Sunday 4:30 PM ET

Green Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles (-4.5)

Packers are 7th against the run.

Eagles are 10th against the run.

But I would argue it is far more important for the Packers to establish the run in this game than it is for the Eagles. Jordan Love is not a great quarterback. He’s not going to be able to drop back 40 times Sunday and dice up this Philly secondary without being harassed by their deep front.

Vic Fangio is usually great in these spots; he’ll show Love looks he hasn’t shown another team this season. I wish the line was 2.5, but it’s not. I’ll survive. Lay the points.

Sunday 8:00 PM ET

Washington Commanders at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-3)

The hardest game for me to predict this weekend.

Tampa just needed to beat a lifeless Saints team Sunday to win the division title, and they struggled mightily. Jayden Daniels has been good in 2024, but he’s still a rookie quarterback starting a playoff game on the road. This feels like the game with the widest range of potential outcomes.

I’m looking to the same stat as I did in the previous game to choose a winner. Tampa allows 97.8 yards per game on the ground, fourth in the league. Washington allows 137.5 yards per game on the ground, 30th in the league. Bucky Irving is the most talked about player this wildcard weekend. Lay the points.

Monday 8:00 PM ET

Minnesota Vikings (-1.5) at Los Angeles Rams 

This game is entirely about Sam Darnold.

A week ago, the talk around the league was Minnesota committing long term to Darnold and dealing J.J. McCarthy to the highest bidder. But after Darnold laid an egg versus Detroit in arguably the biggest game of his career, will that narrative continue if he lays another in L.A. on Monday night in what is inarguably the biggest game of his career?

I’m rooting for the Darnold career resurgence, but I think he’s going to struggle with serious pressure in this spot. Take the points.

Saturday 4:30 PM ET

Los Angeles Chargers (-3) at Houston Texans

Serious question: who would you want as your starting quarterback in September, CJ Stroud or Bryce Young? It’s very clearly a debate worth having now, as Stroud struggled in year two and Young looked every bit a franchise QB down the stretch of this season.

I don’t see any reason to believe this Texans team will win a playoff game. They don’t do anything particularly well. Lay the points, even on the road.

Saturday 8:00 PM ET

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens (-10)

The instinct for gamblers will be obvious. Since most of these Steelers/Ravens games are like 16-14, take the Steelers and that pile of points.

But right now, the Ravens are one of the best teams heading into the tournament and the Steelers are, quite possibly, the worst team remaining.

Is Russell Wilson is going into Baltimore and outscoring the Lamar Jackson/Todd Monken juggernaut? How? Lay the points.

Sunday 1:00 PM ET

Denver Broncos at Buffalo Bills (-8.5)

There used to be an old gambling maxim when it came to the NFL postseason: never bet the shaky quarterback on the road.

Bo Nix is going to be a good player, especially if he sticks with Sean Payton for the duration of his career. But he’s still a rookie, entering one of the league’s most hostile environments, facing a terrific defensive coaching staff.

Denver getting to the playoffs is a massive achievement in 2024. Their season ends in Buffalo. Lay the points.

Instead of just stringing together social media posts, I figure why not use my own website to collect all my thoughts concerning the head coaching searches in Chicago, and around the league.

• The whole “leader of men” cliche really needs to be retired. Men, football players, follow their leader when they win. That’s the long and short of it. If you show your program is successful, players will gravitate to your leadership. Do you think Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh had much in common besides their ability to win football games? Is anybody inspired by Bill Belichick’s personality? (The answer is no.) Find a winner. The players will follow him.
• The offensive options, as I see them:
  • Ben Johnson is going to be the top choice. But Johnson is going to bring baggage to the interview process, including demands in the personnel department. Will the Bears view him worthy of those concessions?
    • One source told me that Ryan Poles covets Johnson, while others in the building (Warren, especially) are looking for established program builders.
  • Liam Coen is the wildcard in this process, and I think he’s been every bit as impressive as Johnson this season. Is he ready to be a head coach? Nobody knows, but Coen would be a quarterback-centric hire.
    • Coen’s work with both the running game and tight ends in Tampa have been something of a revelation in 2024.
  • Todd Monken would certainly be an interesting hire, and he has certainly paid his dues at both the NFL and collegiate levels. Monken is also an Illinois native, so it’s likely a job he’ll covet.
  • Joe Brady. Beware of hiring coordinators of great quarterbacks. None of Peyton Manning’s or Tom Brady’s ever became a successful head coach in the league. Josh Allen is a great player but he’s also a unique one. Brady is going to be able to bring very little from Buffalo to Chicago.
  • Kliff Kingsbury. Unless Caleb seriously goes to bat for him, Kingsbury would be a risky choice. Some guys are just coordinators. That’s how K.K. profiles.
  • Drew Petzing is an interesting coach to interview, and he’s almost certainly going to be a head coach in the next five years. (He’s not an actual contender for this job.)
  • Mike Kafka. I saw a lot of fans getting worked up over this interview. But sometimes personnel guys give their friends head coaching interviews to raise their profiles. That’s what is happening here.
• Defensive options, as I see them:
  • Everybody will now be shocked if Mike Vrabel doesn’t end up in New England, but the job will likely have some appeal for Ben Johnson due to the presence of Drake Maye.
  • Vance Joseph, Brian Flores, Aaron Glenn, and Anthony Weaver are all solid, well-respected coaches. But they will arrive will major questions on the offensive side of the ball, including how they’ll manage the quarterback position. If you’re the Bears, why not allow the coaching rotating door to move to the other side of the ball for once?
• Program builders, so to speak:
  • Mike McCarthy is a good head coach. But this is not the time for the Chicago Bears to try and hit singles.
  • David Shaw is a coach I desperately wanted the Bears to consider a cycle or two ago, but I worry about guys who have not actively coached in the league for a number of years.

Read More …

A season of pain

Ends in bliss at Lambeau Field.

Caleb gives me hope.

The Chicago Bears

are the only team for me.

Our time is coming.

Biography of Author

Philip Kaisary is the 2023–25 Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor in Cultural Mediations and an Associate Professor in the Department of Law & Legal Studies, the Department of English Language & Literature, and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art & Culture. Philip is a legal, literary, and cultural comparativist and his work brings questions of resistance and struggle to bear on legal and cultural forms, theorizes and critically appraises alternative modes of being in the world, and addresses the intersections of law, politics, and culture. He is the author of The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints (University of Virginia Press, 2014) and his next book, From Havana to Hollywood: Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary, is forthcoming with SUNY Press. During his tenure as Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor, Philip will be leading a law and literature teaching and research project that, evoking the work of Benita Parry on postcolonial theory, is titled, “Directions and Dead Ends in the ‘Law and Literature’ Movement.” This project has as its goal the development of a materialist and worldly approach to ‘Law and Literature.’

Bears will venture to Green Bay, where

Losing has become a way of life. 

One team is about stability,

With their personnel department and coaching staff sorted.

One team is about instability, going through their

Usual postseason first-and-hire song and dance.

This game will look familiar.

Green Bay Packers 30, Chicago Bears 10

Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week? 

I don’t know when I started using this phrase to open my game previews, but I don’t really remember not doing so. Each week I repeat it and each week I follow it with the simple, “I always like the Chicago Bears.”

And as we begin the 20th season of DaBearsBlog (2005-2025), it remains true. Social media seems to be the staging ground for something of an existential crisis when it comes to Bears fans and their fandom. The subtext of almost every tweet is “I don’t want to be a fan anymore.” I don’t get it. Fandom comes with no guarantees. You root for a team because you like the team, or because they play in your community, or because they represent your nation, or because they’re a half black guy upending the whitest sport on the planet. Then you watch them play and hope they win. That’s the extent of the transaction. But if you’re willing to either (a) stop watching the sport entirely or (b) switch teams, then you were never an actual fan to begin with.

If you don’t want to prioritize watching a bad team’s games, I get that. I made that decision myself this season a few times, skipping Bears v. Patriots to give a lecture and hang after with the audience, and giving in to exhaustion at halftime of Bears v. Seahawks, wherein I missed the worst 30 minutes of NFL football all season. You don’t have to suffer through every minute of team’s season to have your fandom ticket validated. But being a fan doesn’t actually cost you anything if you keep that fandom in emotional perspective. Get angry when they lose. Complain when they make bad organizational decisions. But it is still a game, played for your amusement. Enjoy it.

The Bears are going to lose Sunday. You should accept that fact today, right now, reading this. The Packers are good and gearing up for a playoff run and still have pivotal seeding to play for. The Bears are bad. If watching the Bears lose brings you immense agita, might I recommend a visit to the cinema this weekend? Or just hang with the kids? Or go to your local watering hole and argue about politics? Blow this game off and focus your attention on the coaching search come Monday morning.

This is not a game preview because this game carries no meaning for the Chicago Bears organization. It is a game they are playing because schedules dictate they play a 17th game. If they had an opportunity to knock their division rival from the tournament, then you could really put some weight behind this finale. But does altering Green Bay’s seeding get you pumped up? Not me. As the calendar is turning, the Packers are relevant, and the Bears are not. Rinse. Repeat.

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne

“We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet.”

That is a lovely sentiment to share with Bears fans as we enter a new year.

The Bears will have a new leader on the sideline to pair with their young quarterback.

We can only hope that pairing will finally be the right one for this tortured organization and fan base.

We can only hope to drink that cup of kindness.

From all of us at DBB (which is basically just me), to all of you, I wish you happy returns in 2025, both in your lives and from your favorite football team. You’ve certainly earned it from the latter.

Sincerely,

The Help.

Another season,

utterly forgettable.

Where be our sunshine?

A gothic church. A confessional. A priest sits back to the wall. A man kneels in prayer. A wall divides them.

Priest: What sins have you to confess, my son?

Man: I believed, father.

Priest: Believing is not a sin.

Man: It should be.

Priest: What did you believe?

Man: I believed 2024 would be different, father. I believed this year would look different than other years.

Priest: Did it not?

Man: It did not.

Priest: Do you regret your belief?

Man: How can I?

Priest: Then why do you confess it as sin?

Man: What else can I do? What is the purpose of this all if we don’t succumb to the belief that year ahead will be different, will be better, than the year just experienced?

Read More …