Week 18 Official Game Thread - CHI @ GB, SUN 1/5, 12PM, FOX, CHI +9, 40.5 O/U

[adam]

We are finally put out of our misery for this season at around 3pm on Sunday. 

The Bears played GB tough the last time, but have not been the same team in weeks. Just like the 2nd game against DET and MIN, I don't see this one going too well. 

Game time temps are supposed to be in the low-20s to high teens with wind chills as low as 10 degrees. I can't see Santos making a kick longer than 40 yards.

I expect them to dink and dunk, try to run the ball (won't be successful because of the OLine and Swift) and just survive the game without any major injuries.

GB is playing for WC positioning, and it is a pretty big deal. It will be the difference between a game at TB/LAR or PHI. Besides weather, TB or LAR are much better matchups than PHI for most of the WC Teams. Washington plays at the same time and GB ends up as the last WC team and plays PHI with a WAS win or a win against CHI and a WAS loss. So if WAS is up big after halftime, GB may pull their starters to rest and prevent injury. I would.

For the Bears, the only thing to watch for is Caleb's numbers. Can he get 207 passing yards to hit 3,600, 1 TD Pass to hit 20, and 21 rushing yards to hit 500. Those would all be huge milestones, especially if he can stay clean in the INT department. In the bad department, Caleb is 3 sacks away from 70, and 8 away from tying David Carr for the most in NFL history. Caleb is already 4th all-time lol, and only needs 2 to pass David Carr's other season of 68. It would be fitting for Caleb to get sacked twice and finish with 69 and 3rd all-time behind Carr (76) and Cunningham (72). Here is hoping he can keep it at 2 or under and not hit 70.

Other potential milestones, Swift needs 106 rushing yards to hit 1K (unlikely). Moore needs 120 yards to hit 1K (possible). Allen needs 81 to hit 800, and Odunze needs 84 to hit 800, Kmet needs 29 to hit 500, and Scott needs 995 to hit 1K. 

One of the more funny ones, Taylor needs 343 punt yards to hit 4K, LMAO. 

The defense literally has no one near any sort of milestone.

 

Back to the game, with GB having everything to play for, at home, in the cold, and CHI having virtually nothing to play for, I see GB winning handily 31-13. 

 

[BearFan PHX]

Hard to know if those sacks show that Caleb is a super stud doing all that with no protection, or a result of his holding the ball too long.

Just like it's hard to know if all those passing yards are Williams making something out of nothing, or working against big zones because we are down multiple scores early in the game.

By my eye, he's a winner and will develop into a true stud for us. That's my bet.

[jason]

2 hours ago, BearFan PHX said:

Hard to know if those sacks show that Caleb is a super stud doing all that with no protection, or a result of his holding the ball too long.

Just like it's hard to know if all those passing yards are Williams making something out of nothing, or working against big zones because we are down multiple scores early in the game.

By my eye, he's a winner and will develop into a true stud for us. That's my bet.

60% Bad OL

25% Bad Coaching/Scheming

15% Holding the ball

[BearFan PHX]

1 hour ago, jason said:

60% Bad OL

25% Bad Coaching/Scheming

15% Holding the ball

I'll take it. That's fair. You can even give him 20%, he certainly needs to continue to grow and develop. Hopefully the next coach can do that for him.

[adam]

7 hours ago, jason said:

60% Bad OL

25% Bad Coaching/Scheming

15% Holding the ball

Receivers dropping passes, miscommunication, running the wrong route is good for 10%.

 

[Mongo3451]

11 hours ago, jason said:

60% Bad OL

25% Bad Coaching/Scheming

15% Holding the ball

20% bad OL.  We have seen enough to know they are both decimated and poorly coached.  We've seen enough. 

60% bad coaching.  Three things: chip blocks are quick and easy.  Over helping in the interior causes a reverse effect.  Lastly, if Caleb is holding the ball you long and creating sacks, ass meet bench, bench talks to brain via ass.  Coaches are the adults in the room.  They need to teach him to protect himself. 

20% Caleb.  He's both tough and stubborn.  If he doesn't lose his stubbornness, his toughness will fail him.

[BearFan PHX]

It's hard to separate bad coaching from bad OL play - they are so interwoven. Like Mongo says for example, if you give the right help, chips etc, then the player isnt on an island, and of course we have seen very poor play by the players, but at the same time players that were terrible on the OL for us have gone on to play well for other teams.

The great thing about football is it is such a team sport. Every player and coach affects every other.

One thing is clear - our team and culture are in ruins. We need someone to come in here and reform our team, before we even look at Xs and Os, and when we do come to scheme, we need to use players to help eachother so we can be successful as a team.

I think you can lay 20% of this on Caleb, but the other 80% is shared by the rest of the players and coaches alike.

[Stinger226]

To be honest I expected to see Caleb  look better towards the end of the season. Totally understand the rookie thing with bad coaching and jacked up OL but still expected him to grow as the season went on. With all the other rookie QBs seemly getting better as the season went on, (NE), (Atl) . Daniels started strong and leveled off and Nix had Payton coaching him. I expected we would see better rapport with his WRs, hold the ball less and learn to throw the ball away better. It didnt get better. Clearly Daniels is ROY and now opens up for discussion on who the best QB in the draft was. Caleb had flashes during the year which leaves us with the thought he will play much better in the future but I now have some doubt on (the greatness tag). There is only so much you can blame on coaching and OL.

[BearFan PHX]

15 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

To be honest I expected to see Caleb  look better towards the end of the season. Totally understand the rookie thing with bad coaching and jacked up OL but still expected him to grow as the season went on. With all the other rookie QBs seemly getting better as the season went on, (NE), (Atl) . Daniels started strong and leveled off and Nix had Payton coaching him. I expected we would see better rapport with his WRs, hold the ball less and learn to throw the ball away better. It didnt get better. Clearly Daniels is ROY and now opens up for discussion on who the best QB in the draft was. Caleb had flashes during the year which leaves us with the thought he will play much better in the future but I now have some doubt on (the greatness tag). There is only so much you can blame on coaching and OL.

I cant disagree more. In a couple years no one will be saying that Caleb wasnt the best QB in this draft.

[adam]

On 1/1/2025 at 6:50 AM, Stinger226 said:

To be honest I expected to see Caleb  look better towards the end of the season. Totally understand the rookie thing with bad coaching and jacked up OL but still expected him to grow as the season went on. With all the other rookie QBs seemly getting better as the season went on, (NE), (Atl) . Daniels started strong and leveled off and Nix had Payton coaching him. I expected we would see better rapport with his WRs, hold the ball less and learn to throw the ball away better. It didnt get better. Clearly Daniels is ROY and now opens up for discussion on who the best QB in the draft was. Caleb had flashes during the year which leaves us with the thought he will play much better in the future but I now have some doubt on (the greatness tag). There is only so much you can blame on coaching and OL.

I think we all expected a different season as a whole. I think he has improved, but that is really hard to see considering the chaos around him. The way the schedule played out also makes it challenging to compare early vs late. However, go back and just watch the Week 1 game against TEN and then any recent game. You can clearly tell he has improved. 

For the other QBs, I am not so sure any growth is visible. Daniels still has 1x 300-yd game (against Bears), and his signature win is a game against PHI where Kenny Pickett was at QB. Daniels only had 2 INTs in his first 10 starts and has 7 INTs in his last his last 6 games. 

Maye has been consistently mediocre all year. Outside of his scrambling, that is the only thing keeping him viable. Otherwise he is good for an INT per game. 

Nix? How about 6 INTs in his last 4 games. It is much easier when you are bum punching. 

People are too wrapped up with W-Ls. Nix won a game where he threw for 130 yards and 3 INTs. Daniels gets credit for a win where he had 2 passing attempts and 6 yards. 

Penix? Every stat is worse than the QB he replaced. Yards per game down, TDs down, INTs up, Rating down. He got to sit most of the year to average 212 passing yards, 0.5 TD and 1 INT a game. If you watched the last game, he did not look good at all. 

 

Daniels has received all the praise, even when he was doing nothing more than Williams or Nix, except that the Commanders were winning. It is so bad that he made the Pro Bowl over other QBs and was one of the highest vote getters, while Mayfield had over 700+ passing yards and 14+ Passing TDs. You would think that Daniels would be dominating, yet he has averaged only 8 yards per game passing more than Williams, and 6 of those came this last week when he had over 100 yards passing more than Williams. Daniels will easily win the ROY, but if you swapped records with Williams, he would be no more in the discussion than Williams is right now. It is record first, everything else second.

Williams last 7 games have been an absolute gauntlet: SEA, DET, MIN, SF, DET, MIN, GB. No team has played a tougher schedule over this period, and it is not even close. I would love to see what Daniels and the Commanders would've done against that schedule. 
 

[Bears4Ever_34]

Will be watching as background noise this week unless they come out playing inspired football. If it looks like a blowout by halftime, I'll find something else to do. Not going to let this team ruin another Sunday.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

On 1/3/2025 at 6:15 AM, adam said:

I think we all expected a different season as a whole. I think he has improved, but that is really hard to see considering the chaos around him. The way the schedule played out also makes it challenging to compare early vs late. However, go back and just watch the Week 1 game against TEN and then any recent game. You can clearly tell he has improved. 

At the end of the day I think what a lot of this comes down to is coaching.  Williams easily had a better roster (aside from his oline) than did Nix or Daniels.  Having experienced coaches like Payton in Denver and Quinn in Washington undoubtedly helped navigate each of their rookies’ seasons.  Especially if you consider both have been to the Super Bowl (and Payton won one).  
 

The only true measure of whether Williams panning out will be if they find someone who can better ‘manage the chaos’.  I would think that his ‘generational talent’ should be enough to rise above it but that apparently isn’t enough.  If they get the right guy in place, things should look up next year.

 

[DABEARSDABOMB]

3 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

At the end of the day I think what a lot of this comes down to is coaching.  Williams easily had a better roster (aside from his oline) than did Nix or Daniels.  Having experienced coaches like Payton in Denver and Quinn in Washington undoubtedly helped navigate each of their rookies’ seasons.  Especially if you consider both have been to the Super Bowl (and Payton won one).  
 

The only true measure of whether Williams panning out will be if they find someone who can better ‘manage the chaos’.  I would think that his ‘generational talent’ should be enough to rise above it but that apparently isn’t enough.  If they get the right guy in place, things should look up next year.

 

Having good coaching is huge as you make your adjustment in the league. Williams if he is elite should overcome it anyway but young QBs get ruined all the time. Look no further than what happened to Baker and Sam Darnold and how they were turned around. Two former elite talents who are playing at a very high level right now (Baker for a 2nd consecutive year). 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

18 hours ago, DABEARSDABOMB said:

Look no further than what happened to Baker and Sam Darnold and how they were turned around. Two former elite talents who are playing at a very high level right now (Baker for a 2nd consecutive year). 

Just saw on Fox pregame show that both Darnold and Baker had former staff members from LA follow them their current locations. After Mayfield played for LA he left for TB and along came OC Wes Phillips who was previously the Rams’ TE coach and pass coordinator . And in Minny after Darnold left SF, current OC Liem Coen was previously the Rams OC in 2022.  Something in the water in LA?  

[Stinger226]

I heard the announcer say Byard is third in the league in tackling amongst all DBs. I didn't realize his contributions this year was very good.

[Stinger226]

The Byard hit was worth watching this game by itself.

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, Stinger226 said:

I heard the announcer say Byard is third in the league in tackling amongst all DBs. I didn't realize his contributions this year was very good.

He gets lots of tackles because Edmunds doesn't.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

A win is a win and it tastes so fn good eating in Green Bay.  Lots of work this  offseason for the Bears to do, please don't let us down.

[ChileBear]

7 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

A win is a win and it tastes so fn good eating in Green Bay.  Lots of work this  offseason for the Bears to do, please don't let us down.

And Caleb is 1-1 vs the Puckers. DJ Moore, did you have money on the game? You were a yoyo out there--TD, fumble, penalty, catch to get in FG range. Santos, you got a winner, finally.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

8 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

A win is a win and it tastes so fn good eating in Green Bay.  Lots of work this  offseason for the Bears to do, please don't let us down.

Undefeated in 2025 is a lot nicer than where GB is right now.  They play Philly next week with Watson and possibly Love injured.

[AZ54]

34 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

He gets lots of tackles because Edmunds doesn't.

To be fair neither does our Dline.   

[Mongo3451]

1 hour ago, AZ54 said:

To be fair neither does our Dline.   

Ha, true

[Mongo3451]

Fun fact.  The last time we beat the Packers, 11 games ago, the score was 24-22 at Lambeau...

[adam]

31 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

Fun fact.  The last time we beat the Packers, 11 games ago, the score was 24-22 at Lambeau...

That's wild. The Bears played GB surprisingly well this year all things considered. They lost by a blocked FG, and if not for the Moore fumble, they would not have needed the GW Kick by Santos. However, I think that was a better way to go out as a walk off, stick it to GB, now they have to go to PHI in the WC Round, they could've had TB. 

[adam]

3,541 Passing Yards, 20 TD, 489 rushing yards. So Caleb ended up with 4,030 total yards on the season. Not bad. The 20 TD to 6 INT was nice.