to his first read or run majority of the time. Not always, but he did one of those two things a lot.

He did, but it was usually a good decision.  There are many instances of him going through progressions and being successful.

[adam]

33 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

He did, but it was usually a good decision.  There are many instances of him going through progressions and being successful.

He really stressed the defenses with the threat of running, and he did make good decisions, but rushing+sacks near 200 times is unsustainable. Daniels had 148 rushing attempts and was sacked 47 times, for 195 potential hits. 

Lamar Jackson had 139 rushing attempts + 23 sacks = 162
Josh Allen had 102 rushing attempts + 14 sacks = 116

Caleb had twice as many sacks and was still basically 25% lower: 81+68 = 149
If Caleb cuts his sacks in half he would be near Josh Allen's range which seems like the sweet spot for QBs that extend plays. 

 

There are 2x QBs in NFL history to have over 40 sacks and 130 rushing attempts in a season, 2022 Justin Fields (55+160=210) and 2024 Jayden Daniels (47+148=195). Daniels had 4+35 more in the playoffs, so 234 over 20 games is pretty wild. That will catch up to him. 

[adam]

Most of Daniels advanced stats (EPA, QBR, even PFF) were artificially inflated because of his scrambles. He is still a good QB, but we all saw what that fluff looked like with Fields and once they pinned him in and took away his first read, he really fell off a cliff.

[BearFan PHX]

2 hours ago, Mongo3451 said:

I don't agree.  And honestly, I don't believe you are seeing what he's doing.  Daniels head is very calm in the pocket and that's what you want.  He scans with his eyes then flips his hips and throws.  Not staring at his primary.  Defenders are too smart for this and they didn't have Randy Moss to offset that.  I know you won't agree with this assessment, but it's simply my opinion.  Daniels did some fantastic things last year and I don't see a letdown this year.

yeah its cool if we disagree. i think Daniels is a fantastic athlete, but I think 90%+ of the time, he was making a single read. And a lot of the time, his head was aiming right at that WR even before the snap. I agree NFL defenders should be all over that, but somehow they got open anyway. Im impressed with Kingsbury's ability to make that happen. it is kind of amazing, because you're right about defenders keying.

As for scanning with eyes, I think the idea is that you move your head to influence defenders too. I dont see other QBs in the league going thru progressions without moving their head?

As for your last sentence here, it's a good argument. Whatever they did obviously worked. I am surprised that it did, and I do predict the league catches up with it, but until they do, success is the best predictor of success, so you may well be right about not seeing a letdown.
 

1 hour ago, Mongo3451 said:

He did, but it was usually a good decision.  There are many instances of him going through progressions and being successful.

Well first off, a HUGE % of the time his firest read was open, which is why Im singing Kingsbury's praises. I don't know how he did that. I hope we can do that! And to be fair, when the first read is open, theres no reason to turn your head.

But I didnt see more than a small handful of plays where Daniel's head moved. I didnt see him read to second and third options very much at all. It was mostly first read, or run when I watched him.

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, BearFan PHX said:

As for scanning with eyes, I think the idea is that you move your head to influence defenders too. I dont see other QBs in the league going thru progressions without moving their head?

It's actually opposite.  They talk about QB's manipulating with their eyes, not their head.  If you watch video of "quiet headed" QB's like Brady, Burrow, Rodgers and Stafford, they don't move their heads much.  The main time you do see them move their heads are when their initial read is outside in and they have jump to the opposite side of the field.  That's usually determined pre snap.  I'm normal situations, they wait until they pull the trigger to flip hips and head to the target.  

[BearFan PHX]

44 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

It's actually opposite.  They talk about QB's manipulating with their eyes, not their head.  If you watch video of "quiet headed" QB's like Brady, Burrow, Rodgers and Stafford, they don't move their heads much.  The main time you do see them move their heads are when their initial read is outside in and they have jump to the opposite side of the field.  That's usually determined pre snap.  I'm normal situations, they wait until they pull the trigger to flip hips and head to the target.  

I dunno man I think were just gonna have to disagree on this one  

[Mongo3451]

17 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

I dunno man I think were just gonna have to disagree on this one  

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