adam

If the Texans score 52 on the Bears, just fold the franchise.

Tua needs to retire, he has more guaranteed money than 10 generations of his family will ever need. He is on at least concussion #6.

Concerns about Waldron and the Oline more than Williams. Definitely some missed throws but some odd route concepts too. Booker was held bad on Pollard TD run, would've had the tackle easily. He needs to sell it better and put his arms up. Stevenson had a 2nd INT in his hands but Okonkwo should've been called for OPI then got the TD. Taylor and Hardy are going to make this an above average line. Walker also played really well. Another week and another top graded game for JJ. That contract looks amazing. They should've traded Velus when they had the chance. They look silly now. Muffing it is one thing, but mistiming it so bad that you kick it 20 yards forward is cartoon level stuff. Carter and Herbert should be the returners going forward. Don't overthink this. Scott should be playing and with Rome down for a few weeks, bring up Johnson.

Prime Time Game, on the road. Hard to see anyway the Bears win this but Indy did give HOU fits all game and kept it close. I hope the defense can continue it's solid play but if they allowed 17 to TEN then that is probably high 20s to HOU. The offense has to play better all around. Stick to the run game, get Kmet involved, and more presnap motion. This was always a loss for me, so I will say HOU 27-20.

You can tell whoever wrote this article, has no clue about what they are writing about, probably done with AI: Spears is going into his 2nd year and is RB2. Why would that make him hard to prepare for lol? Then the same thing applies to Roschon. Stopping Pollard and Spears is going to be the key. Whether that is rushing or the screen game, the LBs are going to have to have a clean game. I am not worried about Ridley or Boyd with the Bears secondary.

It looks like Hopkins won't play:

Odunze against CB3 is going to be fun to watch.

If you do a position-by-position comparison with a team like GB, the Bears are comparable. However, everyone says it's a 2-dog race for the North. GB only won 2 games more than the Bears and were only 3-2 in their last 5 regular season game (4-3 with playoffs). These teams are a lot closer than the Bears are getting credit for. Love played a solid 8 game stretch, but we have seen QBs do that and then go poof (NE backups were notorious for this). He might be the real deal but he is not a sure thing just yet. Teams had zero tape on him, and now have an entire season of tape to pick up on tendencies.

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.