Week 8: Bears @ Ravens noon on CBS

[jersey cubs fan]

It’s not just who you play but when you play them. 

The Ravens lost a classic in week 1 despite putting up 40 points and leading by 15 in the 4th. They blew out the Browns in week 2 and lost another shootout in week 3 against Detroit. The wheels came off in week 4 in KC, which happens to the best of them and Lamar didn’t play in back to back multi score losses before the bye week. 
 

But Lamar is back now and Baltimore is coming off a bye. Presumably they will be healthy and desperate for a win to keep their playoff/division hopes alive. The Ravens still have two against Pittsburgh and two against Cincy and have to think of themselves as legit contenders. At their best they are favorites in most of their remaining games. 
 

the Bears think of themselves as playoff hopefuls. If they pull off this road upset then people will begin to think they may actually be legit. At the bare minimum they can be a tough out and somebody that’s gonna spoil other hopefuls’ seasons. 

[Brian707]

Wonder how the injury report looks for Stevenson and Kmet. Both left yesterday and did not return.  I think this game is going to be tough on the Bears.   

Ravens 34 Bears 20

[UMFan83]

Honestly, I'll be happy if we have a close competitive game with them.  Not saying the Bears can't win, but there are so many reasons Baltimore should win this game (assuming Lamar plays).  It's much more about the Ravens being the Ravens than it is about being down on the Bears.

[Irrelevant Dude]

The Bears probably aren't going to move on from Cairo Santos at this point, but they really should.  I know kickers generally kick for a long time in the NFL, but Santos is about to turn 34 and his leg isn't going to get any stronger as he ages.  There is risk in making that move.  Maybe Moody implodes and shows why he didn't make it in San Francisco.  But there is also upside that just doesn't exist in Cairo Santos, and it's time to roll the dice on that upside.

 

[Tryptamine]

1 hour ago, Brian707 said:

Wonder how the injury report looks for Stevenson and Kmet. Both left yesterday and did not return.  I think this game is going to be tough on the Bears.   

Ravens 34 Bears 20

Hot take, I'm ready for Kmet to go away

[bukie]

 

[Old Style]

If we don’t count the bears losses, they are undefeated and the top seed for the playoffs. 

[minnesotacubsfan]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

Hot take, I'm ready for Kmet to go away

I might be too if Loveland wasnt a huge black hole in this offense

[javy knows my name]

57 minutes ago, bukie said:

 

Yeah but why though

[UMFan83]

2 minutes ago, javy knows my name said:

Yeah but why though

On one hand yeah you can't ignore the first 2 weeks but it is at least somewhat interesting to see how teams have played the last 4 games, especially in the case of the Bears and Patriots who have young QBs and new coaching staffs.

[WrigleyField 22]

6 minutes ago, javy knows my name said:

Yeah but why though

Random sample size cutoffs are good if they favor my team. 

[bukie]

7 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

Random sample size cutoffs are good if they favor my team. 

Also things like "The Bears have played better of late, it's not just the quality of opponent" are actually true.

[WrigleyField 22]

1 minute ago, bukie said:

Also things like "The Bears have played better of late, it's not just the quality of opponent" are actually true.

Thats actually additionally funny because DVOA also already has mechanisms in place to deal with opponent strength metric as a season progresses, so presumably this just kneecaps that portion or what, I don't know? 

[UMFan83]

Lamar was expected to be back at practice following the bye.  He did not practice today.

Still very early in the week but interesting development

 

Edited October 20, 2025 by UMFan83

[bukie]

18 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

Thats actually additionally funny because DVOA also already has mechanisms in place to deal with opponent strength metric as a season progresses, so presumably this just kneecaps that portion or what, I don't know? 

You are just on a roll this week of not understanding things, I guess, better to be gleefully ignorant I suppose, as long as you can stop being so dismissive about it.

DVOA is opponent adjusted, so being #9 suggests the Bears have actually played well since week 2, and aren't just taking advantage of a weak schedule.

[BigSlick]

Oh my god we would be so so lucky to avoid Lamar here. I’m not counting on it though. 
 

Huge opportunity for the Bears to “arrive” here though. They’ve been playing a bunch of scrubs (and the Commanders, who didn’t play amazing), so if they can look even just decent in a competitive game, it means a lot. Weird to say against a 1-5 team, but it’s real.

Would be a great game for Caleb to look good. 

[mul21]

Isn't the Ravens defense still super injured and missing a bunch of guys?  The offense should look good against them and I guess we'll find out how real the defensive improvement is if Lamar plays.

[Brian707]

27 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

Lamar was expected to be back at practice following the bye.  He did not practice today.

Still very early in the week but interesting development

 

Vegas line is now inching closer to Ravens -7 so I assume he will play. If it starts trending the other way on his availability Vegas will be the first to know

[WrigleyField 22]

1 hour ago, bukie said:

You are just on a roll this week of not understanding things, I guess, better to be gleefully ignorant I suppose, as long as you can stop being so dismissive about it.

DVOA is opponent adjusted, so being #9 suggests the Bears have actually played well since week 2, and aren't just taking advantage of a weak schedule.

But DVOA is already a schedule adjusted metric that adjusts it's weighting throughout the season so it's not clear what excluding weeks would even do there. 

[WrigleyField 22]

To put it another way :

 

DVOA is always gonna be better with a longer sample as it replaces preseason SOS adjustment with in season SOS adjustment. 

 

Is it 6 games of SOS but just 4 games of ratings ( so you have selective sample) 

 

Or is it 4 games of ratings (smaller sample and more weighting towards preseason SOS). 

 

Neither of those things sound necessarily better than just taking the largest DVOA sample you can.  Now an inherent limitation of DVOA is probably just being slow to react to change so we can use scouting and stuff to measure something like that... But a smaller sample is just kind of worse in most cases. Those games probably still tell us true things about teams most times.

[gflore34]

Don't expect the Bears to win.  I'll be satisfied if Caleb plays well, Bears score a horsefeathers ton of points in losing a competitive game.

I was discouraged by Caleb' bad game as well.  Ben Johnson has already mentioned on numerous occasions that he doesn't expect the Bears offense to be their best until December into January.  I see no reason not to believe him and I'm willing to give him a chance before I write off Caleb.

[Soul]

2 hours ago, gflore34 said:

Don't expect the Bears to win.  I'll be satisfied if Caleb plays well, Bears score a horsefeathers ton of points in losing a competitive game.

I was discouraged by Caleb' bad game as well.  Ben Johnson has already mentioned on numerous occasions that he doesn't expect the Bears offense to be their best until December into January.  I see no reason not to believe him and I'm willing to give him a chance before I write off Caleb.

Honestly I don’t understand even saying “write off” Caleb at all right now.  He gets this year and probably all of next year too with BJ’s tutorage.

[WrigleyField 22]

15 minutes ago, Soul said:

Honestly I don’t understand even saying “write off” Caleb at all right now.  He gets this year and probably all of next year too with BJ’s tutorage.

I haven't seen the update since Sunday but going into this week like 4 of the top 6 QBs in EPA/play were former top 10 picks cast off and on their 2nd+ team. 

 

The offense is putting up points. Caleb's leash is as long as that still happening.  Brady was a system QB for like 6 years.  Give these guys times unless they really give you reason not to. 

[WrigleyField 22]

[BigSlick]

22 minutes ago, WrigleyField 22 said:

I haven't seen the update since Sunday but going into this week like 4 of the top 6 QBs in EPA/play were former top 10 picks cast off and on their 2nd+ team. 

 

The offense is putting up points. Caleb's leash is as long as that still happening.  Brady was a system QB for like 6 years.  Give these guys times unless they really give you reason not to. 

I'm also on team "give young QBs more time" but there's a reason why teams don't give QBs as much time as they used to: contracts. Because of draft slotting and how contracts work, you pretty much *have* to know what you have with your QB by the end of year 3 or you're kind of boned.