Bears have 11 days between games. SEA, their next opponent, plays on Sunday Night Football, so the Bears will have a full +3 days of rest advantage. Typically, it is closer to 2.5 when teams playing at noon on Sunday. So the Bears get the longest possible rest advantage outside of a real bye week that you can get.

Thru the first 7 weeks, the Bears are 5-2, and have weathered the storm of injuries. They are 13th in Passing Offense, 2nd in Rushing Offense, and 5th in Total Offense. On defense, they are 20th against the Pass, surprisingly 6th against the run, and 11th overall. They are also 8th in Scoring Offense and Scoring Defense.

Right now there are 4 teams in the top 10 for Scoring Offense and Defense: SF, JAX, KC, and CHI. Pretty good company, a combined record of 19-4.

The good news is only one of those teams is on their remaining schedule: JAX in Week 13 (in CHI).

After the SEA game, the Bears get TB, their real bye, then NO. At a minimum, that should be 7-3 with a shot at 8-2. In that same window, MIN has @DET, BUF, @GB, and @SF. At best, that is probably 8-2, but could easily be 6-4 with 3 tough road games and BUF at home. So either way the Bears could be headed to DET for Thanksgiving in 1st place in the North.

The crazy part is the NFC North champ will almost assuredly play one of the other NFC North teams in the Wild Card round. The sweet spot seems to be the 5th or 6th seed as those teams will play the NFC East Division winner (currently NYG at 3-2-1) or the NFC South winner (currently CAR at 3-2). The #2 Seed is more than likely going to be the NFC North winner who would play the #7 seed which is currently DET, and projected to be GB again.

4 hours ago, adam said:

In that same window, MIN has @DET, BUF, @GB, and @SF. At best, that is probably 8-2, but could easily be 6-4 with 3 tough road games and BUF at home. So either way the Bears could be headed to DET for Thanksgiving in 1st place in the North.

Admittedly I haven’t watched a lot of Minny ball outside of their game against Chicago. But I feel they are paper tigers and destined for a big fall soon. There was no question Chicago should have beat them when they played each other and would’ve had Caleb not gone down.

A reminder that Sweat will be returning for the Seattle game. I hope that to be a positive and noticeable improvement. Shortly after that game the NFL trade deadline will be looming. Is there a chance Chicago makes a splash before of after they play the Seahawks?

1 hour ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

A reminder that Sweat will be returning for the Seattle game. I hope that to be a positive and noticeable improvement. Shortly after that game the NFL trade deadline will be looming. Is there a chance Chicago makes a splash before of after they play the Seahawks?

it might be a little early, but if you get a guy now, you have a longer stretch of time to get him ready before Seattle.

But if the Bears call with urgency, the price goes up, so...

9 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

it might be a little early, but if you get a guy now, you have a longer stretch of time to get him ready before Seattle.

But if the Bears call with urgency, the price goes up, so...

I dont think the Bears invest much, maybe 4th or 5th if they do. One, the salary cap doesn't have much to spend. Two, Ben Johnson loves having draft picks. Last year he told Ryan no, when asked to trade for Jermaine Johnson DE NYJ.

2 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

it might be a little early, but if you get a guy now, you have a longer stretch of time to get him ready before Seattle.

But if the Bears call with urgency, the price goes up, so...

We're not desperate. The price will be the price...

6 hours ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

I dont think the Bears invest much, maybe 4th or 5th if they do. One, the salary cap doesn't have much to spend. Two, Ben Johnson loves having draft picks. Last year he told Ryan no, when asked to trade for Jermaine Johnson DE NYJ.

i think the salary cap implications would be for next year, and we should have over $100 Million in space. Caleb will get some, but we will redo the defense too?

Season Projections thru 7 games:

Passing
Williams 308-434, 71.0%, 3,570 YDS, 8.2 Y/A, 18 TD, 4 INT, 42 Sacks

Rushing
Swift 282-1,156-17 (Career Best 1,087)
Monangai 210-1,134-11 (Career Best 783)
Williams 84-448-7 (Career Best 489)

Receiving
Burden 85-1,192-5 (Career Best 652)
Odunze 58-925-0 (Career Best 734)
Loveland 63-592-5 (Career Best 713)
Raymond 63-592-3 (Career Best 616)
Swift 53-369-0 (Career Best 452)

To get to 4K Passing, Caleb needs to average 298 a game for the last 10 games.

Swift is about to have a record year for himself, on pace for ove 1,500 total yards and 17 TDs. I always thought of him a 3rd Down outside the numbers type of runner, at least when he was in Detroit. He has completely changed his game since coming to the Bears. He is 3rd in the NFC in rushing, only behind Bijan and Gibbs.

If Monangai misses additional time, obviously his projection will drop, but right now the Bears have 2x 1,100 Rushers. That has only happened one other time, the 2009 Panthers with Stewart and Williams (16g season).

Burden is a problem for the opponents. He is 9th in receptions, 8th in yards, but 18th in targets. He has the highest (YACOE) YAC over expected for WRs. He is already a top 10 WR in the NFL with the fewest targets of the bunch. If he gets more targets he will be in the top 5 easily.

Odunze is settling in as a solid WR2, like Tee Higgins. Would be nice to see him come down with a few more balls and hit 1K. If Caleb is going to get to 4K, Odunze gets to 1K. There will be around 20 Receivers (WR+TE) with over 1K Receiving Yards this year. Would be crazy to have 2x 1K RBs and 2x 1K WRs in the same season. That has never happened before.

Loveland started last season slow, with 11-116 yards thru his first 6 games, then exploded down the stretch, so I expect his number to go way up from the current projection. Especially with Kmet out for the year. Loveland will see more snaps.