The Ben Johnson Effect

[adam]

The Bears offensive rankings after 8 games with last season's rankings as a comparison. It is like two different teams.
 

Point Per Game: 26.9 (6th) > 18.2 (28th)

Yards Per Game: 378.4 (T-3rd) > 283.5 (32nd)

Yards Per Play: 5.9 (T-4th) > 4.5 (32nd)

EPA/Play: +0.04 (9th) > -0.13 (26th)

Pass Yds Per Game: 234.0 (10th) > 181.5 (31st)

Rush Yds Per Game: 144.4 (2nd) > 102.0 (25th)

 

The last time the Bears had an offense that ranked in the top 10 in Pts and Yds was 2013 (2nd in Pts, 8th in Yds).

 

Last season's top 10 scoring teams all had winning records, and 9 out of 10 made the playoffs. The only team that didn't make the playoffs was the Bengals at 9-8. However, they were nowhere near as balanced as the Bears' offense is this year.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Not to be Debbie Downer, but they have also played bottom barrel defenses. The Bears are starting to put it together, so they might still perform offensively.

[adam]

48 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Not to be Debbie Downer, but they have also played bottom barrel defenses. The Bears are starting to put it together, so they might still perform offensively.

That is fair, but that is why you wait until the sample size is large enough to be useful. In this case, we are basically through half of the season with a top 5 offense. Even with a tougher schedule, that will drop some, but I doubt they fall out of the top 10.

[Bears4Ever_34]

To be a top 5 offense wasn't even under consideration for me when I started contemplating what realistic expectations were for the offense this year. I thought they'd be marginally improved—somewhere in the 20's—but top 5 is remarkable. 

Obviously, as someone mentioned, the level of competition is going to ramp up the rest of the way. We'll see where the numbers stand at the end of the season, but Ben Johnson did say this team would be playing their best ball in December and January. If he's right about that, things could get exciting.