2026 Chicago Bears Preview: Roster, Odds & Win Total

[Music] Welcome to the acclaimed podcast, The Deep Dive, featuring your esteemed hosts, Andy Monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Betspers. Welcome to The Deep Dive. We're talking bears, Chicago bears. This is going to be a very fun one, and it's going to be a, I feel like it's going to be a annual tradition to divorce your feelings about the bears from the highs that they produced this prior season to kind of getting a clear-eyed rating on them the next season. Because when it's good, it's so good. And the Ben Johnson experience, I think, will provide long-term, you know, long-term gold for Chicago bears fans. And after a wildly unimpressive rookie campaign, the marriage between Johnson and Caleb Williams almost immediately bore fruit in 2026 or 2025, excuse me. And it ended with a sequence of plays that were some of the most spectacular memorable moments of the entire season last year. Both play-off games were electricity. Both play-off games were the one that the Christmas game against the Packers. I mean, we could go on on, man. The Black Friday game against the Eagles is kind of there. Oh, yeah, we're here. We're going to be a problem for this next month and a half. You know, it was it was a really, really fun season to back the bears game by game. I'm going to go down. I think swinging as a Ben Johnson stand because his scheme to me is, you know, it has potential to be the best in the NFL. Once it's also done. And I think he's got some interesting pieces to work with here, but that said, when you had on a rookie, Andy, a lot of times an organization makes them. They make some they take some swings, you know, they go get an AJ Brown. You know, they go, they go spend like a like a, you know, they go spend like a lunatic in the offseason. And it didn't really feel like the bears did that this year. No, but I didn't hate the offseason. I will say that the too long didn't read version of bears underperform the series. I don't think they have a plus 22 turnover differential in them again. And winning that many close games is tough to do when you don't. But the counter argument to that is we likely see a continued progression with your young quarterback who took just a massive step forward from getting sacked, I guess, even. If you want to take every other part of his game out and say, hey, he didn't get sacked 70 times. That's really that's really beneficial for keeping the offense on the field. I think it was like 24 to massive difference. And part of that part of that was some of the acquit the acquit the acquit the well, the acquisition they made on the offensive. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty either. Yeah. Yes. And Ryan, I get it. Yeah. And then the game and impossible fashion. No, right? It's make it some good comments. Low floor high ceiling. I think that's absolutely where we're in. Why distribution? Oh, yes. No question. And I'm, I guess I'm, I kind of want to give the organization. A little bit of credit for not spending like drunken sailors this offseason. They seem like they've kind of pragmatically understand that this is still a work in progress. And I thought trading DJ Moore was nice work. I thought. Yeah, especially what you have left after you trade DJ Moore. It's like, oh, no, I like, you know, those are moths who want to feed. Yeah. I think that's fine. Yeah. I think. I don't mean the all-time coup is that you took Ben Johnson from your division, rebels. I think that's really, really is like there's the fact that he waited a year and then he got, and you got to get him. Caleb having what, like 38, 3900 yards. He didn't throw a lot of interceptions. We mentioned he didn't take his men. He took like 30%. The amount of sacks he took the year before. The rushing attack finished high. We saw good run blocking. We saw, I mean, and so much does come back to Ben Johnson. Yeah, they were cardiac kids and they won some weird games and some close games. But wins the win and you kind of, you know, people want. Writing last season off right away. But I think bears fans were a little bit realistic at times knowing like, hey, this is a second year quarterback who struggled at times. It's the first year with Ben Johnson. We didn't fix everything yet. Yeah. It'd be fun if we made the playoffs. If you are a, hey, a second man. If you were making a devil's bargain and devil's like, look man, not ever going to let you win a Super Bowl, but you can have every season be like what you had last year. With the highest of the entertainment that you got from Thanksgiving. As a fan, you don't know what nobody's thinking that right? I don't know, man. Maybe maybe my brain's just too work because it's been too long since I've been a true fan. Yeah, I know. I think a Super Bowl hits different. It was like, you weren't ever like, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think bears fans. Well, I think it's like, yeah, no, no, but it's like what you're saying about the clear. I'd like, I think everybody was pretty clear. I'd like, hey, this was a flawed team. Hey, our defense kind of sucked. Our offense took a long time to get going in a lot of important games and a lot of important moments. But then like, I don't know, man, it's something special when you have a team like that, an offense, something like that, and a player like Caleb Williams on the field trying to get you back into a game. And you all of a sudden have like nothing, but everybody's, everybody's operating with pure confidence. He'll find a way, right? That's the kind of thing that carries over year to year, I think. And I think that's going to help Caleb Williams continue to build. He may ultimately never, you know, kind of reach the point where we're saying he's the best or a top five quarterback in the NFL. I wouldn't be surprised. Like he does. He has some inconsistencies that he may never really get. You may never really get, you know, to the point where, you know, he's got the flowers. But then at the same time, like that pass off his back foot that one person in the entire NFL is making that pass. Where it's like, I remember in that moment, the past, the touchdown, the back of the end son there. I remember in the moment saying, I've impressed, he even got that ball off. And then, and then somebody catches it for touchdown. Oh god. Really? Like he went that far because it felt like he was falling down backwards at the time. So I mean, he, he made big improvements. He still has some flaws, but Jesus, like he, he made some big plays. Ben Johnson brought him a long ways. And yeah, it'll, it'll be interesting to see what the, the offseason needs to do here. And then we'll see what the final kind of thought on this. And then we carry on. What he did out of structure was all time. My guess is that someone who is as offensively gifted and visionary as Ben Johnson. Once you kind of know you have that out of structure, then you can absolutely kind of take your approach to the next level. And then you can see that he's a ten year in Detroit, carried over to Chicago has taught us one thing very, very obvious. He is going to get you significant step forward in terms of your running efficiency, which overall is just going to make things easier. And if he continues to adapt his passing game and his approach and continues to give Caleb more options as far as, yeah, give Caleb more options to succeed out of structure. Like this offense is just going to continue to get better in my opinion. And, and the defense, I think, could stink out loud. And in my name, matter. Yeah, it's very Minnesota ask. We just said the same thing like the except the Minnesota defense should be good. But even if it takes a step back, it's going to be fine. And yes, we're mentioned in Declan Doyle, Ben Johnson's going to get somebody new coaching positions. This is going to, it is similar to the McVeigh thing where, hey, this guy's never called plays or you know, some of these people will have called plays, but in McVeigh's system, it's like this guy was the offensive coordinator for two years. He never called plays, but he worked with McVeigh. Let's make him head coach tomorrow. I mean, that's Kevin O'Connell. That's Kevin O'Connell. I mean, they, I think don't always not work out, but yes, Declan Doyle was poached quickly by Baltimore and press Taylor is now your offensive coordinator, but of course, it's still been Johnson calling the plays. Dennis Salad remains as your defensive coordinator. You have a new running backs coach as last year was Eric Bienne me, who hopefully his wife is all right. It was weird seeing him in the news today. And a couple other, a couple other names on the offensive side of the ball because there's going to be turnover. That's what happens when you have a successful offensive minded head coach as Patrick was kind of joking about that you're going to, you know, you're going to get a bunch of people jobs. Like, that's what happens. There's going to be some churn on that. So press Taylor, not a guy I was, I wasn't a big press Taylor guy, I guess, but real quick on, on autopsy thoughts, you finished 11 and six, you win your division at a huge price. It was at a, did that, I feel like in season, you could have gotten even a bigger number than preseason, because it was not how you started. It was how you finished. You were four and three at one point after getting pretty convincingly beaten by the Ravens week eight, and then puts together your best stretch of the season to culminating with your Christmas, e-vish, or Saturday before Christmas, win against the Packers, back to back losses. And oh, God, damn, I forgot about this game. Fucking Sunday night game against the Niners 42 38 to remember that. That was like, we were like, oh, yeah, no, they're cooking offensively, but this defense is a problem. It felt like the Niners were like, okay, I guess we just have to score touchdown every time we have the ball around loses game. But yeah, lost the Niners, lost the Lions and back to back weeks to end the season did not matter. You still won the North. And then, yeah, amazing wins in the way amazing win in the playoffs, can see Packers very, very, very close to beating the Rams, losing it over time. You exceeded your Pythagorean win by two 11 and six was two wins better than expected. That is one of the bigger numbers across the NFL, those tend to regress as does turnover margin, which you already mentioned. I think it was fun as hell betting on this team. The last year, they did not get market respect anywhere close to what they were due until way, way, way, way, way too late. And yeah, it's fun. Are we live betting against them week one? Is that a couple of years in a row now? They've had a like a shitty week one. I'm gonna have to go look at 20 years. Who the bears? Yeah, I'm gonna have to know the week one of 24. I'm going to give you a clue you ready? Oh, yeah, it was the will of his game. Yeah, shit. I'm thinking of the Washington they won 2417. I was I was thinking of the Washington game from two years ago, the strange ending, but the collapse against Minnesota was something. And then yeah, they did get demolished and we too ran price was probably pretty big then. And we'll get into some of the changes on this roster. Let's do it. We've already talked about DJ more as we talked about Buffalo. We didn't have like six six hundred and 50 yards last year. There's a lot of muffs to feed me. You got a Dune's a burden, Loveland. As I said, I kind of want to feed those muffs. So you traded for you traded him away. And then I think Bradbury was a trade. Yes, that was for a fifth rounder. He brought in Garrett Bradbury form of Viking as similar lot of the similarities to the Vikings. Your center retired. Drew Dolman. Do you like brother? No, I do not. Do you think Ben Johnson can witchcraft him? I hope so. He's okay. He will be he will be he's below average. He's definitely graded below average. Dolman leaving was weird. Devon Bush. Are you feeling about that? Kind of like it. Good. It's good. Probably best player on that part of your defense. He had a hell of a year last year had 125 tackles. He was he's a damn good linebacker as far as run and coverage. So you can kind of do both Kobe Bryant free agent from Seattle. Who safety on the back end. Kobe let's see Kobe with the sea. He was highly graded as far as safety school. And I think safeties are hard to grade because so many themes use him differently. But I still think he was a very good player. Generic wills into your left tackle, left tackle competition with the Braxton Jones versus Braxton's Jones. Not losing that battle. Here in maybe there's like four names. They're kind of spinner. I do think Braxton Jones has a clear leg up, but they're saying this might be a competition. And then you wouldn't get a couple other players in Clea Freeman to maybe more of a return guy. Cam Lewis. The second area and Jack Sanborn. Back after a year in Dallas. A lot of depth pieces. None of those guys move the needle. I don't think know. And we mentioned Dolman retiring the center. Kevin Bayard and Jocque brisker. Your two starting safeties are gone. In for agency, Tremaine Edmonds was a cap casualty release. That's fine. Bushes. You brought Bush in and then quiet one. As I joked about with Minnesota, you let your long snapper walk. So we have a lot. We have a camp battle between UDFA Bo Gardner, who is the Patrick Manley award winner. You know what that award is? Obviously. Yeah. The best long snapper. Do you know Patrick Manley is? He was really famous long snapper for the bears for 15 years. Oh, there's legacy. There's legacy. There's a little bit of legacy. Fun fact, Patrick Manley married Tommy Johnstotter. That time. What? I was at his competing page. Wow. Look like I'm like, I think this guy played for the bears either way. Long. Absolutely. I will absolutely throw my support behind Bo Gardner, the Manley award winner. Because I've never been a Luke Elkenga. No, draft class Dylan Tina. Is that how we're saying it? Didn't want a lot of work in football. A lot of people had him mocked a little higher than this. He's a pretty quick. I think four, three, five and three combined. You have kept a lot of people complimented Kevin Bayard, which is very funny. So he's starting next to Kobe Bryant. Probably immediately you drafted a center, the Rimmington trophy winner. Oh, the only draft trophy winners here. And he's an IO region. He went to Iowa. He's a Hawkeye. He can't go around with Big 10 line men. So I don't know him. It's not being bad. I bury out. It might be, it might be him over Brad Berry will see once camp starts. You draft today more of a past blocking tight end in the third round and then Xavier and Thomas, who is a very fun player and get rid of 4.28 speed. Probably not going to crack wide receiver core because of the good wide receivers. But he has a good shot to be your both return spots as a rookie here. And a little more depth after that. Another corner back in Malik, Muhammad from Texas and then a couple of depth pieces in the defense of the fifth round there. So some draft pieces that are going to matter this year. Yeah. Once again, Ryan on it, he is correct about the, by the dip on the bears, it was after the collapse blowout combo. Week three, you could have got him for the bargain basement price of 35 to one to win the head of sea north. Let's shop more aggressively week three. What if I did magic eight ball? And I said, I'll give you, I'll give you 50 to one. But I'm going to tell you right now, I'm going to give you one piece of information. They win 11 games. You still think that because it's such a lot. 50 is a big deal. I'll find my way out of this somehow. I'll find my way out of this. But still like 11 to one, I'm thinking, well, I have to head just at some point, because that's not happening. I mean, even after we, even after the week eight loss to the Ravens at four and three, you could have got 22 to one. Like, it was, it took a long, I had to kind of remember the Chris play, like it took a long time for the market to give these guys an Iota of respect. And yes, I was woof. That was anyway, I didn't even care if they won. I just wanted them to cover and they did not. All right, man, I give their offseason a very, I guess here's the thing. What didn't they get in the offseason? Wow, it's good news defensively. Well, I mean, you're I mean, it's the correct position, because that's yeah, you know, I do think, Grady Jared is how old you got Austin Booker in a rotation on one side, Montez sweat is basically, yeah, he's doing a lot of the lifting. If we had been hanging out together, we didn't get a dresser would have been hanging out together and get the Garrett news broke. And you would been like, whoa, Miles Garrett just got traded like, what team do you think he's going to? I don't think the Rams would have been my top and I top 20 guesses bears probably than my first guess. Because that's like where you you are right now, you got a quarterback, you're going to build around on a rookie deal. Like Caleb Williams healthy is making every single start on his first five years under contract for you. No question. You got coach, you know, you know, can do things. You got Dennis Allen actually helped get a lot more out of your defense than he deserved to last year. Go get him a past pressure, right? Like help help help make things a little bit a little bit easier for you and they didn't and maybe they're not done yet, right? Like there's like, you know, again, like they're very well could be a move where they pick a veteran off the pile who can contribute to the past rush, but it feels like they're, it feels like going to war with this cast of characters opposite Montez sweat as a mistake. Middocks 2025 slash 20 and 20 actually it's due 2026, bow rating for the middocks. Do you want to read an ad in the meantime? We can. You know what? These previews are brought to you by circus sports and the circus sports survivor, circus sports, millions and circus sports. Grand DC Mo, if you got a bunch of money and you want to turn it into a bunch more money, yeah, the contest are a lot of fun. Obviously, you know, survivor is pick them. It's pretty easy. You pick five games against the spread every week and just try to hit like 65%. And you'll win the contest. It's that easy. It's crazy. We hung out with the guy who holds the old time record for circus, circus contest. Couple times. Yeah. 70% he hit when he won it. He owns a beer. Derbify, right? Shout out. Derbify. That's what it is. I was starting to add mine up. I bet it was close and I looked. I was like 63. I'm like, oh, Jesus, I need to win like four more games. It's like a whole another week. So, yeah, enter in Nevada. Play from anywhere. We'll be out there in two weeks for bet bash. We'll be out there in four weeks for sign up weekend. We'll be doing a live show from the year. 35 weeks away. Sure. There's two weeks in between bash and sign up. Okay. I don't know. Why don't I give people? Yeah, don't go out there. Don't go out two weeks. Don't go out that unless you want it. I mean, probably some fun stuff. Let's get exact dates. Bet bash. I will be out the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. You will not miss me if you come out August six or seventh. You will see me. You will not miss me if you come out August 27 or 28th. Yeah. All right. And then yes. 27th, 29th. Sign up for the contest. Yeah. All right, man. Ratings was tricky because again, like I kind of expected that I was going to be market like low on Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson coming into this year. But the entire universe is still a little bit like see a dude he can. Do you get that with? That's kind of where I'm at. I wanted to start low. Okay. Where'd you start? I am at 4.6 for my QB rating and it feels terrible because I love Ben Johnson. I bet on him to be coach of the year. I thought he deserved to be coach of the year. To be absolutely deserved to be coach of the year. He was coach of the year in our hearts, I guess. There he was. Absolutely. Absolute atrocity. It was a clear two man race between Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen that Mike Frabel somehow won. There are some advanced, not even that advanced, but it's just like Caleb Williams completion percentage over expected. I'm like, not great, Bob. He hit some big plays to kind of hide some of the stuff. And I think he got so much. So much of the steam, the windfall, whatever we want to call it, the hype behind Caleb Williams is that he was so dog shit in 2024. And he got sacked 68 times. That's actually dragging my number down pretty meaningful. By comparison, last year looks so good. Whereas some of the stats are very middle of the pack or below like CP, CPOE, completion percentage over expected. Or do you think he rates out of the 30 quarterbacks we got over at running back still matter? 27. Really? Between nine. He is ahead of one Michael penis. That's it. A completion percentage over expected. So that's taking account of the fact that he was throwing very difficult passes pre-regulate. I mean, it was the intermediate stuff that he just wasn't doing well. The expected means, hey, if you throw a hard pass, you're not going to get a complete amount. Yeah, you're not getting penalized. It means you're, you're missing, usually it means you're missing the easy stuff. You're missing the intermediate stuff. He was again for success rate. You know what a big problem was, Andy? Success rate, he was 24. You know what a huge, you know what a huge problem was? Yes. DJ more quit on like 40 rounds. I didn't have time to sort out DJ more forgot how to catch a ball. And he quit on so many rounds. I'm starting low, tempering my expectations. But yeah, this can quickly become a six even higher. Yeah, he wasn't a very efficient quarterback. And if you're going to rate quarterbacks through the lens of efficiency, then you're not going to have Caleb Layles higher than half, you know, than half the quarterbacks we're playing right now. He does get the Ben Johnson bump from me. So I'm going to start the season with the combined QBOC rating at 6.3. Skill position group for me. Pretty high. It is notable that Roma Duneze's foot's never going to be the same. But they got a player in Cortland, Loveland, that, sorry, Colston. Colston Loveland who came on like an absolute freight train and quietly loot the burden might be Ydris Cver 1 on this team because when he flashed, he flashed with authority. You know, I think his Ydris Cver 1 on this team? Who? Colston Loveland. Loveland, yeah. Loveland. I've been in the year. It's so, so good. Yeah. Duneze, it Duneze, the, so I went with a 6.1 for skill. Another one where I think I'm starting low because of. Yeah, trying to figure out the new ratio of who's getting the ball. And we'll see if Loveland hits a bit of a second year wall here because is that sustainable if it is? Start giving him, you know, just hey, you're the all pro tight end every year now. And that means it with powers and some of these other tight ends and the lead, you're the best. Yeah. But, uh, no, there's 100% like, there's 100%. Yeah, yeah. I like them. I'm fine. I like to see Menonga take that over and Swift to be kind of quietly fazed. I like it. But he was fine. I'm sure. Well, that's the thing. Swift, not having to be a bell cow. That's, yeah, it's nice. It's a good, it's not an amazing running back room, but it's very much above average. And I like to split. I don't know if I stress fracture in the foot worries me a little. Yeah, I don't want that. Yeah, the drop sees a little here and there. And I didn't, uh, I kind of backed him for that. But otherwise, it's, it's a very good skill room. Yeah, I'm at 7.2. Did I already say that? I don't know. I don't know if I did either. I have a whole session memory. There's, there's a million percent, uh, what do you call it? Like a, uh, an NFL daily type of segment, uh, halfway through the season where it's like, if you don't have one of these head ends and your offense is just not as good. And Colson Lovlin is one of those guys that's going to make people think that way. Um, there's, there's a whole raft of really good young guys. I'm at 5.5 for QBOC. I would just said 4.0 something. I know. I already did it this morning. I'm sorry. You did a little soul searching. Yeah. I just, I looked at it and looked at it and I started to dig into how I did things and like, how much of this is OC? And should that be the same for every team? And I finally decided now I'm manually adjusting this up for Ben. So I'm still lower than you. But I have it a 5.5 skill. I'm still at 6.1. Okay. For offensive line, I'm at 6.8 for this group. Brad Baryst, the only question mark I have. They had the protector of the year last year in Thuney. Thuney, Thuney gets a good grade for me. Braxton Jones, I think, is fine and will win. We'll have tackle position. Darnal Wright is one of the best young tackles in the game, not an intpenetable. And then, Joe Jackson complied, but I don't have a, especially Rose, you grade for him. Brad Bary, I have a pretty, pretty serious minus, but it's the center. So it doesn't really count as much in the compas of for me. Yeah, just, just what we saw last year when they were healthy and what they did for the run game, the Bradbury thing is probably not. I started at 7.5 here, just based off a lot of last year's stuff because the, the, the, you, you have two guys who might be the best at their position in the league. I don't know that we can actually ever say that about right tackle with the right tackle that lives in Detroit, but it's close enough where I have two incredible pluses on this line. Bradbury thing knocks it down. We'll see maybe it is the rookie, but yeah, Braxton Jones, fine Jonah Jackson I have is hopefully a bounce back. I think he can play. Obviously we've seen it. He can be above average. So the real question mark is, you know, Garrett Bradbury was highly drafted. Does he maybe come in, take this job, the rookie has to see me. I've seen some places that created him okay for last year. That's, and the other thing is displaying next to Jotuny. And then suddenly, I don't know if you look better. He's like, is Garrett Bradbury like above average now? And then in three years he goes somewhere else because he's playing next to 30. And he's just dark shit again. There was effectively consensus across everyone who rates offense. - Don't know, right? - That this is the top four unit. They're gonna be top four for you, with that kind of number. I bet they will probably run. - Who's the, who's the Packers rate tackle? - The Packers offensive line is a startlingly low grade. I have Zack Tom right tackle. And he's the only guy that's a plus for me for that group. Zack Tom. - Zack Tom is good. - He's the only plus. The rest of that line stinks. - It's fun. I'm just kind of thinking about the division 'cause Brian O'Neal's very good. - Oh sure. - Zack Tom is a plus at right tackle. And he's dark shit compared to the other bike. He's so clearly. - Oh, did you hear they're moving pennies to the left though? - I guess. He loves being right tackle in my heart. (laughing) Okay, we will move fast. Now I'm willing to move. - Darn it. - Right now the Detroit right tackle is a guy named Blake Miller who has taken zero NFL snaps. - Okay, well we're gonna put him behind Tom for now. - We're he had defensively. - God, not good. - This is tough. - This is tough to do. - Yeah, this is not good. I am at 28th in the NFL with a 37th percentile defense largely because my coverage number is very low. For runstop I'm at 4.2 for Pass Roshameth 4 for coverage I'm at 2.9. So expecting this team to be thrown on. - I mean Tyrick Stephenson is your left quarter back. CB one. - I don't know. - I can't be good, right? - Yeah, he just had to pay for that. - Just one mental, he just had the one mental error. That was it, right? - It's not great. The Pass Rosham, I'm more worried about the Pass Rosh than anything that I was thinking. - Jalen Johnson can play, but can you stay on the field? I doubt it. - Yeah, we'll pull this up. So I went for, I'm lower than you on Pass Rosh. I'm lower than you on runstop. My coverage number comes out to a 4.9 and that's another one where it's like, once I saw yours, I'm like, oh God. Well, am I that high on Jalen Johnson? By that high on Kobe Bryant? I got hit. - When you take the turnovers out of Oy from their defense from last year. - Nice stuff. - It was pretty bad. - I did, I can't go in, so what I did a little of that. And I can't in good faith say, it'll be a middle of the pack team for turnover. I still think they'll be a plus. I don't know that you go from plus 22 to like minus one. I don't think it's a good defense. I still think they'll be ball hawks, I guess, in the secondary. But the takeaway is probably unsustainable and that's why this number is a little high. Jalen Johnson, fully healthy. The growing stuff really affected him. I have a good grade on Bryant. I think I have a good grade on the young safety coming in from college, the rest of it is. And again, I'm below average. 4.9 is much higher than you, but it's still saying, this is a below average secondary. And this is a defense that I have, obviously, kind of similar to you. It's in the 30s. My runstop is even lower than you at this point. With the 10 push. - The 10 push can help that, I think. If I was used it just last year, it would be lower, but I'm expecting some improvement there. - A lot of it was-- - Jared had bad numbers. - Yeah, I'm not a good guy. - I don't take this. - I don't take this. - I don't think he's suddenly turning it around at his age. - The two problems with this team are Garrett and Jared. No, there's a lot of problems on the defense. I mean, Dennis Allen got more out of the, some of the parts last year and they were bad. I don't know what else to say. When you remove a turnover from the equation, their dropback EPA allowed, Andy was 0.3 per dropback. That is basically saying they made every quarterback they played look like Josh Allen. - So, it's hard to make money in spares. - It's hard to make a living. - Sorry, Josh. - Yeah, Gordon, Nickel. Possibly this rookie, Muhammad from Texas pushing Stevenson for the spot opposite Jalen Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Tyneman Teenerman. As your safeties, Edwards and Devon Bush, Bush with the green dot. And then yeah, we talked about the edge being a lot of sweat. And then, you know, Booker rotating with, Foden, Odea, Engbow, - Great. - Great. - Jared's probably declining, Gervand extra junior, can't stop the run either. They're gonna be very susceptible to the run up the middle and Bush is gonna have to clean up a lot. He might have 150 tackles. - Is that a market? - I honestly, I just thought I should go talk to Noonan about that after the show. - See what his stuff is on that. My special teams is 4.9 years is seven. That's such a small part of the grade. I don't know if we need to sit and argue. - Well, I don't know why I'm minding. So, hi, I think it must have been where we just ended last year. 4.7. - Santos. Santos was good on kickoffs, gross kickoff coverage. Other than that, it was great. - Oh, they deserve a seven, Andy. - 18th rank. - Don't you remember? - I'm 17th, TVOA. - Do you not remember when Santos was literally putting English on his kicks in the wins to get him through? - He's good, he's good at kickoffs. - And then forget kickoffs. I'm talking about field goal attempts. You remember when he was putting English on his field goal attempts and specifically aiming them away so that the win would blow them through the uprights? Like that was some serious, high degree of difficulty shit. That was awesome. Yeah. - And this is interesting to Ryan. The thing is, the thing that was said, they run defense teams will have so much success passing. - Why are you even needing to run against them? - I do worry about that. And that's another reason where I never like to take a season long over on Yardage. Because you know, it just, there's such a high risk of, oh, he's gonna miss five games with a high ankle sprain and your bet lost. But I think Caleb is going to absolutely, if he stays healthy, finally be the 4,000 year thrower for the Bears. Because this defense is going to be an issue and they're going to be playing catch up a bunch in games. And it's probably going to be a fun team like last year where games are going to come down to it because hey, can Caleb do it late? Because this defense certainly can't. And if they certainly should regress in the takeaway market, you know, not being the number one takeaway ratio, give way takeaway, plus 22. If the defense isn't contributing like they were last year, it's going to fall heavily on Ben and Caleb. And I think Caleb's going to have to sling it a lot. - I mean, it could make the argument the other direction, though, which is if they're in a positive game state, they play key play, keep that defense off the field. Like they are, they could vary, this might not be a team that we're trying to bet over. Right? - It's interesting. - Like this might be an anti-read special where if this team has a lead at halftime, the second half under is like golden. - I just worry about them having leads at halftime. I mean, there's three good defensive drives. I also look at the schedule. So we both have them as about a plus two. - So in a game where they have two fumbles in the first half and they're up by 21 seven at halftime. - That's an under. - It's like a half under. (laughing) - They got good, yeah, they got good enough run blocking and very much get the right run scheme for it. So, all right, the better schedule starts on the road. - Good schedule for our first play schedule. This looks favorable to me. - You do play a lot of tough teams. You mentioned, you know, you're in the NFC North, so you gotta play Green Bay, you gotta play Minnesota, you gotta play Detroit. You also have Buffalo on the schedule. You have Seattle on the schedule. You have New England. You play, who is in the, do we have the Rams here? Is that the only team? - No, they play Seattle, not the Rams. - They play Seattle. I mean, basically, here's all the teams that made the playoffs just sets the Rams last year. You play Jacksonville at home. - Better play the Niners either. So Niners and Rams. - Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't end up with most of them. - Yeah, but you know what, I like better than dodging the Niners and the Rams, Andy. I like dodging the Seahawks and the Rams, which is what the Vikings did. (laughing) And I don't think, I don't think, uh. I don't think the packers have to play the brands, the blinds don't have to play it. They get to play the Cardinals. That's why everybody's kind of blowing the lions right now, like just with who they match up against, like they got some much, much, much softer, fourth place schedule bump than the other teams did. That said, this is not a bad schedule. They started out with a Carolina team who's already hurt. Minnesota and at home, interestingly, is a 1 p.m. start, so you don't necessarily get to exercise your cold weather advantage against the Minnesota Vikings. Really fun Monday night football, week three against Philly, excited for that one. You matched up brilliantly against Philly last year. Ben Johnson does seem to have whatever it takes to kind of spin fangio a little bit, which is pretty interesting. You could very well be looking at a pretty favorable win loss onto your by week 10. If you look at 20, 25 win percentage, which is by far not the best way to look at things, I do think it's the toughest schedule. Really? If you add up, I'm going to double check this. I have this written down, the win percent, the combined win percentage from 2025 on all these teams is like 550. I have this as the third toughest schedule if you add are my ratings for everything. That's the thing. You should really use numbers that you're forward facing numbers like that. Either way, I don't think there's any argument that even at the end of the season with some surprises, it's probably going to be a top 10 toughest schedule. Just based off you're playing your division in some of the high end teams you play. Triple, triple dipper on week 789 into the buy Thursday night football, Monday night football. That's kind of nice playing the maybe, I think that's the toughest game of the year. Maybe that are in Buffalo, but at Seattle, you get extra rest. You go from Thursday to Monday, so you get extra time to prepare for the champs. That's still a huge ask to get that done. And then a short week at home versus Tampa and then you take your buy. Oh, this is such a good schedule. These kids are going to be so good. And I know if I was going to speak as a neutral, I'm going to be pretty pissed if this team sucks because we got all the things. We got to watch them on Christmas. We got to watch them on the Saturday before Christmas, because they have the Christmas game. And then Christmas day in soldier field, not in Gary Indiana yet. Packers come to town Christmas, all the slavery. Really. 1 p.m. Kick off. Yeah. That's fun. Hopefully it's those. And then, but it's a weird one. You go green Bay Detroit, Minnesota. You got all your division games. Half of them right at the end there. Extra rest though before you. Level level. Level leverage right at the end there. Yeah, a lot. You're right. Absolutely right. God damn. That Thursday night football game. I haven't looked at the full Thursday night football schedule, but Chicago doing one's got to be the best game on there. Williams versus Drake May is pretty freaking electric. Who were the Cowboys playing with the giants? I think. Oh, you're talking about on Thanksgiving. Yeah. Are you your child in Christmas? No, I'm talking about that just the just the generic TNF. They Amazon Prime TNF. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess this is your name. I'd be the best game. Little Super Bowl 20. No. 25 30. What Super Bowl was it with the refrigerator? William, refrigerator. Perry 1985 would have been Super Bowl. 20 20. 20. I think it was 20. It was a big one. It was a it was a round number. We're pretty sure. Yeah. We'll say it's 20. Baudzilla was confirming 20. The, but yeah, it's a. There was no trouble. You weren't there to cause no trouble. What was the score in that game, Drew? 42 to 10. Load up to a little. I think it was 55 10. Was it? Tony Eason didn't have it that day. Did not. No. Anyway, the, this is going to be a super entertaining schedule. I think the schedule makers, it got the message that the bears are entertaining. They get a lot of extra rest across their schedule this year, which is interesting. They get a lot of favorable travel. Only difficult travel spot is that Seattle Monday and FB all game, but you got the extra rest for that. So that's cool. It was 46 to 10 on Super Bowl Sunday when refrigerator, Perry scored a touchdown, but Walter Payton did not. But no, the, all of these matchups are just awesome. I'm excited for all of them. I'll even watch Chicago versus the Jets. I don't care. They've got to go defense might make the Jets offense look good that day. That would be a problem. Really quick. And we haven't talked about these teams yet. So don't spoil anything. Which of the four NFC North teams are you least excited to watch? If it was just, hey, you can only watch the games from one of these teams this year. And if, NFC North, you said NFC North Green Bay by margin. I think it's, I think that's correct. Even though I think they're going to be a good team, but the bears have like, are we Ben Johnson, we're Ben Johnson Pilt. Obviously. Oh, definitely no question. I think we're just very much. Yeah, we're just very much excited about the possibilities between what Koc can do with a viable quarterback. What Ben Johnson can do in year two here with Caleb Williams here, three Ota. There's a runway to the top. And it is similar to, even though they had a good coordinator two years ago in Minnesota, that was not a good defense. It wasn't great at times. I mean, it, Florida's got a lot out of them, but it's, I think that is your ceiling. The same kind of thing we talked about with the, the Darnold year. It's like, hey, we're just getting so much out of this offense that we're going to win. We're going to win games because it's defense. I really struggled to see a world where this defense is 50th percent. neutral. Yeah, neutral. No matter because if they have plus 30 turnover again, then yeah, but yeah, I just don't think you can do it that front seven. And then you are relying on some young players and Tyrick Stephenson, maybe. Edzilla is making an effect very fair point to other Thursday and football games worth watching. Bill Steadym opening versus Detroit week two. Casey Rams. A throwback of the golf Pat Mahomes classic that was a whole over a hundred points. So yeah, the, the moral of the story, Amazon Prime got some good games. Teach your local, the bartender, your local water and how to find Amazon Prime. Mine is getting good at it. Okay. It's funny. It's like him just logging into it. I'm just going to aircast this from my phone. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Let's get serious about a couple things. So you're, I don't even remember we set it out loud. So if you weren't watching the YouTube stream, shame on you, watch the YouTube stream. But I was a plus two for the Bears as far as my neutral rating. You were a plus two point two. Is that right? Yeah. We are both over market on this team. The market rating for the Bears right now is 1.71. And much like the Vikings, I think there's a world where a month of data tells us this Bears offense is top five who cares how bad that defenses. What are some of the things you're going to be specifically looking at as you're watching Bears film as you're watching, you know, kind of crunching the numbers for these guys. Like what's going to kind of take you from a 5.5 and change to like a Brock Pertice Kyle Shanahan kind of number, right? Because like in what universe is Ben Johnson with a talent like Caleb Williams not getting a Shanahan party number? Yeah, I think it is the usage on the receivers. What and what they're doing with the run game. The scheme, the, you know, the sequencing, how, how much he's getting out of these three receivers. I think, you know, we all think they're pretty damn good, especially, you know, a tight end that can just do it all and then Caleb himself. If he can clean up some of the accuracy and not just have to wow us with the, hey, he completed the ball that should never be completed, but he also missed another swing pass or he missed another 10 yard out. Like some making the easy stuff happen. I'm not going to even entertain a world where it's like, hey, I'm looking for this defense to really impress me. Yeah, no, no, no. It's not a matter of if they impress, I'm going to assume it's fluky and it's actually more of a signal that the offense they were playing is dog shit. But it is their guess. Bradbury playing up next to Thuney helps. If we see an instant like, hey, he's, these are right. Like it's the after small catches the ball in the, all right, he could play. I mean, he's all right. I don't know what else. It's a lot of it is just Caleb improving. Yeah, yeah, yeah, growing and he had a memory. I almost want to throw out your one for you. What do you know, for sure? Well, I know, here's the other thing is that like, I think it's worth, I guess. I guess in the world of qualitative intangibles at this point, which we don't really lean on very often, but I think you have to a bit. The fact that Caleb Williams did start the season last year so poorly and then bounced back to have a really good year means something, right? Like if things are not going well for whatever reason for him this year, right? He's taken a step back. It's a junior slump, not a sophomore slump, obviously, because yeah, last year we were as a sophomore breakout, but I'm calling it a sophomore slump anyway. I'm redacting 24 season. It's gone for the records. Black marker. Okay. He took a step backwards from his junior breakout at USC to his senior campaign. A lot of it was, and like he's a weird guy where he draws like this absolute lighting rod of attention and like a lot of people want to jump in with some opinions and sometimes it's tough to, like, you know, kind of not listen to the, you know, cacophony of opinion happers, especially in a city like Chicago where all the focus is on bears. So I mean, I guess, you know, there's definitely some, you know, I'm not worried about that, but I will be monitoring that surely. And if I, right now I'm the bears are my seventh rated offense heading into the NFL. And the reason that they're on that high on them is because I love Ben Johnson and because the, oh, he was on a cover, man. I didn't know that. I love Ben Johnson. And I think the outer structure stuff that Caleb does is something that you can't teach. Right. So if you can get the instructor stuff cleaned up, then he still has that, that, that, that nash. Yeah. It could be just freaking awesome. And if I give Chicago my, if I give my, then my QBOC number that I have for say, pretty in Shanahan, then Chicago is my second best offense. I'm not even coaching, dude. I assume he will be about a time later. Hopefully he's okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can cut that right. He's in blue tent. He, he's probably pretty dinged up. Kudos to the media who knew about it because that was absolutely under wraps. What happened? I don't, I think this accident happened a little while ago. Yeah, no, like, like, 10 days. 10 days. I, how that, how I don't know, like that, that's, that's kind of amazing. Just everybody is on vacation and not, you know, or like, nobody was covering it. Nobody was covering it. Nobody was worried that he was going to die, but they didn't, we were like, I just, yeah. It is what it is. Are any, any bets you want to make in the Bears? Okay. Oh, yeah, Forester is fired up. You had that tweet and I was like, no way, that's the guy, but I knew you wouldn't tweet it unless you knew it was a guy. I can't believe that. It was the guy. I know. I knew you wouldn't say, I knew you would have tweeted unless you knew it, which made me be like, that, no, what? How the hell? Anyway, final thoughts in the Bears. This could be top two offense. Is there ceiling? Bottom two defense is there for. They could be 98 or 89. They could be 5 and 11. I'm sorry, 5 and 12, 12 and 5. Anything in between would not surprise me. This is a high variance team. You want to pray on that variance. However, you take advantage of it. I hope they're entertaining. I hope they win games, even if they are 5 and 10 heading into that home stretch. I will watch those games and be entertained because it's a great product. What they're putting out there in the field offensively. And yeah, I hope they, I hope this continues to build. And they're part of the playoff mix, even if it's ultimately not a team as roster that I think has a chance to win the Super Bowl. Yeah, you're going to run into some, I just don't think you could beat the Rams in the play. How many points do you have to score to beat the Rams? 43. I mean, yeah, how many, how many times do the Rams have the ball? So it's six, that very. That's seven. That's seven plus one. Yeah, 43. Yeah, 43. They might just score every time. If I'm the Rams, I'm going for two. You know how I can dare you. That's such a bad, I mean, even last time I looked you have Jervon Dexter senior on the field. So I think we're going to go for two here. All right. You know what? We're putting Miles Garrett in the back field. Just funny. William refrigerator, Perry style. This is how you win. Yeah, you have to have that game at home. That's how you win that game. Sure. And so far, you are a 10 point dog. What was the weather and the nine air spares game week 17 last year? Was that kind of shitty? I think it was kind of shitty. I think it was like windy. Hmm. Blinking because played in the wind and rain. It was at night. So five of them is a two and I have the Rams at like a seven that's five, three. We're going to make strong field. I guess I make the Rams like seven, seven and a half point favorites at home against the Bears. But the Bears number probably comes up between them. So we'll make him Rams might a six and a half at so five. I have. I know, but I thought it was windy in that game. It might have been. And the electrical currents. The PFR says three and it was five and five mile an hour or so. Maybe not. But whatever the case is, you know, how many points the Bears needed to win that day? Andy. How many? 43 and they only got 38. So they were on the losing end there. Then they turned pretty over a couple of times. Students didn't matter. Now I'm blanking. They picked pretty off. They didn't force a phone ball. All right. Well, excited for Bears season. And for Bears football, I think there's a hundred percent, a hundred percent world where we gave teen Minnesota Chicago is your prime time game that decides a top two seed in the NFC and the NFC North. Which means Wednesday is going to be fun because we are handicapping the markets first and second choice in this division who I think should be third and fourth. So I think it's fun. All of the big mess. Yes, we will be back Wednesday. We will do in this order of the Green Bay Packers and the Motor City Kiddies Detroit. It's a hell of a week. And it's the final rocket Morgan Jopin in Detroit this week. AJ added Edwards had a pick six of party first question and scored. Sorry. Yeah. If you are a packers fan, hopefully you're safe. Jesus. I just saw some pictures of that. They had tornadoed. Yeah. Like Green Bay, Wisconsin. Absolutely. Appleton, which is, that's like where you stay when you go to a Packers game. It's the next town over. Damn, they can't catch a break. No. All right. Well, I'm the head of the bus. Now this bummer notes. Sorry, bumming you guys out. But yes, we will. We will talk a little Green Bay Packers on Wednesday. We'll be back. Hit the thumbs up, sign up for the circuit contest, follow the Twitter. You know what? Call your brother. Call your mom. Call somebody. Say hi to him because football is starting. And you're not going to have time for that shit. Get stuff out of the way. Clean out the garage. We're close to the Hall of Fame game. This is Justin Edwards, co-host of The Most Accurate Podcast. Join me and my team of Jennifer Aiken's John Paulson and more from for for for.com as we go over a litany of fantasy football conversations focused squarely on helping you when you're league looking for starts to advice the best weekly streaming options and must add waiver wire pickups for your fantasy team. Check out the most accurate podcast for all of that and everything in between with data-driven analysis to help you get into the fantasy football promise land. for for for the most accurate podcast on all streaming platforms.