Week 14: Bears at Packers Sunday 3:25 on Fox

[The_Achiever]

4 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Cleveland's record is terrible, but we know their defense is solid and we've seen Sanders put up big passing numbers (and we have no pass rush and ass secondary right now). 

Might be closer than we'd like

Agreed, I don't like how it feels but we still need to win this one.  Hopefully they start to pack in after losing to the lowly Titans.

[UMFan83]

4 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Cleveland's record is terrible, but we know their defense is solid and we've seen Sanders put up big passing numbers (and we have no pass rush and ass secondary right now). 

Might be closer than we'd like

Meh, they just lost at home to the worst team in the NFL.  You are right, they do have a good defense, though banged up I believe.  They can be run on too.  Sanders looked capable yesterday but again you have to consider the competition.  I think they also lost their starting C for the season yesterday.

They have some parts you worry about but as a whole I don't think the Bears should be terribly threatened by playing the Browns at home.

[Old Style]

2 hours ago, gflore34 said:

Find it ironic Packers fans are whining about Parsons being held.  How often Mack was held by the Packers?

Did Parsons play? Didn’t really see him. 

[NorthsideAvenger]

14 hours ago, minnesotacubsfan said:

horsefeathers Ben Johnson might be the greatest HC the Bears have had since Halas started the league. Just let the man cook.

 

 

 

Absolutely. It's why I believe Bears will win the rematch in Chicago. 

But can we please get a good Caleb for 60 minutes. 

[Soul]

I’m still right where I have been the entire season. There are no “gimme” games.  Not Cleveland and not anyone.  The Bears have done a great job winning games in BJ’s first season in spite of the deficiencies on the roster.  But it’s still a deeply flawed team and it’s the NFl.  The margins are extremely thin.  The Bears will need to put up a good performance for 60 minutes against Cleveland or we will be feeling just like Bucs fans feel today.

[Soul]

38 minutes ago, NorthsideAvenger said:

Absolutely. It's why I believe Bears will win the rematch in Chicago. 

But can we please get a good Caleb for 60 minutes. 

At this point, I’m doubtful.  He hasn’t done anything to make me think he’s capable of 4 good quarters.  I’m thinking we can expect to see it after an offseason but the rest of this season we will have to win with a hot/cold QB.  Bears have shown they can do that though.

This is what Caleb can give us this year.  And yeah, some of it isn’t his fault but the point is, what we have seen so far is likely what we will get the rest of the way.

[raw]

2 hours ago, The_Achiever said:

2-2 probably gets us into the 'yoffs?  Gotta have that Cleveland game and Detroit outside @ home doesn't scare me.  

Gotta get payback on Green Bay too.  First things first, need to take care of business next week against Cleveland.  

The "yoffs" gotta stop. That's awful.

[Banedon]

38 minutes ago, Soul said:

At this point, I’m doubtful.  He hasn’t done anything to make me think he’s capable of 4 good quarters.  I’m thinking we can expect to see it after an offseason but the rest of this season we will have to win with a hot/cold QB.  Bears have shown they can do that though.

This is what Caleb can give us this year.  And yeah, some of it isn’t his fault but the point is, what we have seen so far is likely what we will get the rest of the way.

I mean, it's pretty rare for any QB to have a "4 good quarters" game.  Love threw a pick yesterday.  Stafford had himself a bad week last week.  Joe Burrow had a comical couple of picks in a row yesterday. 

[gflore34]

1 minute ago, Banedon said:

I mean, it's pretty rare for any QB to have a "4 good quarters" game.  Love threw a pick yesterday.  Stafford had himself a bad week last week.  Joe Burrow had a comical couple of picks in a row yesterday. 

Maybe, a little more consistency?  Right now Love, Burrow, Stafford and other good QB don't have halves where they missed on nearly every throw.  I understand it's not all on Caleb, the receivers also deserve a fair amount of criticism, often times Caleb makes the correct read and throw but, they're in the wrong place.  Passing game is still very much in the developmental stage and it's looking as if it's going to take a whole season to develop.

[Soul]

5 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Maybe, a little more consistency?  Right now Love, Burrow, Stafford and other good QB don't have halves where they missed on nearly every throw.  I understand it's not all on Caleb, the receivers also deserve a fair amount of criticism, often times Caleb makes the correct read and throw but, they're in the wrong place.  Passing game is still very much in the developmental stage and it's looking as if it's going to take a whole season to develop.

That’s a big reason I’m hopeful for more consistency next year.

[The_Achiever]

1 hour ago, raw said:

The "yoffs" gotta stop. That's awful.

Good luck with that.  I love being annoying and saying annoying things.  'Oying?  'Nnoying?  🤔

[Banedon]

BTW, the "DJ was wide open" narrative...seems suspect.  I'm not gonna link an X post here but it's at the end of this article:

Caleb Williams on Soul-Crushing Week 14 Interception: "Just Gotta Give Cole a Better Shot"

 

[UMFan83]

57 minutes ago, Soul said:

That’s a big reason I’m hopeful for more consistency next year.

I think its been said before that a major focus for Ben this year is having Caleb learn the offense and run it the way he wants it run.  Also, he probably wants to optimize how to use Caleb properly.  Things like footwork and mechanics are a work in progress.  You can see how crappy his footwork is when you watch him throw errant passes.  It needs to be worked on and probably should have always expected some issues with Ben wanting Caleb to primarily drop back from under center for the first time in his career.

I don't see Caleb staring down open receivers most of the time.  I don't see him unwilling or unable to make progressions.  I don't see him waiting too long to throw a pass because the WR isn't open yet (aka throwing with anticipation).  He's not always making the right read, but he is way more often than his detractors are giving him credit for.  He's got some stuff to work on but IMO the mental side of being a franchise QB is coming along nicely and is by far the more important thing for Caleb to show this year.  More importantly, he has an offensive guru that understands Calebs strengths as a QB and is building an offense to maximize those strengths.  He might not ever have 70% completion percentage but I think when your QB is often breaking the pocket and throwing on the run, it's going to be trading off completion percentage for chunky plays downfield.  

Edited December 8, 2025 by UMFan83

[BigSlick]

The final play of the game is getting a lot of attention, which makes sense, but I’m kind of surprised that Ben Johnson’s handling of the entire sequence isn’t being questioned more. They let about 1:30 come off the clock before the 4th down play, and showed almost no urgency during that final set of downs. I get, and support, leaving Green Bay as little clock to respond if we score, but boy howdy it heavily restricted what they could do there, down to maybe ruling out a run on 4th and 1. (You could run, but you have to call a TO and then you’re down to ~20ish seconds to get 20 or so yards and a TD). I just thought overall it was a weirdly run drive once we crossed into Green Bag territory. 

[gflore34]

10 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

I think its been said before that a major focus for Ben this year is having Caleb learn the offense and run it the way he wants it run.  Also, he probably wants to optimize how to use Caleb properly.  Things like footwork and mechanics are a work in progress.  You can see how crappy his footwork is when you watch him throw errant passes.  It needs to be worked on and probably should have always expected some issues with Ben wanting Caleb to primarily drop back from under center for the first time in his career.

I don't see Caleb staring down open receivers most of the time.  I don't see him unwilling or unable to make progressions.  I don't see him waiting too long to throw a pass because the WR isn't open yet (aka throwing with anticipation).  He's not always making the right read, but he is way more often than his detractors are giving him credit for.  He's got some stuff to work on but IMO the mental side of being a franchise QB is coming along nicely and is by far the more important thing for Caleb to show this year.  More importantly, he has an offensive guru that understands Calebs strengths as a QB and is building an offense to maximize those strengths.  He might not ever have 70% completion percentage but I think when your QB is often breaking the pocket and throwing on the run, it's going to be trading off completion percentage for chunky plays downfield.  

That's what has me so optimistic, Mitch and Justin were/are incapable in that area and it's not fixable.  Caleb' problems aren't on the mental side and are all fixable.  It's plainly visible in film studies, Caleb quickly going through progressions, manipulating defenders with his eyes, it's only a matter of time before the mechanical part comes along.

[Banedon]

5 minutes ago, BigSlick said:

The final play of the game is getting a lot of attention, which makes sense, but I’m kind of surprised that Ben Johnson’s handling of the entire sequence isn’t being questioned more. They let about 1:30 come off the clock before the 4th down play, and showed almost no urgency during that final set of downs. I get, and support, leaving Green Bay as little clock to respond if we score, but boy howdy it heavily restricted what they could do there, down to maybe ruling out a run on 4th and 1. (You could run, but you have to call a TO and then you’re down to ~20ish seconds to get 20 or so yards and a TD). I just thought overall it was a weirdly run drive once we crossed into Green Bag territory. 

I had no problem with it.  I think Brady was right that Ben was gonna go for 2 there if they got the TD.  I think what kinda screwed it up was Monangai getting stopped on 3rd down.  It was just an individually good play by Green Bay there, and that's what messed up what they could do.

[PackLandVA]

2 hours ago, Old Style said:

Did Parsons play? Didn’t really see him. 

You didn't watch the game then, because he had 8 QB pressures.

[UMFan83]

21 minutes ago, BigSlick said:

The final play of the game is getting a lot of attention, which makes sense, but I’m kind of surprised that Ben Johnson’s handling of the entire sequence isn’t being questioned more. They let about 1:30 come off the clock before the 4th down play, and showed almost no urgency during that final set of downs. I get, and support, leaving Green Bay as little clock to respond if we score, but boy howdy it heavily restricted what they could do there, down to maybe ruling out a run on 4th and 1. (You could run, but you have to call a TO and then you’re down to ~20ish seconds to get 20 or so yards and a TD). I just thought overall it was a weirdly run drive once we crossed into Green Bag territory. 

Honestly I don't think it's a big deal.  They had 2 TOs and were going to be goal to go if they got 3 yards on that 4th down play with about 30 seconds left.  Maybe 1 TO if they're tackled in bounds.   Let's say they get out of bounds though because the play they called was a boot towards the sidelines.  His options were: 1) Caleb runs out of bounds for a 1st, 2) Caleb throws a TD to Kmet, 3) Caleb somehow sees DJ leaking open and hits them for either a TD or stopped inside the 5 yard line. 

Option 1 allows the Bears to do everything except maybe run 4 straight times, but if they're at the 10 yard line they probably aren't calling 4 runs.  But even 4 straight runs is possible: 1st run - TO, 2nd run - TO, 3rd run - clock is under 20 seconds and running but they've likely drawn up their 4th down play in the previous TO.

Option 2 gives the Packers the ball back either tied or down 1 (Ben said they were going for 2 if they scored so likely the latter) with 25 seconds left and I believe 3 TOs for the Packers.  The way Love can get chunk yards with 50/50 balls at an elite level suggests that 25 seconds is the minimum time to leave the Packers to make the clock a factor in whether they get into FG range.

Option 3 gives the Bears a 1st and goal inside the 5 and likely 1 TO.  This is the most limiting option but even then they have enough time to run multiple times if they choose to.  Maybe even 3 times if the 1st or 2nd down play gets them inside the 1 (aka run on 3rd down, stopped short, rush to the line and try a sneak).

The biggest factor to me is that, like I mentioned, Love is elite at getting chunk plays downfield.  It takes maybe 2 of those plays to get into FG range.  Do you really want to leave him over a minute and 3 TOs to basically have everything available to them?

Edit: Now that I think about it, the Packers called a TO right before 4th down so I guess, they had 2 TOs left. My bad

Edited December 8, 2025 by UMFan83

[Soul]

9 minutes ago, PackLandVA said:

You didn't watch the game then, because he had 8 QB pressures.

Not why he is paid to be the guy.  He came up empty and the bears caught him more than once rushing up field leaving his gap open for the run.  He’s great don’t get me wrong but this wasn’t a memorable game.

[Banedon]

13 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

I'm not sure if they can win the tiebreaker over the Lions at this point.

It's possible.  If the Bears lose to both Cleveland and SF, but beat GB and Detroit...and Detroit somehow won the rest of their games (other than the Bears one), they would finish tied and the Bears would have the better division record tiebreaker.  Seems like a pretty unlikely scenario though.

[Old Style]

7 minutes ago, Soul said:

Not why he is paid to be the guy.  He came up empty and the bears caught him more than once rushing up field leaving his gap open for the run.  He’s great don’t get me wrong but this wasn’t a memorable game.

Especially not after running his mouth for no good reason claiming disrespect. 

[PackLandVA]

4 minutes ago, Soul said:

Not why he is paid to be the guy.  He came up empty and the bears caught him more than once rushing up field leaving his gap open for the run.  He’s great don’t get me wrong but this wasn’t a memorable game.

Pressures (and sacks) are EXACTLY why you pay DEs big money.  Pressures have huge impacts on plays success rate and outcome. It seems by your statement/logic, if a DE doesn't get a sack or make a tackle (or hold his edge), then he wasn't doing what he's paid to do.  

As far as your "rushing up field leaving his gap open", I just don't think there's merit to this statement.  The Bears were able to rush between the Tackles. I don't recall many, if any, designed runs outside the Tackle to Parsons' side that were successful.  Now, Gary Rashan OTOH.......

[UMFan83]

Doing some more math on why 2-2 gives us overwhelming odds to make the playoffs.

1) Like I mentioned before, 4 teams fighting for 3 PO spots (GB, DET, SF, CHI for NFC North and 2 WC spots)

2) Bears play all 3 of those teams, meaning that if they go 2-2 they have beaten at least one of them

3) If the Bears beat CLE and DET, the Lions would have won win their 3 remaining games (@ LAR, PIT, @ MIN) to tie the Bears, and it comes down to tiebreakers

4) If the Bears beat CLE and SF, the Bears would own the H2H tiebreaker over SF, meaning SF would have to win its 3 remaining games  (TEN, @ IND, SEA) to pass the Bears.  Easier schedule but still

5) If the Bears beat CLE and GB, there's a little more doubt since they lose the H2H to SF and DET, meaning SF could go 1-2 and pass the Bears, the Lions 2-1 and pass the Bears and the Packers 2-1 to pass the Bears.  But thats still 3 things that have to happen against the Bears

6) If the Bears lose to CLE and beat 2 of the other 3 teams, they're not locks but they've put themselves in a position where either DET and SF need to win out, or one needs to win out and the Packers need to go 2-1 to be left out.

There are plenty of other scenarios to consider like 3 or 4 team tiebreakers, a slide by the Seahawks or Rams bringing them into the mix (though I think we established last week that we cannot tie the Seahawks and Rams without also winning the tiebreaker over both), but for 2 team tiebreakers thats how it looks.

Edited December 8, 2025 by UMFan83

[gflore34]

22 minutes ago, Old Style said:

Especially not after running his mouth for no good reason claiming disrespect. 

He does himself a disservice by speaking, comes off as an elite idiot.

[BigSlick]

32 minutes ago, Soul said:

Not why he is paid to be the guy.  He came up empty and the bears caught him more than once rushing up field leaving his gap open for the run.  He’s great don’t get me wrong but this wasn’t a memorable game.

I love you man, but I think you're wrong on this one - he was hugely disruptive all game long., most especially in that first half It wasn't as bad as the Maxx Crosby game where he utterly dominated a total half of football, but it wasn't that far off.