adam

People seem to memory hole the fact that the Bears had a ton of injuries on defense last year. Gordon and Johnson played in 1 game together, against PHI. Gordon only played in 3 games total. Johnson only played starter level snaps in 2 games. To put this into perspective, Nahshon Wright played 1041 snaps, Johnson and Gordon combined had 400. Nick freaking McCloud had 436. There were at least 2 weeks, where the Bears starting LBs started the season as LB4 and lower. Edmunds and Edwards combined to miss 11 games. Sewell missed 5. Turner (high draft pick) and Odeyingbo (FA $ signing) missed a combined 22 games. Booker missed another 7. Jarrett missed 3 and seemed limited for most of the year. Injuries are part of the game, but the Bears were missing at least 2+ starter/key contributor on defense every week last season. Half the starting defense was missing for 3 weeks 12-14 last year. The patchwork was crazy. Week 1 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, or Booker (4) Week 2 - No Gordon, Booker, only 20 snaps for Johnson (2.5) Week 3 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, or Booker (4) Week 4 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, Jarrett, or Booker (5) Week 6 - No Johnson, Jarrett, or Booker (3) Week 7 - No Johnson, Jarrett, or Booker (3) Week 8 - No Johnson, Gordon, Stevenson, or Booker (4) - Literally no CBs Week 9 - No Johnson, Gordon, or Turner (3) Week 10 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, Turner, or Odeyingbo (5) Week 11 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, Turner, or Odeyingbo (5) Week 12 - No Johnson, Gordon, Edwards, Edmunds, Sewell, Turner, or Odeyingbo (7) Week 13 - No Edwards, Edmunds, Stevenson, Sewell, Turner, or Odeyingbo (6) - Literally no LBs Week 14 - No Edmunds, Gordon, Stevenson, Turner, or Odeyingbo, Sewell 1 snap (6) Week 15 - No Edmunds, Gordon, Turner, or Odeyingbo, Sewell 3 snaps (4.9) Week 16 - No Gordon, Sewell, Turner, or Odeyingbo (4) Week 17 - No Gordon, Turner, or Odeyingbo (3) Week 18 - No Gordon, Turner, or Odeyingbo (3)

The way I see it is if they finish with 8 or 9 wins and miss the playoffs, it will be a disappointing season. There is no way around it. I feel like 10-11 is probably the realistic target, and 12+ wins is if everything goes right.

The 2025 Bears vs the 2026 schedule = 8 or 9 win team, but this is not the 2025 Bears. This is the 2nd year in the system. DET jumped 3 games in each the 2nd and 3rd years of Johnson's offense. They went from 9-8, to 12-5, to 15-2.

It is a new year, but there are several ways to look at this. If you are looking at last year as a fluke, then sure, regression will happen just based on the competition level, but that typically is only related to 3 games on the schedule per year that factor in. However, just on paper, only 4 teams had a better record than the Bears last year (that they play). So if you just used that as a measuring stick, the Bears should only lose 4 games, if nothing else is considered. The Bears have the 3rd fewest miles traveled, the most rest differential, and a favorable bye week. None of those may matter, but rarely are the Bears afforded those hidden benefits related to rest and recovery. The Bears season is going to come down to their division record. They lost 2 games outside of the Division last year. So just say they lose 4, 2 of the 3 games against 1st place teams, but go from 2-4 to 4-2 in the division. They would still end up at 11-6. So they really need to sweep MIN, and at least split with GB and DET.

DET is probably gonna win 12+ games, NO, NYJ, CAR, ARZ, MIA, TB, ATL, TEN, and NYG. They don't play GB or CHI on the road until Weeks 17 and 18. By then they may have already won 12 games. GB and MIN both look like 9 win teams, plus or minus a win. So I think it is going to come down to CHI and DET between 11 and 13 wins, and GB and MIN between 8-10 wins. Just based on the current schedules, DET probably has the edge

Interestingly enough, BUF plays GB on SNF before traveling home to play the Bears the next Saturday. The Bears play MIA at noon, so the Bears actually have a 7 hour edge in rest. Also, leading up to the Bears game, BUF plays in GB, in NE, and at home against KC before playing the Bears. They may be beat up and tired by then. Then for the Christmas game, because the Bears play BUF on Saturday, they have an extra day of rest compared to GB who plays on Sunday, then the Bears on Friday.

There are so many things actually going the Bears way related to the schedule, they have the ideal bye week, the 3rd fewest travel miles, and have the most rest differential. Bears are favored in 12 games, so everything is checking out across different metrics.

If I was optimistic, I would probably say 14-3. NE was 14-3 and played the easiest schedule for a SB team in NFL History. SEA, BUF, and JAX are the only other teams on the schedule that finished last year with a better record than the Bears. If you take out division games, the Bears should sweep the NFC South as no team even finished with a winning record last year (4 wins), they should beat MIA and NYJ, that is 6 wins (10-2 with division games), then they have PHI, SEA, NE, BUF, and JAX as the remaining 5 games. 3-2 in those games, considering home/away games. If JAX, NE, or PHI were away, I would go with losses, but they are all at home.

1 - SUN, September 13 12:00 p.m. at Panthers/Young - WIN 2 - SUN, September 20 12:00 p.m. Vikings/McCarthy-Murray - WIN 3 - MON, September 28 7:20 p.m. Eagles/Hurts (MNF) - WIN 4 - SUN, October 4 12:00 p.m. Jets/Smith - WIN 5 - SUN, October 11 3:25 p.m. at Packers/Love - LOSS (Parsons-dependent) 6 - SUN, October 18 12:00 p.m. at Falcons/Penix-Tua - WIN 7 - THU, October 22 7:15 p.m. Patriots/Maye (TNF) - WIN 8 - MON, November 2 7:20 p.m. at Seahawks/Darnold (MNF) - LOSS 9 - SUN, November 8 7:20 p.m. Buccaneers/Mayfield - WIN 10 - Bye (7-2) 11 - SUN, November 22 12:00 p.m. Saints/Shough - WIN 12 - THU, November 26 12:00 p.m. at Lions/Goff (TNF) - LOSS 13 - SUN, December 6 12:00 p.m. Jaguars/Lawrence - WIN 14 - SUN, December 13 12:00 p.m. at Dolphins/Willis - WIN 15 - SAT, December 19 7:20 p.m. at Bills/Allen (SAT) - LOSS, I would not be surprised if players get sick from going from the heat in Miami to Buffalo in short order. 16 - FRI, December 25 12:00 p.m. Packers/Love (FRI) - WIN 17 - SUN, January 3 3:25 p.m. Lions/Goff - WIN 18 - TBD, January 10 TBD at Vikings/McCarthy-Murray - WIN 13-4 based on a 4-2 division record?

The worst stretch is NE at home on TNF on short rest to then go to SEA the following week. At least that is MNF and they will have extra rest for that game. Pre-bye 9 games, at worst 5-4, probably 6-3 or better. Post bye 8 games, at worst 4-4, probably 5-3, for an 11-6 record, give or take a win or two. A lot has to go wrong to finish 9-8. Play to expectation, seems like 11-12 wins. 3-3 in the Division (at worst), CAR, NYJ, ATL, NO, MIA seems like 8 wins. Then PHI, NE, SEA, TB, JAX and BUF. It feels like a split with those at 3-3 is 11 wins without a reach. Am I missing something? I could see the Bears sweeping MIN, splitting with GB/DET for a 4-2 record, which would push the wins to 12. PHI, NE, TB, JAX are all at home. BUF and SEA are the really tough road games.

Opening up against CAR, MIN, PHI, and NYJ before going to GB. Should be at least 3-1 heading to GB. Will Parsons be 100% on Oct 11th? He tore his ACL on December 14th and didn't have surgery until the 29th. October 11th would be 9 months and 13 days post surgery. 9-12 months is the typical recovery time. So there is a good chance he is not ready to play in Week 5. Then after GB, they play ATL, but then turn around and play NE at home on TNF. So the Bears will be traveling back from ATL while NE is traveling from home to Chicago. The Bears get a mini-bye and play their next game in SEA. They are the only team in the NFL to play the Super Bowl teams in back to back weeks. Fun. Interestingly, the Bears get a huge chunk of time at home, because they then play TB at home, they have their bye week, and come out of their bye to play NO at home. They then go on short rest to DET for Thanksgiving, come back home on long rest to play JAX in Chicago in December, then travel back to back to MIA, then BUF. The temperature difference is going to be crazy. Chi to Mia to Buf in 3 weeks. BUF is also on Saturday, so a short week traveling from a road game to a road game kind sucks. They then return home on another short rest and play on Friday for Christmas at home against GB. They end the season with 3 straight division games, playing DET, then MIN at MIN for Week 18. I wish the bye was more useful, leading into a short week or a road game would've been better. 6 short week games. 2x THU games, 1 FRI, 1 SAT, and 2 games after MNF. However, I do like the more balanced BYE at Week 10. The last 4 years they have either had super early or super late byes in Week 5, 7, 13, and 14. 9-11 is the sweet spot. They play 9 games before the bye and 8 after. They have 4 home and away games after the bye. 3 times they play at least back to back home games, and only twice are they on the road for back to back games.

and this move to more 13-personnel would reduce the overall snap count of the WR group. Thus making Moore even more expendable. Even 12 personnel can cut down on WR snaps, but 13-personnel brings it down to 1x WR, so even Burden or Odunze will be off the field for those plays.

Week 1 - @CAR Week 7 TNF - NE Week 12 - Thanksgiving - @DET

It basically forces teams to use 3 LBs. Looking at LB coverage grades, I was surprised to see D'Marco Jackson as the 2nd highest rated LB in coverage, only behind Fred Warner. 4th was a guy named Devin Bush who played in CLE last year. 18th was TJ Edwards. So the Bears have 3 of the top 18 coverage LBs in the NFL. On the flip side, there are a few others from the division, Cooper from GB was 9th and Campbell from DET was 12th. So the Bears may have gotten ahead of this trend on both offense and defense.

It seems that we finally have one benefit, the 3rd least amount of travel: and if the Bears open the season in Seattle on Wednesday, they would have 3,432 miles already out of the way and have the least amount of travel for the remainder of the season by a huge margin. Panthers are the least with 8,740, but if the Bears got that 3400 out of the way before Carolina even played, the Bears would only have about 7,244 left (the least by 1500 miles). Teams like SF and LAR will spend over 4 days worth of time on airplanes during the season.

Glad to see Caleb working with WRs and Loveland outside of the facility. Burden, Jahdae, Odunze, and Loveland seem to be getting extra work in which is great to see. First at USC then at Northwestern.

Then you add the lack of compensation for the Cunningham stuff and the recent scheduling, it seems that Goodell doesn't care too much for the McCaskeys. If you look at the bye weeks, the Bears have gotten shafted almost every year. They never get a favorable bye. Then when they had an international game, it was considered a home game, so they ended up with only 7 games at Soldier Field.

Another slot option.

I am not saying anyone sucks, just at this point the Bears have gotten zero return on investment for Pick 109 from the 2025 draft. BUF used that pick on Deone Walker, who is a starting DT for the Bills and would be a first round pick in a redraft. The Bears were weak at DT and Poles decided to trade out of that spot and then pick Hyppolite and Frazier with the new picks. That is a terrible exchange. The Bears scouting staff seems biased one way or another. It seems to not work more than it works. So you get Monangai in the 7th but miss on Velus, Pickens, Scott, etc in earlier rounds. I know every team misses on picks but in 5 years Poles has wasted more than an entire draft's worth of picks. That miss rate is too high. He needs to hit on this 2026 draft and all future drafts otherwise there will be a steep dropoff in talent when Caleb's new money hits.

LT is still a question mark, but a healthier Braxton is better than an injured one.

Frazier thing sucks for everyone. The Bears traded Pick #109 and drafted Hyppolite and Frazier. Got literally zero out of that pick. BUF got a productive DL with that pick btw.

For GB, they are betting on Parsons health on defense, and the health of Watson and Kraft on offense. I don't know why Kraft is getting so much love. He had 2 great games last year, but those were the 2 best games of career, and the only two games over 90 yards receiving. So to me, those were outliers, not some new trend. Those games plus 2 games where he had a TD with only 2 receptions really warped his stats per game and per reception. However, for his career, he averages 37 yds per game, which is 8 yards more than Cole Kmet.

Without considering the draft picks, which right now seem to favor the Bears, it seems like every other NFC North team got worse this offseason. GB lost 2 guys on their O-Line, plus Quay Walker, Rashan Gary, and Wicks and Doubs at WR. At some point in the last few years both Doubs and Wicks were anointed as WR1s. GB's big add, Javon Hargrave who was subpar last year in a MIN defense that was really good. They traded for Zaire Franklin, who is a less dynamic Quay Walker. They also lost Malik Willis who was arguably the best QB2 in the NFL. So to me, they will take a step back. They also lost their DC. DET lost Monty, Decker, Glasgow, Reader, and Raymond and only added Cade Mays at Center. They also added Pacheco but he does not get the dirty yards that Monty got. They seem to be taking another step back. Another team that expects to get better from within. MIN lost Greenard, Kelly, Hargrave, Allen, and Harrison Smith. That defense will not be the same, and they still have 9 at QB. Their big add was Eric Wilson at LB? What am I missing here? How are they winning 8 games? The Bears may not have gotten substantially better on paper, but they didn't get worse. Byard Brisker becomes Bryant Thieneman, which should be an overall upgrade. Edmunds to Bush is an upgrade. The two biggest losses outside of the guys already mentioned are Moore and Dalman. Dalman was literally replaced by 2 guys, and Moore's targets are going to Burden, Odunze, Loveland, Thomas, Raymond, and Roush. So not all of Moore has to be replaced by a rookie.

I think Jacas and Jones were their top 2 guys at 57, Jacas goes at 55, so you could with C#1 at 57. It does make sense. I guess the only argument you could make is trading back from 57 to get more in return than 60, but then you risk getting sniped at 58 and 59.