Greetings, Bears fans. It’s been awhile.

I started a new job at the beginning of the month, which is exciting and all that, but not nearly as exciting as the Bears being 8-3 with a (semi) comfortable lead in the NFC North as we head into the final stretch of the regular season!

My last blog post emphasized the importance of the three straight divisional games the Bears have just completed. At the time, I wrote that if the Bears were able to go 2-1 in that stretch, it’d be a huge boon for their chances to make the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

I thought it’d be hard, but doable. More than anything I thought it’d give us a clear idea of who this team is and what they are capable of achieving in 2018. My exact words:

It’s already clear this Bears team is different from what we’ve gotten used to watching in seasons past. Just how different remains to be seen. Check back with me after Thanksgiving.

Well, it’s after Thanksgiving. I’m 5 lbs heavier and 500% (not a math major) more confident that the Chicago Bears are a damn good football team. Not only good, but extremely fun to watch, in part because you can tell how much the players are enjoying themselves.

Ranking the #Bears’ best celebrations this season through eight wins. From myself and the one and only @PatrickFinley:https://t.co/LUpXdhPvXo

— Adam Jahns (@adamjahns) November 26, 2018

And why shouldn’t they? Most teams in the NFL are mediocre, some straight up suck, and handful of teams are actually good. The Bears have been mediocre to awful for years now, so this season has been an absolute revelation as a fan, and frankly if you’re not enjoying yourself I’m not sure what could possibly make you happy.

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The excuses were there and would have been valid.

• No team had played a game on less rest.
• They started a backup QB who hadn’t played extensively in five years.
• They were coming off one of their more emotional wins in recent memory.

But none of that mattered.

I started this season writing about how the Bears looked like the same old Bears and that’s because they did. Blowing a huge fourth quarter lead to the Packers on opening night was very on-brand.

But on Thanksgiving Day, the 2018 Chicago Bears beat the Detroit Lions despite all the excuses. In doing so, they proved they are a different team. Comparing this year’s Bears to versions of the team under Marc Trestman and John Fox is just ridiculous at this point. This was even a game the Lovie Smith Bears would’ve lost.

This team didn’t. They didn’t need excuses. They just went out and won. Somewhere along the line, the team changed. Somewhere they found their swagger and turned 2018 into something with the makings of a special season.

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The 2018 Chicago Bears season has been as surprising as any in my lifetime, soon to hopefully be entering it’s 37th year. It is certainly as surprising as any since the launch of this website in early 2005.

It’s not that the team has been competitive. That was expected. It’s not even that the team is winning. Many of us saw a clear path to eight plus victories even before Ryan Pace acquired one of the sport’s two most dominant defensive humans.

No, this season has been surprising – shocking, even – because of the seismic cultural and identity shift that has occurred at Halas Hall. Seemingly overnight, but of course decidedly not overnight, the Chicago Bears have transformed themselves not only into one of the league’s better teams but unquestionably one of the league’s most exciting.

These are the Chicago Bears, aren’t they?

Their most prolific passing campaign before Erik Kramer’s 1995 one-off was in 1943. For a few periods of the Lovie Smith era, a few weeks of the Trestman tenure and a few moments of the Ditka days they could score points in bunches. But this organization hasn’t done anything one could deem “exciting” on offense since Clark Shaughessy helped the team implement the “T” to beat the Washington Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 NFL Championship Game.

Efficient? Sure. Effective? Okay. Hell, even excellent at times. But exciting? No chance. Devin Hester is the most exciting offensive weapon the Bears have had since Gale Sayers. And Hester literally couldn’t play offense.

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Seahawks @ Panthers. Packers @ Vikings. The four teams currently fighting for two wildcard spots in the NFC are facing off. So sit back, crack open an Old Style, and enjoy watching potential playoff opponents beat the hell out of each other. 

Not the most compelling game ever played but the kind of result good teams get. The Bears played three division games in twelve days and went 3-0, outscoring the Lions (twice) and Vikings 82-58.

This three-game stretch solidified them as one of the better teams in the NFC and it would now be a terrible disappointment if there was not a football game at Soldier Field in January. 

Rapid fire…

• Chase Daniel did everything a team can ask from their backup quarterback. He moved the offense. He avoided crippling errors. Was he good? Not really. Even the touchdowns/big plays were not well-thrown balls. But he got the job done. In the modern NFL, teams need a backup QB that can hold down the fort and win some games for 2-3 weeks every season. With Daniel, the Bears have that.
• 3rd and 1. Early second quarter. Stafford rolled to his left and had about six minutes to find an open receiver to move the chains. Why? Khalil Mack was floating in coverage. (And “floating” is the accurate word.) This is what Fangio’s defense is. Understood. But without a healthy Aaron Lynch, and with Leonard Floyd struggling to get to the quarterback, not allowing the game’s best edge rusher to rush from the edge feels negligent.
• As Andrew pointed out on Twitter, the Bears were awful on 2nd and long all game, giving up chunk plays in the air and on the ground. This will be a focal point before they head to the Meadowlands.
• Eddie Jackson has to be in the conversation now for DPOY now. Right now the award is Aaron Donald’s to lose, mostly because of Mack’s earlier injuries, but no defender has made more big plays in 2018 than Jackson.
• Every week Roquan Smith makes another play. And every week it becomes more apparent Smith is going to be in the middle of the Bears defense for a long, long time.
• The running game, or lack thereof, will be a major talking point over the next ten days. But look no further than Matt Nagy’s two-point conversion call to understand why that element is struggling. With an inaccurate backup QB, Nagy called a pass. And not just a pass. A quick, bubble screen that required timing and pinpoint ball placement. Despite what the head coach tells reporters, the answer is simple. The Bears don’t run the ball because the Bears don’t want to run the ball.
• Taquan Mizzell is more valuable to Nagy than Jordan Howard.

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This painting is “Death and the Miser”, Jan Provoost, Flemish primitive. It is on display at Groeninge Museum, Bruges. It is brilliant.

Back in the states today and excited to get back to full-throated coverage of this remarkable playoff push!

Game Prediction

• First ten minutes of this game are essential. Lions will have energy; they always do in this Thanksgiving spot. But the Bears can’t afford to come out slow. If they do they could find themselves down 10-0 quickly. Not insurmountable but also not ideal.
• Lions will be without rookie RB Kerryon Johnson, leaving LeGarrette Blount and Zach Zenner to carry the load. Is this a big deal? Not necessarily in terms of production but possibly in terms of approach. Without Johnson the Lions will become one dimensional in this game quickly. And there are very few QBs in the league capable of beating this defense by throwing it on every down. (WR Marvin Jones also looks like he’ll be missing the game.)
• Short week. Tired legs. Quarterback nursing an injury. This is the week! This is the one! Jordan Howard will be the workhorse. And he’ll be eating some kind of Thanksgiving food on television after the game is over. (I’m just gonna keep writing this. Every week. I don’t care.)
• This game stays close. And Khalil Mack sacks & strips Matthew Stafford late, re-cementing his status as front runner for DPOY.

Chicago Bears 27

Detroit Lions 20

I’m not really writing during the season due to an extremely busy fall semester at work, but Thanksgiving break opened up a little time, so here are a few random statistical nuggets I dug up while I was poking around.

Pass Catchers

The Bears’ entire passing game has been built on five players: Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Anthony Miller, Trey Burton, and Tarik Cohen. Those 5 have combined for 82% of Trubisky’s targets, 85% of catches, 88% of yards, and 95% of passing TDs. Let’s take a quick look at how efficient each one is being.

A few thoughts:

• The Bears’ two highest-usage players (Gabriel and Robinson) have been the least efficient of these 5 in terms of yards per target. This is likely due to the fact that they get the ball thrown to them even when they’re not wide open, which is not necessarily the case for the other players. All five are still producing above the team average in terms of yards per target.
• I also find it interesting that Miller, Gabriel, and Robinson are all getting basically the same average target depth. It’s great that Bears have been able to use all three in similar ways without having to typecast each one to just one type of route.
• Special tip of the cap to Anthony Miller, who was basically only being used underneath early in the season but has stepped up his game.
• I didn’t put target stats on here, but usage has been very even overall between the 5. All getting between 4.5 and 7.3 targets/game (in games they’re active), and thus the volume stats are pretty similar too. All are on pace for between 570 and 770 yards, with the top 3 (Gabriel, Cohen, and Robinson) all on pace for between 730 and 770 yards.
• I’m curious to see how Adam Shaheen impacts this down the stretch, should he be able to get and stay healthy. Will he be a major factor, and if he is, will he eat into one specific players’ targets or take a little bit from each of them?

Playoff Odds

In case you somehow missed it, the Bears are 7-3 and looking like a good bet for the playoffs. How good are their chances? Depends who you ask.

Nate Silver of 538 used Pro Football Reference to look at the historical odds of a team making the playoffs based on their current record. Based on that work, summarized in the nifty image below, a 7-3 team like the Bears has an 84% chance of making the playoffs.

A win against Detroit on Thursday would push that to 92%, while a loss drops it to 71%. No pressure, Mitchell Trubisky (or Chase Daniel?).

Those are general numbers that don’t take into account anything about how well a team is playing or how difficult their remaining schedule is. Football Outsiders uses their DVOA rankings to develop playoff odds based on that, and they really like the Bears.

Well that’s nice. 94% odds for Chicago to make the playoffs, with an 81% chance of winning the division and even a 17% chance of getting a 1st round bye (though I think that’s very unlikely given the Rams’ win over KC last night).

Football Outsiders also gives the Bears the 5th best odds of winning the Super Bowl at just over 6%. This is the third highest number in the NFC behind the Rams and Saints, which matches the 3rd seed that the Bears would be if the playoffs started right now.

There’s still six games left in the season and anything can happen, but right now things are looking pretty good for the Bears. It’s fun to have a good team to watch and root for every week instead of starting to shift our attention to what players might be available in the draft.

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears…

…and I give thanks for Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy, Mitch Trubisky, Vic Fangio & the whole lot of em.

No Analysis Needed

This is not a particularly difficult football game to analyze. These two teams played less than a fortnight ago and one of the teams, your 2018 Chicago Bears, was clearly better.

But this schedule is brutal for the Bears. Sunday night, against the Vikings, was their biggest game in many-a-moon. It was also their most emotional. Resetting in just three days is nearly impossible. Especially on the road.

This is a tough spot.

The Game Distich

Detroit will be the stage, this stuffing day

Now begins another act of the play!

Tomorrow: Game Prediction!

Much of the focus for the 2018 Chicago Bears has centered around Mitch Trubisky and the offense, but the key to this season’s success is and has always been the defense.

Sunday night, outside of a couple late touchdowns, the Bears were absolutely dominant defensively. They should be. They have to be.

Despite a new, big money quarterback and a vastly improved offensive line, the Minnesota Vikings don’t have a great offense. They entered Sunday’s game about middle of the pack across the board and in the 20s in terms of yards and points per drive. (Good thing the Bears didn’t hire John DeFilippo.)

The Vikings do have a terrific defense. The Bears weren’t going to be able to put up 30 points. The Bears defense needed to win this game.

They did.

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