PodcastFrom Bootleg Football

Dial up Four Verts and let God sort out the rest | The Chicago Bears

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

1 hr 33 min

Duration

Estimated from transcript

Aug 17, 2026

Published

Mon, August 17, 2026

Player insights

Players mentioned

Topics

Caleb WilliamsRome OdunzeCole KmetColston LovelandD.J. MooreD'Andre SwiftDe'Von AchaneJaylen JohnsonKalif RaymondLuther BurdenMiller MossSam Roush

Player analysis

Player insights

Caleb Williams

PositiveProjection4:01

Caleb Williams is established as a dangerous quarterback in the fourth quarter and a key reason for the Bears' offensive transformation. The source notes he is a magician at escaping sacks and converting them into first downs, with the team's offensive success in 2025 largely attributed to his development under Ben Johnson.

Insight page

PositiveProjection25:41

Caleb Williams led the NFL in 20-plus yard passing touchdowns last season and recorded the most fourth-quarter comebacks in the league. While he needs to improve his accuracy in the first 75% of games, the offense is structured to put him in the best possible position to succeed, and marked improvement is expected in his second year.

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Cole Kmet

NegativeUsage45:32

The source suggests the Bears might use Cole Kmet as an extra offensive lineman to help protect the left tackle, which could impact his receiving opportunities.

Insight page

Colston Loveland

PositiveBreakout22:10

Colston Loveland is identified as a young super weapon at tight end for the Bears, contributing to the high expectations for the team's offense in 2026.

Insight page

D.J. Moore

NegativeValue49:36

DJ Moore was traded to Buffalo for a second-round pick, a return that surprised the source given his age (29) and recent struggles with route running.

Insight page

D'Andre Swift

PositiveUsage29:55

DeAndre Swift is performing at the best level of his career within the current Bears offensive scheme, contributing to the team's top-five rushing EPA per play.

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De'Von Achane

PositiveBreakout43:36

Running backs coach Eric Studisville is credited with helping Devon Achane develop into one of the most productive young runners in the NFL during their time together with the Dolphins.

Insight page

Jaylen Johnson

NegativeInjury24:55

Jalen Johnson's health is a critical factor for the Bears' secondary improvement; the source emphasizes that he and Kyler Gordon need to be on the field together to stabilize the defense.

Insight page

Kalif Raymond

PositiveRole57:24

Khalif Raymond was signed to be a solid wide receiver four, potentially playing some wide receiver three, while providing a substantial impact on special teams.

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Luther Burden

NegativeUsage32:26

Luther Burden is currently utilized primarily as a YAC threat, but the source notes he needs to become more than just a short-yardage option and must improve his ability to separate against man coverage.

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Miller Moss

NegativeValue124:20

Miller Moss is viewed as a low-cost lottery ticket who could provide value as a scout team quarterback or QB3, though he lacks elite starter-quality tools.

Insight page

Rome Odunze

PositiveBreakout22:10

The source expects Rome Odunze to take a step forward in his development in 2026, serving as a key component of the Bears' high-powered offensive outlook.

Insight page

NegativeBreakout32:40

Rome Odunze did not have the greatest first year in the offense and struggled to separate against man coverage, but the source remains optimistic about his potential for a breakout in year two, citing the historical development curve of other receivers in Ben Johnson's system.

Insight page

Sam Roush

PositiveUsage107:57

Sam Roush is a fluid, athletic inline tight end with soft hands who will be instrumental in Ben Johnson's scheme, which heavily utilizes multi-tight end sets to disguise run and pass plays.

Insight page

Full transcript

Episode Transcript

1,082

0:00Mohamed famously said, Chicago is where receivers go to die.

0:03Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams took exactly one season to turn that line into a distant memory.

0:09Williams slings it, Williams! Loveland! Bangs off his man!

0:11He's gonna score! A charge ropper! Chicago has been caged in the basement of the NFC North for years.

0:17Before last season's miraculous rise, the last time the Bears tasted a division title was 2018.

0:22And that was their only moment in the sun for the past 15 years.

0:27Winning was far from a habit. The arrival of their new head coach changed all of that in a heartbeat.

0:33These Ursids, who'd been relentlessly stalked, turned the tables on their tormentors.

0:37And became the Hunters. Now Chicago is at a crossroads.

0:40An imperfect team with big questions on defense that always seem to find improbable answers on offense.

0:46Can they make miracles again? Windy City fans aren't certain, but they do know one thing for sure.

0:51They're gonna let Caleb Williams throw the match in the fireworks box and enjoy the show.

0:56It's day 16 of the summer preview series and we're gonna pull apart what's good, who's better, and how Chicago got to

1:03be the best in the NFC North last season.

1:06Then, we'll let it rest. Unless you're a Packers fan.

1:09Then, not so much. Welcome to the Bootleg Football Podcast.

1:13I'm Brett Coleman. That's EJ Snyder. Where the Bears have been around for over 100 years, EJ.

1:18I'm not sure there's an off-season where Bears fans have been more excited.

1:22Like, even after, you know, 2018 going into 2019.

1:25You know, even in the mid-2000s. Even going back to the 80s.

1:29I'm not really sure anything touches this. Because, maybe, for the first time in this over a century long history, the Bears hit the trifecta in 2025.

1:37Their young quarterback actually looks like he's a hit.

1:40They hired a superstar coach who is single-handedly transforming this offense for our very eyes.

1:45And they beat the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs.

1:48A couple weeks after ripping their heart out in primetime.

1:51I didn't think that trifecta was possible. Especially after watching the Bears for decades at this point.

1:57Like, I literally didn't think that was possible. And here we are.

2:00It's a whole new world. It's a world I am not used to.

2:04It's a world I, you know, you hope for, you wish for, you're never prepared for.

2:10I don't know what to do with this information.

2:12I mean, you've been watching the Bears longer than I have, obviously.

2:16Did you ever think this was possible? Not necessarily at once.

2:20It is startling when you see it in real time come together.

2:23And to your point, maybe even faster than we thought.

2:27We knew Ben Johnson was probably going to be good.

2:30All of us as Bears fans secretly harbored that little bit of doubt that maybe he won't be great as a head coach.

2:37Maybe he's one of those guys. Instead, it went the other way.

2:41He was as good or better than advertised. Caleb came along nicely.

2:45Did he hit all the marks he needs to hit?

2:48No. Is he one of the most dangerous quarterbacks in the NFL in the fourth quarter?

2:53Absolutely. He is. And to see them take that at the end of the season and act as if they were supposed

3:00to be there and beat the Packers twice in the span of a few weeks.

3:05Yeah, I didn't think I would see all that together anytime, maybe ever.

3:09And we got to see it all within, you know, two to three months at the end of the season.

3:15And in terms of what that has done to this fan base, what it has done to the city and to sort

3:22of Bears fandom worldwide is energize it in a way that I haven't seen ever.

3:27And, you know, you were talking about 2018. We were talking about Matt Nagy.

3:31We'll talk about him later. Again, things were very rosy after the first year.

3:36I went to training camp. That was the last training camp in Bourbon.

3:40It was the camp between 18 and 19. Hope was running high.

3:44There were 10,000 people at practice. Like everybody was like, it's linear.

3:47It's just going to go up from here. And then it crashed back down to earth literally in the first game of

3:54the season against the aforementioned Green Bay Packers. So was that the game where Rodgers was like high out of his fucking mind because he got hurt?

4:03Pop some Percocet, won the game and just went in typical Rogers fashion.

4:07Yeah, loose. No, I, that was the end of a very short era.

4:11That era being 2018 by itself. I think for lots of reasons that we'll talk about today that people believe this is

4:18going to be an era of sustained success for the Chicago Bears, the likes of which they haven't seen in a very

4:25long time, depending on your version of success. And it is different.

4:29Yes, we have very little experience as Bears fans with this.

4:32We're not exactly sure, but we can't wait to go on the ride.

4:36I mean, a lot went wrong last year and they still won 11 games.

4:41Like in a very competitive NFC. So I can see why people are looking at last year's the stepping stone season.

4:48And then this year is going to be even better now.

4:51Spoiler alert. I'm not sure the issues were totally fixed.

4:54And when we get to the defense, we'll talk about that.

4:58But like, offensively speaking, still a very fun team.

5:01And if I'm going to watch the Bears fight and claw and struggle to win the dumbest game possible six times a

5:07year, which they did last year, I at least want them to fight and scratch and claw with a very fun offense

5:14compared to a very fun defense that's just trying to give the ball back to Mitch Trubisky, you know, eight times.

5:21So, you know, if one unit is going to be really bad, I'd prefer the defense to be really bad because at

5:28least I get to watch Caleb be Caleb. But we do have to go through 2025 and the things that were annoying and the things that worked.

5:37We'll talk about, you know, Ben Johnson's first year there, Dennis Allen's first year there, Caleb's second year there, but really his first year that matters.

5:45And, you know, the things that maybe they can build on to not just win 11 games, but maybe 12, 13, dare I say 14?

5:53You may dare. Sure. It's Bears Day. Say what you want.

5:56But going through 2025, I think our focus for this section, which is really the first half of the podcast, is to

6:03talk about things that went right and things that are truly representative based on the stats and things that are a little

6:10bit misleading based on some of the stats. Some of them look worse than they actually were.

6:16Some of them look far better than they actually were.

6:19We're going to try and separate the real stuff from the noise for you.

6:23But overall, the record 11 and 6, first in the division, home record of 6 and 2, road record 5 and 4

6:30in the last five games, 2 and 3. First time Chicago's won the division since 2018.

6:35The aforementioned Matt Nagy did it in his first season as head coach.

6:39Look, Ben's the truth as a head coach. You said it.

6:43We didn't necessarily think that the Bears were going to hire him.

6:47When they did, everything changed. Now he has to sustain it.

6:50He's done it before. He was one of the preeminent play callers in Detroit.

6:55He got better each year he was there, even though everybody had the book on him.

7:00He stayed a step ahead. It's the mark of one of the great coaches in the NFL.

7:05But it is one of the toughest things to do.

7:08Even the very best, the Sean McVeighs of the world, have sort of been to the mountaintop, back down to the valley,

7:15and then to rise up to the mountaintop again is very difficult.

7:19But I think Ben's up to the challenge. We talk about how they came to all those numbers.

7:25That's our effectiveness summary. And we have something we call bootleg power score.

7:29Six numbers that we think are representative, in air quotes, because there's one of these that absolutely is not, but we'll call it out, of a football team.

7:38Sometimes not at all. Of a football team being good at football.

7:41And it is passing EPA per play, rushing EPA per play, defense against the pass and the rush, again, measured by EPA per play.

7:49Points scored and points allowed. We take those six numbers.

7:52We assign their league rank. Add them up, divide by six.

7:56We get a raw score. And then we just stack all those.

7:59And that is their power score. Where did they rank in the NFL?

8:04So, spoiler alert, the Bears were 13th overall. That is their power score.

8:08And it comes from a passing EPA per play that Ben obviously rejuvenated in his first year.

8:13They came out ninth best in the NFL. That, as a longtime Bears watcher, if you're telling me the Bears have a

8:20top 10 passing offense, in any stat, I'm going to take it.

8:24But an important stat like passing EPA per play, that is tremendous progress.

8:28If you've watched the Bears for as long as I have, it's hard to remember seasons that good going through the air.

8:35Rushing EPA per play was fourth best in the NFL.

8:38Ben Johnson is a running coach at heart. Everybody loves the aggressiveness and the killer passing concepts, the spacing, the timing.

8:45But he wants to run it down your throat.

8:48That is the basis he did it in Detroit.

8:50And he was able to do it in Chicago.

8:53Which, again, given recent history in the run game between the offensive line and the running back room, I don't think anybody

9:00thought they were going to be a top five unit before the team.

9:04So that's where we say better than advertised. Against the defense, this is the misleading stat.

9:09We're going to circle this one in red. They are tied for 17th.

9:14They were only tied for 17th because they picked the ball off a hell of a lot.

9:19If you watch this team down the stretch, especially in the last half of the season, they were not the 17th best pass defense in the NFL.

9:27Do you feel like Nashawn Wright raised them like 10 spots?

9:31At least. Between him and Bayard. Like, him and Bayard was it.

9:35That's all there was. Because on down to down, and there was a podcast that came out today.

9:40I think it's Edelman's podcast. And Cam Jordan was on it.

9:44He's talking about how he thinks sacks are a misrepresented stat.

9:47And really not that important. Because you can have flash plays, get a couple of sacks, and be lousy at your base job as a rush end.

9:56Containing the run. Containing the quarterback. Playing within the realm of the defense.

10:00But everybody's going to look at the stat sheet and go, oh yeah, two sacks.

10:05It's great. Everybody's going to look at this rating of 17th and go, that's fine.

10:10It's good. It was not fine. It was abysmal.

10:12There were broken assignments all over the place. We will talk about health and injuries figuring into that.

10:18But guys were getting beat all over the field so often that the quarterbacks didn't even hit them all.

10:24So there were more plays left on the field for the opposing offense that they could have gashed the Bears even more deeply.

10:31But then the Bears would get a pick. And that kills expected points for the offense.

10:36So it makes them look better in hindsight than they were.

10:40Because there is no way this was even a middle of the road pass defense at the end of the year.

10:47They were terrible and got by purely on turnovers.

10:49Against the run, they were 24th. That's a representative number.

10:53They didn't stop the run particularly well throughout the year.

10:56That needs to get better. Does it need to go to the top 10?

11:00It does not. Does it need to get up near where the pass rank is, 15, 16?

11:06Yes. It would be great if they were a top 10 defense against the run, but it's not necessary.

11:12Being 24th is a weight around your ankle that is going to be really tough to get off the field and stop drives.

11:19They do need to get better. Points scored, 441.

11:22That was 9th best. Again, top 10 scoring offense for the Bears in this century, to your point.

11:27That's new territory, and it's a great place to be.

11:31It's the reason they were able to win those games, because the defense allowed 415 points, which was 23rd as a scoring defense.

11:38So 9th best scoring, 23rd trying to keep other people from scoring.

11:42So you add all those numbers up, the raw score is 14.33.

11:46And again, that puts them 13th overall when we stack all the power scores for the NFL.

11:51I'll start with the defense here, and I'll make it quick, just because they were really, really bad.

11:57And I don't really think they're that much better.

11:59Safety's better, but I don't think their safety core is going to make that big of a difference.

12:05It's mainly because their defensive line is still maybe the worst in the NFL, quite frankly.

12:10That was the key cause of all of their issues.

12:13Dennis Allen could not get a pass rush with 4 last year.

12:17Tried to blitz more as the year went on.

12:20Had some success with that, but again, it was really more out of desperation.

12:24Dennis Allen doesn't want to be a blitz-heavy guy.

12:27He wants to be a cover with 7, rush with 4, my guys are better than your guys.

12:33And he doesn't have the guys to do that.

12:36And I don't think that having a really good platoon of safeties is going to fix the fact that they don't have any pass rush.

12:44So I'm not optimistic about the 20-26 defense, and I worry that it's going to be, well, maybe not as bad.

12:50But I worry that it's not going to be substantively better because this is a unit where special teams could basically take the day off.

12:58They were 8th highest in touchdowns allowed and also highest in turnovers generated.

13:02So you never saw punters on the field ever.

13:05You didn't really see kickers on the field either.

13:08It was either they score or you get a turnover, and turnovers are a lot more fickle than allowing points when you

13:15have the worst defensive line of football. So, again, I don't think it's going to be worse, but I can't imagine they're

13:22going to go from, what would you say, like the 29th best defense in football to 20?

13:27Like, I think they're shooting for 25 at best.

13:30And that, to me, is still why, you know, even if Caleb is great in year three and, you know, even if

13:37he has a young super weapon at tight end and the run game's good and the offensive line's good and Rome takes

13:44a step and Luther takes a step and, you know, all the stuff that we're so excited about offensively, which we'll get to.

13:52If I'm hoping for the 25th best defense in football, I do think that puts a pretty firm ceiling on this team, unfortunately.

13:59I don't want to start the episode with a downer, but I do need to do a reality check here.

14:05Like, they were terrible last year. They're probably not going to be good this year.

14:10And we have to set that baseline going forward before we get too excited about a team that is still kind of a one-unit show here.

14:18Yeah, and if we're looking at the defense, I think the thing to get excited about is the changes in the secondary.

14:25And there's two changes there. One, their safety core is better.

14:29And I remember when we were talking to Daniel Jeremiah and he was talking about truisms and he was talking about coaches

14:36saying you need to be strong up the middle.

14:38You need to have strong decision makers up the middle.

14:42And I think they have two of them in Kobe Bryant, who they got in free agency and Dylan Thienemann, who they drafted.

14:49I think they are going to be strong up the middle at safety.

14:53And the other part of that equation is corners coming back, hopefully healthy, right?

14:57You get Jalen Johnson back on the outside and you get Kyler Gordon, like, hopefully healthy.

15:02He hasn't been healthy through camp so far, and that's not a great sign.

15:07But those two guys missed multiple games throughout the year, didn't play together very much at all.

15:12And if you get sort of all four of those, I'll call them additions back on the field, the secondary should be improved.

15:20To your point, the levels in front of them, linebacker, it's changed, but it's probably going to be about the same.

15:26Defensive line, not a lot of substantive sort of needle mover additions there.

15:30They need to play better. And even if they do, their ceiling is probably capped at, I would say, 20th.

15:37I would say they're probably shooting for 20th. If they're the 20th.

15:40That's if everything goes great, by the way. Yeah.

15:43If their defensive line is the 20th best defensive line in football, this defense could be average.

15:49I don't think they're going to be great. Turnovers will almost certainly come down.

15:53That's just the way turnovers track. It's very rare that they stay at the same level when they were as high as they were.

16:01Bears had the most in the NFL. Like, it's not going to stay there.

16:05You have to accept that it's at least going to regress to the mean, which would be the middle of that rank.

16:12So they are going to have to find other ways to make it happen on defense.

16:17I think the secondary is better. If all those people are on the field, they are going to have to cover for a damn long time.

16:25Because the pass rush is not, you know, short of a wild Max Crosby trade going to be substantively different than it was last year.

16:33They just didn't invest in it for the most part.

16:37So most of those options have dried up. Again, the Bears were naturally attached to all of them through free agency and even through the draft.

16:45Hey, is this guy available? There was talk about, you know, Montez Sweat's brother being freed up in Arizona.

16:51Arizona quashed that. So most of those things have dried up, barring some sort of late offseason miracle.

16:56They are going into it knowing that they should be slightly better, again, in the second year of the system.

17:03Some improved personnel in the secondary, but we're not talking about the kind of jumps they're expecting to take on offense on the defensive side of the ball.

17:12Yeah, to your point, I don't see them improving a lot unless they do a trade.

17:17Short of that kind of trade, I don't think this defensive line is even going to be average.

17:22I'll be honest. I think they're going to be one of the worst in the league.

17:28And it's going to be a consistent storyline that plagues this team.

17:31And they're going to have to score a lot of points.

17:35Now, the good news is this team absolutely can't score points.

17:38And as bad as this defense, I think, is going to be, you know, one of the five worst defenses in football,

17:45maybe one of the three worst defenses in football.

17:48This could very easily be one of the three best offenses in football.

17:52And it's not just because of the weapons they have, right?

17:56Colston and Rome and Luther and even DeAndre Swift.

17:59Like, this is the best version of DeAndre Swift we've ever seen in the offensive line and all that.

18:05It's not even just because Caleb is a magician at getting out of sacks and turning them into first downs.

18:11It's the fact that Ben Johnson came in here in one offseason.

18:15You know, he didn't just bring a system. He brought an identity.

18:19And that identity, quite frankly, for the first time I can remember in 20 years, allowed this team to actually start games on the right foot.

18:27Like, I feel like for a decade, every single Bears game was, OK, they're starting out in a seven to nothing hole.

18:34Let's see if they can dig out of it.

18:37It was the complete opposite under Ben Johnson in one year.

18:40Now, all of a sudden, they're the team that's scoring first, which for a team with a bad defense is necessary.

18:47Yeah, Ben's whole thing is I want to punch you in the mouth.

18:51And if he can punch you in the mouth on the first drive, he's going to do it.

18:57And if he can do it successively in every drive after that, he's also going to do it.

19:02There are no free plays against Ben Johnson. If you're a defense, he is not going to let up.

19:08He is not going to tip his hand. He is going to take whatever you give him.

19:14And if you give him an inch, he's going to take a mile.

19:18The opening drive is probably the best illustration of that change in a single offseason.

19:22In 2024 under Shane Shane Waldron, on 17 opening drives, the Bears averaged 11.8 yards.

19:27That's not per play. That's per drive. Sadly, plays per drive, 4.6.

19:31First downs per drive, 0.8. Total points scored across all opening drives in 2024.

19:35And if you watch the Waldron Bears, you know what this was.

19:39Six. 17 opening drives. They scored six total points.

19:42Two field goals. No touchdowns. That's abysmal. Abysmal. So your touchdown scoring percentage on opening drives is 0.0.

19:48The blue Tarski. That's ugly. In one year, Ben Johnson transformed that.

19:522025, they went up to 32.2 yards per drive.

19:54An increase of 20 yards per drive. Plays. They went from 4.6 plays to 6.4 plays.

20:00Almost two more plays per opening drive. And scoring, they went from six total points to 24 total points.

20:0618 more points to open games. Again, to your point, under Waldron, it was basically three and out.

20:11Here's the ball. We didn't score. Go ahead and see if you can.

20:15Under Ben, he was going to take it down the field.

20:19This offense was going to dictate under the script.

20:22And they were going to score. Not necessarily more often than not, but so much more often than they did.

20:28And that sets the tone. If you receive the football and you go down and you put points on the board, the threat starts.

20:36Again, the foot is on the gas and he's not going to let up.

20:40And it felt so much different as a fan watching those games and going, no, they're actually making progress.

20:46They're actually getting some of that script accomplished as opposed to, well, they ran three plays and punted.

20:52Oh, well. And that is a whole different thing.

20:55And look, those marks are all across the offense.

20:57You can look at quarter marks. You can look at first half versus second half.

21:02You can look at overall scoring. You can look at pace, tempo, success rate, whatever you want.

21:08Every single mark is elevated positively. And that is the difference.

21:11That is the hallmark of not only the system, but also, as you said, the identity that Ben Johnson brought, that we

21:18are going to do it this way. And this is what we are going to accomplish.

21:23And I think opening drive is probably the most accurate snapshot that just says, hey, from the beginning, we're not going to back down.

21:31And it's the aggression, right? But the calculated aggression.

21:34I'm used to seeing when the Bears go for it on fourth down, it's because they're a bad team and they're trying

21:41to cut a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

21:43Ben Johnson was going for it on opening drives.

21:46And I know there's some Packers fans that are listening.

21:49It's like, wait, but you criticized Matt LaFleur for doing that literally yesterday.

21:54Yeah, the Bears had the same number of opening drives with turnovers on downs as the Packers did.

21:59The difference is the Bears were third in plays per game.

22:03You know, the Bears had literally one extra drive per game compared to the Packers.

22:07So their aggression was calculated in the sense that they knew they were actually going to try to get more bites at the apple.

22:15Whereas the Packers tried to shrink the game and limit possession total.

22:19The Bears wanted more possessions because they believed in their ability to score, which by the way, they were right.

22:25And they also knew that it kind of took a little while to feel out some defenses, which is why they were

22:32really good in the second half compared to the first half.

22:36And Ben Johnson is such a gifted play caller and he's so good at pivoting mid game that you don't want to

22:43give him just seven or eight possessions in a game.

22:46You want him to see the defense nine, 10, 11 times.

22:49Sometimes they averaged just under 11 possessions per game, which means in half their games, they were what?

22:5512, 13. Like you want to give him as many looks as possible because he's going to find what the weakness is

23:02by the time you get to the third quarter.

23:05And something I found really interesting, which also ties into the aggression rates.

23:09He wasn't as run heavy as I thought he was, you know, cause when, when you watch games and you're like, okay,

23:16they go under center a lot, they're establishing the run, they're getting swift involved, like ground and pound, ground and pound, ground and pound.

23:23It actually wasn't, you know, first down, they were fifth highest in, in run pass rate or rather fifth highest in pass rate, um, third down.

23:32They actually ran more than I expected. They were more run heavy on third down than they were on first down, which was odd to me.

23:40And after digging into it a lot, it feels like he didn't use the run game to do the like traditional establish the run thing.

23:48He used the run game as a tool to give him favorable downs and distances to go for it more on fourth down, right?

23:55This is the team that tied with the Rams for most number of fourth down, like offensive plays in the first three

24:02quarters, like not counting fourth quarter desperation plays where, you know, bad teams are going to be pumped up there going forward in the first three quarters.

24:11Nobody did it more than them. And it was because they had really high run rates on a down a distance.

24:18You don't expect, which is third and medium to set up fourth down play opportunities.

24:22You know, they would run it as close to 50, 50 as they could on second down again to get to third and short opportunities.

24:30So they could then throw it on third and short and then know that they could still run it on fourth and short, like everything for them.

24:39I don't want to say it was backwards, but it was weird.

24:43And it was weird because Ben Johnson wanted to set himself up with a 50, 50 run pass splits so that DCs

24:50couldn't get a read on what he was doing.

24:52But he also wanted to give himself opportunities to use all four downs.

24:57Like if you're just throwing it on third and eight and you have super high run pass or super high pass rates

25:04on third and eight, rather than mixing it up with runs and getting five or six yard chunks here, like that's going

25:10to change how defenses call against you, which is then going to affect what you can call as an OC.

25:17So he's like, screw it. I'm going to set myself up to use all four plays.

25:22It's going to fuck with their tendency numbers, which is going to help me as a play caller.

25:28And if I have 13 possessions in a game to screw with these guys, by the time we get to the fourth

25:35quarter, I'm going to know what to call to put Caleb in the best possible position to do Caleb stuff.

25:41And it worked 11 times, CJ, even with a really bad defense, it worked 11 times.

25:46Yeah. Caleb stuff, as you coin it is more 20 plus yard passing touchdowns than any other quarterback in football.

25:52A bunch more, like four more than he had 11.

25:55I think that was four more than the next closest guy, uh, might've been six more, but again, that stretch.

26:02And we saw that play out on the field that you said it, nothing, nothing, nothing, then everything and everything for a touchdown.

26:09Um, you know, Caleb's fourth quarter comebacks very well chronicled had the most in the NFL.

26:14So Ben Johnson is Thanos basically. And it's the Thanos meme where he has the knife, right?

26:20And he says perfectly balanced as all things should be.

26:23He wants to keep it 50, 50. He wants to make everything look the same.

26:27He wants to give you nothing and see what you're going to do.

26:32And to your point, figure out what he can do against you.

26:35Not pigeonhole himself. He's not going to get into tendencies.

26:39This comes from Ryan Paganetti. Second down is where defensive coordinators want tendencies.

26:43Ben Johnson gives them a coin flip among expected 2026 NFL play callers with prior play calling experience.

26:48Ben is the pass heaviest in second and one to two closest to 50, 50.

26:53Again, no tells. A lot of times people would think, Oh, Ben, we talked the way we talked about him in the opening.

27:00He's going to be super aggressive. Second. He's going to bomb it, right?

27:04Mm. He was as close to even as anybody in the league.

27:08Second and third and six. Again, second and let's call it medium.

27:12Forty nine point eight percent pass rate. Almost exactly 50, 50.

27:16Again, no tells. You don't know what I'm going to do just because it's second and insert distance here and second and seven to 10.

27:23Again, if they had a failure on first down, they were the run heaviest, closest to 50, 50.

27:29Normally a passing down. Hey, we didn't get anything on first.

27:33We've got to make a chunk here on second.

27:36Most teams are going to skew defensively for pass.

27:38Ben didn't let them do that. The benefit of not really having tendencies and being close to 50, 50 on what is

27:45proving to be maybe even a more important down than third down, which is second down because the best offenses try to avoid third down entirely.

27:54But the advantage of being 50, 50 there is in a way it almost kind of does dictate structure.

28:00And we've talked a lot about this throughout the summer where DCs are.

28:04are really going to try to stop the run first.

28:07And if they're not entirely sure what to do, they're going to default to stopping the run, which means they're going to call cover three.

28:15Some teams can stop the run from quarters, but you better have a badass safety to be able to make that work

28:22and like a really good two eye. Again, not every defense has that.

28:26Not everybody's Seattle. Not everybody's Houston. But, you know, most teams, if they feel like they're in a situation where you're going

28:33to run the ball, they're going to play cover three.

28:36Or at least if they don't know what you're going to do, they would rather at least be in cover three because

28:43that is what's seen as the get out of jail free card.

28:47That's the safe coverage. That's the cave that everybody's going to run into when there's a thunderstorm outside.

28:52You're going to call cover three because you can't really be wrong.

28:56Like you might not be in the perfect call, but you're probably not going to be in the wrong call if you

29:03just play cover three, which is why the Bears offense was third highest in terms of cover three percentage faced in between the twenties, right?

29:11We'll take out red zone stuff in between the twenties, third highest in cover three face.

29:16And that's with, again, not being a very run heavy team on first down.

29:21As we mentioned, fifth highest pass rate on first down.

29:24That's with being a more run heavy team on third down.

29:27Again, really high run rate on third medium because they're trying to set up these, these fourth down opportunities to go for it.

29:35And it's largely because on second down every distance on second, whether it's short, medium or long, it's 50, 50.

29:41So what are they going to do? Call cover three.

29:44Here's the issue with being in cover three against the Bears.

29:48Ben Johnson's really good at dicing up cover three because if he knows, even if you're starting out in too high, that

29:55you're going to go into either three strong, you're going to go into three weak.

29:59If he knows exactly which safety is rotating and he can dictate that through either motion or formation, you're dead to rights.

30:06God forbid if you're in static cover three, you're really dead to rights.

30:10Like this man abuses hook zone defenders like almost nobody else can.

30:14It's him, McVay, Shanahan. Like it's the Holy Trinity of making linebackers hate their life.

30:19If you're in that much cover three against the Bears, you're going to lose, but you have to be in cover three

30:26against the Bears because you don't want to play man against them.

30:30You don't want to play cover one because you can't sack Caleb when, when all your DBs and linebackers backs are turned because they're man coverage.

30:38He's just going to get a first down anyway.

30:41And you can't play quarters because boy, if you thought Ben Johnson was good against cover three, he's really fucking good against quarters.

30:48And he is so excellent at making not just linebackers hate their life.

30:52He makes safeties hate their life in quarters. This is a top two offense in both EPA per play and success rate against quarters.

31:00So that's off the table as well. Nobody liked playing quarters against them.

31:04They faced at like the 24th highest rate in the NFL, somewhere around there, because nobody wanted to do it.

31:10So you're left with cover three, essentially. Or if you're going against a team like Philly, like they'll play some quarter, quarter half there.

31:18But again, because of the run pass rate thing, even Vic Fangio is like, eh, I'm going to call cover three there.

31:25So that was really the bread and butter of this offense was using run pass rates to dictate the coverage structure because

31:32that is the coverage structure that Ben Johnson thrives against.

31:35Like they were first in explosive plays against cover three in the entire NFL.

31:39And it wasn't just because, you know, they faced cover three almost more than anybody else.

31:44It was like explosive rate. I mean, like they were first.

31:48So it's a really, really impossible situation that the bears put teams into because again, Ben don't want to play quarters, can't

31:55play man because of Caleb don't really want to play cover three, but you don't have an option.

32:01And quite frankly, even if you're in quarter, quarter half, that's still risky too, because Ben's got a million different ways to

32:08beat that and expose your safeties unless you have unbelievable safeties.

32:11So all that to say, yes. Does Caleb need to get more accurate in the first 75% of the game?

32:17Sure. Or, you know, do we need to see Luther Burden become more than what he is right now as like the kind of like fun yak threat?

32:26Get me seven yards, Luther. Yes. Does this team need to be better at breaking man coverage?

32:32Surprisingly, yes. Like Colston was really their one guy that was good at it.

32:36Rome didn't separate it against man as well as I thought he could have.

32:40Luther also didn't separate against man as well as I thought he could have.

32:45All of these things can be improved upon. But the baseline of the offense is we're going to force you to play this coverage.

32:53We have 10 different ways to beat this coverage.

32:55And if you deviate even a little bit and you play anything else in the playbook, you're fucked.

33:01So as long as that's continuing, they're going to be able to score 30 plus points a game.

33:07I really do believe that by bones. Again, offensive line health dependent.

33:11But as long as that structure or rather as long as that identity remains in place, they'll be fine.

33:17They will be fine and they'll probably be better than fine if history serves.

33:21And that history is Ben Johnson's as the offensive coordinator in Detroit.

33:25His offense was better in year two than it was in year one.

33:29There were growing pains in year one. There were a lot of fits and starts.

33:34There were also a ton of big flashes. Everybody said, can it continue?

33:38It not only continued, it rapidly improved. Everybody, the personnel, the offensive playmakers in Detroit all say this.

33:43If you listen to guys like Amon Ross St.

33:46Brown and everybody else, they're like, in year one, we were just figuring out how all the levers worked.

33:52And in year two, it was like we were all in the meeting saying, oh, we need to pull this lever in unison.

34:00That's how this works. So we became exploitive, right?

34:02We became the team that was exploiting what defenses were doing because we already knew what our rules were.

34:09We already knew what our jobs were. And we all knew we knew at that point how they fit together and the

34:15acceleration in the offense at that point in Detroit was marked.

34:19And if you don't believe that some of that's going to happen in the second year with Caleb in the same offense

34:26for the first time in a while with all the offensive playmakers that showed tremendous promise last year, guys like Rome especially

34:33did not have the greatest first year in the offense.

34:36And I think a lot of people are saying, well, he's just not built for it.

34:41I don't believe that's true at all based on his college profile and certainly looking at some of the guys that took

34:48a little bit longer, like Jameson Williams, to come up to speed in Ben's offense.

34:53He had more success in year two, even more success in year three.

34:57So the hallmark is there. And will it happen?

35:00I think the chances are pretty good. Can't be guaranteed.

35:03And again, progress isn't always linear. But if I had to bet for marked improvement or marked regression on the Bears offense,

35:10I am 100% in on marked improvement for 2026.

35:13Hi, alternate timeline Brett here. Before we get to all the 2026 stuff, if you've liked a lot of the data that

35:20we brought up so far, we have companion infographics for every single team, including the one we're talking about today with over

35:2715,000 total data points that we have collected throughout this summer.

35:30Each team gets its own companion infographic, which is roughly about 20 pages long.

35:35It has all the data on this team you can think of, whether it's alignment data, personnel data, cap allocation, coverage data

35:42broken out by down and distance, blitz data. I mean, basically anything you can think of, we've got it.

35:48So if you want access to that, you can find that down at the link in the description below or at the QR code on the screen.

35:56Reminder, we also have bonus episodes that go live every single Friday over on Patreon, recapping every single division.

36:02We're going to pick division winners, MVPs, rookies of the year, all that stuff.

36:07So if you want bonus episodes, plus more data that you could probably handle, that is over on the Patreon.

36:13Thank you once again to all of our patrons that have made, honestly, this series possible to make in the first place.

36:20We could not have paid the people who help us make it without your guys' financial support.

36:25So thank you to our patrons. Thank you to all of our executive producers on Patreon.

36:30Their names are on screen right now. They have been OG supporters of us and made so much in our lives possible

36:37while we try to chase this dream. So thank you.

36:41Thank you. Thank you. And with that, let's get back to the show.

36:45All right. Everything from here on out, 2026. As always, we start with the power structure.

36:50Who are the decision makers here? Who are the coordinators, assistant coaches, yada, yada, yada.

36:54Ryan Poles. I'll say it so you don't have to.

36:58Figurehead. I don't believe that he is the final decision maker.

37:01I don't believe that when push comes to shove, he is ever going to decide who gets cut over Ben Johnson.

37:08And quite frankly, you can even see it in the drafts.

37:11You can tell what's a Ryan pick. You can tell what's a Ben pick.

37:16You can tell what's a Ryan signing. You can tell what's a Ben signing.

37:20I've never been a big Ryan Poles guy. I thank my lucky stars that the Panthers made the trade they did because it allowed them to get Caleb.

37:29And Caleb is what really drew Ben there. But do not for one second think that Ryan Poles is responsible for 11 and 6.

37:37And that Ryan Poles is responsible for this team potentially winning a Super Bowl.

37:41It ain't him. Made a great trade, which at the time we didn't think that was going to be the result.

37:48Ended up lucking out. The Panthers are the worst team in football.

37:51Got Caleb. Got Ben. But I want to be clear here.

37:55If I'm divvying up percentages of credit, 20% Ryan Poles, maybe?

37:58I think he deserves a lot of credit for the work he did when he arrived cleaning out the mess that was

38:05left for him because it was a substantial mess.

38:08If you're talking about a house rebuild, it was not necessarily just down to the studs.

38:13It might have been down to the foundations. He had to clear out a ton of bad contracts, bad money, bad players.

38:20And he did that. And it's difficult. He deserves credit for that.

38:24Some of the decisions that he made with those assets, whether they were trade assets, whether they were draft pick assets, free

38:31agency money assets, have not been the greatest. Some of them have been very good.

38:36The Joe Tooney move. That was because he had familiarity with Kansas City.

38:40I'm going to give him credit for it. On balance?

38:43No, he is not responsible for last year's 11 and six.

38:47And he should be as happy as anybody that Ben is in town because Ben is making his roster look better than it was.

38:54And yes, Ben is making some of those choices directly.

38:57When we get to this year's draft, you can tell who was a Ben pick.

39:02Um, but so Ryan at the top, Ben arguably at the top, also possibly higher in certain situations, maybe most situations as

39:09far as the assistant head coach goes and the wide receivers coach again, Antoine Randall L former quarterback, former coach with Ben

39:16Johnson in Detroit, who came over with him, gets that assistant head coach title to be in Chicago, working with that wide

39:23receiver core, young, talented wide receiver core. The offensive coordinator is going to give a lot of people pause.

39:29It's press Taylor. And I'm going to give you two reasons why it might not be the worst thing ever.

39:35Ben Johnson is calling this offense. Have no doubt.

39:38This is not a Matt Nagy situation where he's going to be giving up the headset.

39:43Sometimes this is Ben's offense and he's going to call it.

39:47And press was the past game coordinator last season.

39:50So he was in a similar supporting role. Title was different.

39:53In terms of his hands being on the offense for play calling, which is where I think a lot of people who

40:00have watched press Taylor's coaching history throughout the league might get a little bit worried.

40:05Have no fear. Uh, short of Ben being incapacitated and not able to be there.

40:10Then you can worry. That's okay. I mean, I think there's a lot of reasons for worry at that point.

40:16Uh, the least of which might be that press Taylor would be the full OC, but he becomes the OC because Declan

40:23Doyle, who was in that role last year, moved on to Baltimore as the OC there again, Ben would, would have liked

40:30to keep him, but he knew that it was a good opportunity for Declan and press was there.

40:35And again, this isn't the guy pulling the levers on offense.

40:39He's making suggestions. He's helping with installs, you know, absolutely.

40:42He is a supporting role in the offense, but Ben's calling the place here.

40:47Also the only coach in NFL history to get Doug Peterson fired twice.

40:51So he holds that distinction. That might be a plus for a lot of Jags fans.

40:56Uh, defensive coordinator is Dennis Allen. We've talked about him and his tendencies.

41:00Hopefully he will be better in year two. He did flex towards the end of the year.

41:05I was worried that he was going to be, shall we say, completely inflexible and not make that shift despite the results he was seeing on the field.

41:14He did make the shift at the end of the year.

41:18It did make a difference. Um, he does need a better pass rush for the way he wants things to work to actually play out on the field.

41:26Special teams coordinator is Richard Hightower. As we get into the assistant coaches, I think this, I was going to say begins and ends.

41:34It doesn't end. It begins with Dan Rochard for me, period.

41:38The transformation of Chicago's offensive line from 24 to 25, or really the last five years into 2025 when Dan Rochard arrived

41:45and started working with them night and day, the snapshot I'm going to give you the bears going into their final game

41:51of last season against one of the most powerful defensive lines in the NFL, the LA Rams.

41:57One of their starters is out on the interior offensive line.

42:00It was the talk of the town for the entire week.

42:04Oh no, they're doomed. They're going up against this fearsome front four and Jordan McFadden, people checking their programs.

42:10Jordan McFadden is going to get the start. They're doomed.

42:13They're going to die. Jordan McFadden played great. He gave up two ish pressures.

42:17And I say two ish because one for sure, kind of half on the other one, depending on how you're scoring at home against the LA Rams.

42:26Jordan McFadden hits no sacks, by the way. So he was.

42:29Yeah. Caleb was uncomfortable, but Caleb's always uncomfortable. Who cares?

42:33Two pressures for again, a guy that nobody knew the name of the week before who is thrust into the starting lineup

42:40in the largest possible spotlight, Chicago playoff game, divisional round.

42:43He's going to get destroyed. He played great. He didn't just hold his own.

42:47He played great. That's on Dan Rochard and his staff, having those guys ready with that ability.

42:53I worry a whole lot less about the left tackle situation, which we will talk about because I know that he's going

43:00to have an answer and it's going to be functional.

43:03It might not be everything you want to be able to do.

43:07It probably won't be right, but he is going to have those guys ready.

43:11And that is why I think he is probably the most important assistant coach on this roster.

43:16The running backs coach is Eric Studisville. He is back in Chicago for a second term.

43:21He was an offensive assistant way back in 97 to 2000.

43:25Since then, he has been a lot of places.

43:28He is a 29 year NFL coaching vet. He has coached for Denver, Buffalo, the Giants, and most notably, has spent the

43:35last eight years coaching running backs for the Dolphins.

43:38So he was the guy that helped Devon Achan become one of the most productive young runners in the NFL.

43:44I am extremely excited to have him coming back again.

43:47The running backs coach situation was very good last year.

43:50EB's moved on. He's back in Kansas City. Studisville is as good a replacement as I can think of from around the NFL.

43:58So specifically, going back to Roshar for a second, you mentioned he's going to have to figure out left tackle.

44:04I just, I want to pull the room. I know a lot of Bears fans are going to watch this episode.

44:10Braxton Jones. I'm going to take out Trapillo. I don't think Ossie's playing this year.

44:15Jedrick Wills. Theo Benedetti. Which one starts more games at left this year?

44:19Oh, I'm interested to see what the comments say.

44:22I think the great comeback story would be Jed Wills coming back from a devastating injury, taking a year off.

44:29You know, there is no guarantee that that would happen.

44:32He was a pretty good player before the injury.

44:35We don't know what level he's going to be able to return to.

44:39I think Braxton is a known known. You're going to get some solid play from him, but you're also going to have some liabilities.

44:46Theo is a great swing tackle. Great sixth tackle.

44:49Very athletic, but has limitations as well. So ideally, Jed Wills returns to his former glory.

44:54That would be a super fun story. It would also be very handy for the Bears.

44:59I think Braxton is the most likely choice. And again, known known.

45:03You know what you're getting. And then Theo, I think, would be the dark horse if I was ranking them.

45:09But again, put your answer in the comments because I want to hear what people's thoughts are on this because I'm with you.

45:17So Ozzie, if he plays, and I think that's a huge if, it would be late in the season.

45:23And I don't know why you would risk that.

45:26Give him the entire year to come back stronger and hope that he can win the job back when he does.

45:32Or just park Cole Komet next to whoever the left tackle is and say, you're an offensive lineman this year, bud.

45:39Sorry. Sorry. That's your lot. Colson's catching the ball.

45:42Quarterback's coach is JT Barrett of Ohio State fame.

45:45I think this is really good for Caleb. JT Barrett has not been out of the game all that long.

45:51And he can relate to a lot of the struggles Caleb has as a high-profile quarterback.

45:56And while JT Barrett's NFL career arc was not a massive success, he has a similar path as an athlete coming up through high school and college.

46:04And I think it's good for Caleb to have somebody on the staff like that that he can look at and say,

46:11hey, what do you think about this? And JT Barrett gets to learn under some of the best offensive minds in the NFL in Chicago right now.

46:20On the defensive side, the defensive pass game coordinator and defensive backs coach is Al Harris.

46:25I'm sure he is happy with the new recruits that they have in the secondary and the new tools he has to work with.

46:33He also has a big job ahead of him and he knows it because coverage is the rush and he knows the rush isn't going to be great.

46:42So his coverage better be exemplary. His guys better be in the right place at the right time and not have the

46:48kind of defensive breakdowns that they did last year.

46:51And if they do, there's going to be a lot of questions asked because they've invested pretty heavily free agency in the draft.

46:59We'll talk about both of those. They have new pieces.

47:02Hopefully, Jalen Johnson comes back healthy. You know, we'll see.

47:05Defensive line coach is Jeremy Garrett. This is the guy that spotlights on.

47:09He was the defensive line coach of the Jags in 24 before coming over to the Bears last year in 25.

47:16He spent two years prior to that coaching defensive lines at Liberty and Auburn.

47:20So who's his head coach? Yeah, he's a Hugh Freeze guy.

47:24Before that, he was the assistant defensive line coach in Cleveland in 20 and 21 back in the COVID years.

47:30But all eyes are going to be on Garrett and what he can wring out of this defensive line because they did

47:37not invest heavily in free agency or in the draft in the defensive line.

47:41He has largely the same pieces, not exactly, but he is going to have to have better production and he knows it.

47:48And Dennis Allen's going to be staring him down and Al Harris is going to be staring him down going, man, you got to help us out.

47:57We can't cover for five seconds. So it'll be really interesting to watch that.

48:01We can't even cover for two and a half seconds.

48:04We're being real about it. They're like 25th in EPA per play allowed in single coverage.

48:10Last year, it was bad. If you watched all 22, if you had access to bears all 22 by the end of

48:17the year, it was kind of like a podcast that you had to listen to, but you didn't want to listen to.

48:23So you're like, how fast does this thing go?

48:26Can I crank this up to like three and a half speed and make them sound like chipmunks?

48:32I don't want to see these guys get burned that badly every play and just basically like bite my knuckles going, oh

48:39my God, if they'd thrown that, that would have been a 50 yard completion.

48:43It was just every other play. It was so often, it was super, super painful to watch.

48:49Defensive quality control coach on this staff is one Kenny Norton, the third.

48:53Yes. Not Ken Norton Jr. His kid, Kenny Norton, the third is on this staff.

48:58I was trying to figure out what the connection was to either or Ben was there crossover?

49:03Um, well was Al, uh, in the Cowboys at the same time as Kenny Norton Jr.

49:08Oh, maybe. Yeah. I'd have to look that up.

49:11It could make sense. Yeah. Could be. I'm not saying it is, but it could be.

49:16It's the NFL. Like I'm assuming nepotism is involved, but that doesn't mean he's not a good coach.

49:22That's just how like 80% of coaches get their jobs is they know somebody.

49:26For sure. It is what it is. We don't judge here.

49:30Now, uh, looking at free agency here, there were some fairly notable departures starting with DJ Moore got traded to Buffalo, got

49:37a second round pick, which surprised many people, including me.

49:40Like I expected DJ to get traded. In fact, we talked about it about halfway through the season of like, Hey, he keeps running the wrong route.

49:48Uh, probably not long for this world in Chicago because he keeps running the wrong route.

49:53Got to be driving people insane. Uh, but they got a second for it, which is again, just way more than I

50:00expected for a 29 year old receiver. I think it proved that, you know, Buffalo is as desperate as maybe we thought

50:07they were because they were struggling at picking receivers outside of Khalil Shakir.

50:11And they just wanted to get one that they knew worked and was better than what they had.

50:17Um, and one that had his best ever career year under their now head coach.

50:22True. True. That probably influenced things a little bit, but like, as far as value, anybody that even expected DJ to get

50:29traded, I can't imagine any of them thought it'd be for two.

50:33Now I thought it was for a four. Like I thought a four was a good return for DJ Moore at this point in his career.

50:41Uh, just when you look around, it's nothing against DJ.

50:44Look around the league at what veteran players get traded for successful veteran players.

50:49It was like, you should get a one for him.

50:52You're not getting a one for hardly anybody. You're not getting a two for most people.

50:57If you get a three, it's a really good.

51:00If you get a day to pick for a player, almost 30, like that's a very good player.

51:05And most everybody else gets traded for a fourth or a fifth or a sixth.

51:10Then everybody goes, Oh, that's it. That's all it was.

51:13Yeah. That's all it is these days. That's the going rate.

51:17So when he came back for a second, I had to rub my eyes.

51:21I, I, I was like, you mean fourth, right?

51:24Nope. Second rounder. So for all your Ryan pulls slander, uh, he did pull a second out of Buffalo for DJ.

51:31You know, when every other team around him just keeps shooting themselves in the foot, I guess I'll give him credit for not tripping over his own gun.

51:40I'm sure he, he called up the bills and was like, Hey, once upon a time I did this for chase Claypool, please don't make the mistake.

51:48But if you're going to give me a second, I'll let you do it.

51:52And they were like, sure. Uh, I imagine that's exactly how that went down.

51:57And speaking of, uh, weird pickups by the bills, by the way, they brought in Chauncey Gardner Johnson, not a hundred percent sure why, but okay.

52:05More power to him. Uh, I mean, he's bounced around the league a lot.

52:10Nobody's hung onto him for particularly long amount of time.

52:13And I think there's a reason for that again.

52:16Bean's going to do what being does. Uh, Andrew Billings played some good football for the bears.

52:21Uh, he's now with the Cardinals. Uh, I do want to note his best football with the bears, not in 2025.

52:28Nope. That's why he's with Cardinals. Uh, Devin DuVernay also with Arizona.

52:31Uh, Olamide Zaccheaus is back with Atlanta for the second time, I believe.

52:36Uh, Tremaine Edmonds is now with the Giants. Nashawn Wright is now with the Jets.

52:40Uh, Kevin Byard is with the Patriots. Still going at age 33.

52:44And then Jaquan Brisker, the other safety, is now with the Steelers.

52:48So they replaced both of their safeties this year and upgraded, quite frankly, both of their safeties out of all of the losses here.

52:56None of them particularly bothered me. Most of them I would say were addition by subtraction.

53:01Um, but I don't, I don't see a single name here.

53:04That's irreplaceable. And in fact, most of them got replaced immediately.

53:08Yeah. I think it was moving players out of this system, both on offense and defense for players who are seen as

53:15better fits for what they need to do. And that goes for DJ Moore certainly goes for Nashawn, right?

53:21Um, Kevin Byard played really good, inspired football for the bears in gross circumstances last season.

53:26So he deserves credit for that. He moves on to the Patriots.

53:29Brisker, again, they wanted some upgrades and Brisker had a healthy season and he's an impact player against the runner around the

53:36line of scrimmage, but they needed some more deep coverage skills in both of the safeties that they brought in.

53:43And bring that, that gives defensive coordinator, Dennis Allen, more flexibility to call coverages that he wants to do.

53:49So it's not about these guys being bad players.

53:52It's about better players for the system being brought in either through free agency, the draft or trades.

53:57So talking about who the bears spent their money on to bring back, uh, Jordan McFadden got to put an asterisk by his name.

54:05I already mentioned him earlier, but to get a guy that played that well, who's 27 for $1.3 million considering the guard market.

54:12If he has starter level ability and it sure looks like he does based on a very small sample size, that's a great signing.

54:20DeMarco Jackson at linebacker. He's 28 years old, 3.75 million, largely because of his draft pedigree, which is not Sterling.

54:26But when he was on the field last year, he might've been the best linebacker for the bears.

54:32He played better than Edmonds. And that's the reason that Edmonds is now with the giants is because DeMarco Jackson at a,

54:39at a, you know, younger and cheaper profile played better within Dennis Allen's defense.

54:43And I would not be surprised. I'm going to put the stake in the ground and say DeMarco Jackson will probably be the starter at inside linebacker.

54:52One of the two inside linebacker spots by the end of the year, because he played very, very good football when he was in there.

55:00Braxton Jones. We talked about left tackle. You get him at $5 million might be your starter.

55:05If not, he is a very capable and experienced swing tackle and Theo Bennett, again, more of a swing tackle, six offensive lineman type.

55:13But again, you're only paying him a million dollars.

55:15That's a very good deal as well. And you need depth in the NFL, especially along the offensive line.

55:21So those moves, while maybe not headliners, any of them are important to keep the second level of this team sturdy.

55:28You know, what's crazy. A lot of things. Because you mentioned younger profile for DeMarco Jackson.

55:33Yeah. So he was born July 1998. Oh. Tremaine Edmonds was born May 1998.

55:38Marco Jackson was drafted four years after Tremaine. I always forget when I bring up Edmonds that he was drafted as like a, what, a 20 year old?

55:47Like he was, I think 19 on draft night.

55:49Yeah. 19. Yeah. I think he played his first season at a fresh 20 years old, which given his physical profile coming out was, is amazing.

55:58But yeah, he has been playing a very long time, but he's not that old because he started as a teenager basically,

56:05which is almost unheard of in the NFL. See 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26.

56:10So he's going into year nine and he's 28.

56:13Yes. I always forget that. Fucking insane. Yeah. Because we see everybody's like 23 and they basically have three years on them at the start if they're young.

56:22And now we're seeing guys that, you know, with the college eligibility rules who are 24, 25, pretty regularly.

56:28That used to be like, oh, that's sincerely overaged.

56:31He was at BYU and he went on his mission, like whatever.

56:35Like you see it all the time now with guys who've been at five stops in college, some of them six.

56:41And, you know, whether that continues or not, you're seeing guys coming out in their mid twenties pretty regularly.

56:47And, you know, when Ebness came out, he was not yet 20, which is bananas.

56:52As far as who they signed from elsewhere to spend what little money they had left over Jack Sanborn, speaking of former

56:59Bears linebackers, he is back in Chicago, brought him back over from Dallas.

57:03Devin Bush. Did Devin Bush also get drafted that same year in 2018?

57:07He might have. I got to double check. But he was, once upon a time, a very young, very highly drafted linebacker.

57:14He's bounced around a little bit. So he's now in Chicago at 10 million a year.

57:19Khalif Raymond poached him from Detroit. Again, you can tell what's a bend pickup.

57:24He absolutely loved Khalif. He's going to be a solid wide receiver four for them.

57:28Maybe even play some wide receiver three, but most importantly, have a pretty substantial impact on special teams.

57:34Garrett Bradbury. You know, Dolman retired out of nowhere.

57:37So they're like, shit, we're going to get a center.

57:40Picked him up from the Patriots via trade. And then Kobe Bryant's like the one player they spent significant money on relative to his position market.

57:48Brought him over from Seattle to be an immediate upgrade at safety.

57:52He was an excellent player for them. You package him together with Thineman.

57:56There's your safety duo for the foreseeable future, probably at least the next three years.

58:01And one of the better safety duos in the league, if I had to say.

58:06The potential is certainly there. We'll see how it plays out on grass.

58:10But Kobe Bryant, underrated safety, incredibly cerebral at the position, but also a very good athlete.

58:15Sees it quickly. And even if it's not his assignment, there are some great cutups on all 22 when he was with

58:22Seattle of him being on the opposite post and seeing something happening, turning, getting on his horse, taking what looks to be

58:29a somewhat absurd angle, making a play on the football on the opposite sideline.

58:33You can't do that without both, without the vision and the very quick understanding of what's going on.

58:39And then wheels to get there because you're covering some serious distance.

58:43Kobe Bryant has both. I'm incredibly excited about his fit.

58:46Again, I think an underrated player, again, with all the great players in the Seattle secondary, Kobe Bryant kind of got lost in the wash.

58:54But when you put on the all 22, he certainly didn't.

58:57He stood out. Again, I think the draft broke in a very particular way in Chicago's favor.

59:03They get to pair him with Thineman. And I'm very excited about that pairing.

59:07I think it does elevate the secondary quite a bit from where they were last year.

59:12Now, speaking of Thineman, we'll get to the draft.

59:15Nobody expected him to be there at 25. In fact, I would say 90% of people that follow the draft thought he

59:22was going to go to Minnesota like absolute 100% lock.

59:25He ended up being there at 25. Considering who else is on the board, how long do you think they thought about that pick?

59:33Maybe 10 seconds, 15 at most. I think once Minnesota picked and it wasn't Thineman, the Bears went, wait, hold on.

59:40Like, we didn't plan for this, but we got to do it, right?

59:44And the answer was, yeah, we absolutely have to do it.

59:47Great player, great kid, great leader. I was down at the Oregon Pro Day where he finished up his college career.

59:54Again, started at Purdue, finished up as a duck.

59:57You could tell how well-respected. He didn't do anything at the Pro Day, but he was there.

60:02He was dressed in sweats. His parents were there.

60:05His parents came out for the Pro Day even though they knew it wasn't going to work out.

60:11They were talking to Dan Lanning. Dan took a bunch of time with them.

60:15You could see how much Dan respects Dylan, how much he appreciated having him in that defense.

60:20And you could see Dylan with all his teammates.

60:23He's out there supporting him in the drills. He's out there moving cones around.

60:28He wanted to be there to support his guys.

60:31And then you turn on the film. And same as Kobe Bryant, right?

60:35You see plays where he breaks responsibility, goes and gets a pick to seal the game.

60:40That was a play that really influenced the Bears in terms of his profile.

60:44Put him in the room. He was tremendous. Talking about designing defenses.

60:48Bears released some of that footage. It was a great interview in the room at the Combine in Indianapolis.

60:54Just an absolute lock. And I think it was one of those players that was kind of the apple of their eye.

61:01But they were like, we're not going to trade up.

61:04So we're not going to get him. And then it was like, wait, we might get him.

61:10And they did get him. And it was a hell of a start for the Bears draft to get Dylan Thienemann.

61:16Huge need. Fits perfectly as an athlete and as a player.

61:20And again, is the future of the position where they really had a crying need at safety.

61:25So just, I think, one of the best picks overall in the first round of any team.

61:30Chicago, incredibly lucky to get him. And there were a lot of people, myself included, that, you know, looking at him versus

61:37Downs, depending on the profile you wanted, Thienemann graded higher, right?

61:41If you were looking for more of like a rangy post safety, a lot of people like Thienemann better in that role.

61:48Whereas Downs, if we want more of like a hybrid, you know, nickel safety type, we think that he's better for that because he's such an incredible tackler.

61:57But even then, like Thienemann, he's a great hitter too.

62:00And in fact, Oregon, like they had a look that they liked for second and long, right?

62:05If they got like a tackle for no loss or a tackle for loss or a tackle for no gain on first

62:12down, you get second down, second and long. Again, pass rates super high there.

62:17So they would kind of use him similar to how Ohio State used Downs the year before that as, you know, they

62:24would play like these Tampa 2 looks where he would step down and be the hole player in Tampa 2.

62:30He wasn't running the pole from underneath. He would step down and play it.

62:34And the whole thing was, we're begging you to run on second and long because we trust him to come from that

62:41deep in the middle of the field and still make the tackle and make us correct, right?

62:47So a lot of teams, when they see that look pre-snap, like they made it very obvious pre-snap what they were doing,

62:54when they see that they're going to check to like inside zone or counter or whatever.

62:59It's like, okay, we're going to get our six yards out of this, get to third and four, let's rock and roll.

63:06And Thineman's ability to come from like 10 to 11 yards deep, get to the alley, make a secure tackle and hold

63:13that run to like a two yard gain instead of a six yard gain.

63:17That was what they built the entire package around.

63:20So he can, he can be a great run defender from depth as well.

63:24In addition to being an elite post safety too, uh, you know, called a stereotype.

63:29A lot of people compare him to Harrison Smith for a reason.

63:33He does a lot of the stuff that Harrison Smith did.

63:36So I think it was a tremendous pick given who was on the board at 25.

63:42Again, I stand by my statement. I don't think the defense is going to be substantively that much better because the defensive line is still terrible.

63:50But if the main goal was just come out of pick 25 with the best player you possibly can, I would argue

63:57he was probably the best player they could have got.

64:00Yeah. And add speed at every level of the defense, they wanted to do it.

64:05They did it in free agency. Bush is a very speedy linebacker.

64:08Thineman and Bryant can both wheel. They wanted to upgrade the overall athleticism, certainly in the back seven of this defense so that they can cover more ground.

64:17And Thineman certainly helps in that category. In the second round, pick 57, they get Logan Jones, the center out of Iowa.

64:24This was early for a lot of people. He's a great fit, I will say, from a football sense, spiritually.

64:31Like he is a zone blocking center that has a ton of power.

64:35And the best way I could describe Logan Jones after watching his tape is a technically proficient Tasmanian devil.

64:41He is. Okay. He is hyper aggressive, but he is not wild or random.

64:45He knows that he doesn't have the longest levers.

64:48He knows he's not the biggest guy. He's not small.

64:51He's quite stout. As a matter of fact, a product of Iowa's legendary weight room.

64:56But his technical proficiency with targets, hand strikes, timing, his ability to win the first punch.

65:01He does it over and over again. He's like a machine.

65:04And I mean like a Terminator machine. Like he uses all of his effort, angles, ability, every single down to dice you

65:11up, to hit you first, to get you off balance, to move your hips.

65:16Everything he can possibly do. And it's so much fun to watch his tape.

65:20I ended up watching a full three games. I was like, I'm going to go to four.

65:26I sent it to a friend of mine who's a current player in CFB on the offensive line.

65:31And I said, have you watched this guy yet?

65:34He said, no. I said, you need to, you need to clear your books for tonight.

65:39You are going to laugh yourself silly. This guy is just a riot to watch play offensive line because of the style,

65:46the aggression, how often he wins when you think he shouldn't, when he is lined up against absolute monsters in the big 10.

65:54And you're like, nah, he can't. He got him.

65:56He got him again. And so I know a lot of people think it was early in the second round at 57.

66:03I think the bears fell in love with him.

66:06And I think he is going to be the long-term starter for the bears as center, whether it's this year or whether

66:13he learns under Bradbury for a year and comes in.

66:16It doesn't really matter to me. If you score a good young center, and this is Caleb center going forward, and they're comfortable with that.

66:24Roshar likes him and the rest of his line mates react to him.

66:28This is a good pick and nobody will blink an eye at 57.

66:33This is another one of those picks for me that I can tell Ben had a significant hand in it because he

66:39is intimately familiar with what happens to his offense when there's not good center play.

66:44And or even when there just is great center play, right?

66:48Because he had Ragnow in Detroit and Ragnow was instrumental in making that system work.

66:52You look at the splits of when they had Ragnow and when they didn't in Detroit.

66:58It was not pretty. And hell, you look at last year without Ragnow because he retired.

67:03I mean, he came back for like three days, got hurt, retired again.

67:07But you looked at what happened when the center position for the Lions fell off a cliff last year.

67:13They couldn't block anybody. And one of the first things they did when Ben arrived was go get Drew Dahlman.

67:19Because like we can't run this offense without a good center.

67:23And then Dahlman retired. And again, can't run this offense without a good center.

67:27So, okay, let's trade for Bradbury. Let's draft Jones.

67:30Let's make sure we have this position taken care of.

67:33A lot of people thought it was very early for him.

67:36But considering the premium that is placed on this position by Ben Johnson didn't shock me whatsoever.

67:42And quite frankly, I think it's appropriate. Yeah, he's going to be a fan favorite as well.

67:47He is a wrecker on the inside of the line and gets the most out of his ability.

67:53And that is always something that will endear football players to Chicago fans.

67:57In the third round, also a Ben Johnson pick at 69, Sam Rauch, the big tight end out of Stanford.

68:03Former rugby player guy that really impressed us with his movement skills up close.

68:08Build and movement skills at the combine. For a guy built the way he is, he does not move.

68:14Like, he moves better than he should be able to with that build.

68:18He is not a light move tight end. He is an inline tight end that can block and is capable of doing so.

68:25But when he opens up on a pass route, he is fluid.

68:29He is far more athletic than you think he is.

68:32His hands are softer. In terms of catching the football, which you don't always see from big, muscular, inline blocking tight ends.

68:39Rauch is a marvel who didn't necessarily have the production in college that belies his physical status.

68:45But I think it's more of wasn't asked to, not that he can't.

68:49And I think Ben has very particular plans for his usage in this offense.

68:53Ben has always, again, showed favoritism to the tight end position because they are so instrumental in tying together the run and

69:00the pass game, which is all Ben wants to do, is tie the run and the pass game together.

69:06Make everything look the same. We have our 50-50 splits.

69:09You don't know what we are doing. We are going to dictate defensive structure because you don't know what we are doing.

69:16We have to be able to put either two or sometimes even three tight ends on the field to make you think

69:23we are running the ball and then we are going to throw it.

69:27That was also a big trend we saw this year was teams being really pass heavy out of multi-tight end looks.

69:34Ben Johnson is on the cutting edge of that trend.

69:37He loves doing that. He liked doing it in Detroit.

69:40He loves doing it in Chicago. I mean, shit, they drafted Colston Loveland super high last year so they could do that with him and Komet.

69:49Roush is another one. Like, they're probably going to be pretty heavy in 13 personnel this year with all three of them on the field.

69:56And then going forward in the future, you know, your 12 personnel look is Roush and Colston or Colston and Roush more specifically.

70:04But, you know, Roush being a great inline blocker and Colston also being a good inline blocker means you can do a

70:11YY wing and just pound people to death. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

70:17So I like this pick, not just for now, but also for the future.

70:21I think it's going to make the Bears run game a staple for at least the next four to five years.

70:28Yeah. And in a vacuum, I can understand people looking at Sam Roush, his production in college and saying third round 69

70:35overall league wide outside of that vacuum. This was part of a trend.

70:39And if you wanted these players, you had to get them early in this year's draft.

70:44They went off the board very, very quickly, more quickly than even those of us that watched the draft closely thought they would.

70:51There was a run on this type of player, the true two way player that had some pass ability as well.

70:58And Roush was one of the better ones. And the Bears jumped early to get him.

71:03The next pick also in the third round. This one was early for me.

71:07I understand why the Bears took Xavieron Thomas, the wide receiver out of LSU.

71:1289 was early for me because they were bidding against themselves.

71:15And I think that's a draft sin that Ryan Poles commits far too often.

71:20I don't think anybody was racing to the podium to get Xavier on Thomas.

71:24Unlike Sam Roush, that one got proven true as tight ends came off the board rapidly after he did.

71:30And you went, oh, yeah, if they didn't get him, they wouldn't have gotten him.

71:35I think they could have gotten Xavier on Thomas a round later, maybe two rounds later.

71:40They were smitten with his ability as a returner.

71:43And they said so in the post draft press conference.

71:46To me, if you're picking a pure return specialist, which is what he's going to be, if you're looking at bringing in

71:53Khalif Raymond, looking at the wide receiver talent they already have in the room.

71:57I don't think Xavier on Thomas is displacing Luther burden anytime soon.

72:01They got him as a return threat and they did it in the third round at 89.

72:07I don't dislike the player. I don't dislike the fit for that role.

72:11He is a very dangerous, very fast return specialist.

72:14Getting him at 89 or spending 89 conversely to get that was early for me.

72:18The good news is they're going to give up so many points this year that they will be receiving a lot of kickoffs.

72:26So he'll get his touches each. You know, that sounds a lot like a certain punter justification that was also selected earlier than I would have liked it.

72:34But OK. In the fourth round, pick 124. A pick that you like better than I did.

72:40Malik Muhammad, the cornerback out of Texas. I don't think this is out of range for Malik Muhammad's athletic profile or his production at Texas.

72:48I just didn't really necessarily like the player that much.

72:51And in terms of whether he was a better man corner or zone corner, I think Dennis Allen really likes his man corners.

72:58And I didn't see Malik Muhammad as a great man corner.

73:02So I am fine with the pick. You got to talk to him at the combine.

73:07So how do you feel about Malik Muhammad in the fourth round?

73:11To me, that was an Al Harris pick, right?

73:13Because even though he's slender, he is long. He is fast.

73:17Very rangy zone defender. Didn't get to see him play as much press man as I thought he could have considering his length.

73:24You know, Texas would line him up and press and then bail him out or have him bail out of press and

73:31just kind of play over the top of receivers and just have his eyes on the quarterback.

73:37They challenge you deep, win the foot race, which he did.

73:40So he didn't get as much action as you would hope for a top tier college corner.

73:45But I also consider that kind of a compliment because he would just be playing over the top of receivers and say, go ahead, try it.

73:54And teams were like, no, thank you. So there wasn't a whole lot of like targets you could look at for him.

74:01But if you're looking at physical profile, if you're looking at fluidity, if you're looking at range and if you're looking at

74:08a Dennis Allen defense, well, yes, DA, if he gets an opportunity to play cover one and man you up and rush

74:15with four, he's going to do that. Last year, he was pretty favorable to cover three.

74:20And I feel if you're trying to find a corner that is at home in cover three, just playing over top of

74:27receivers, eyes on quarterback, use your range, use your length, go make a play.

74:31It's Malik Muhammad. So he fits from that standpoint.

74:34And again, this feels to me like somebody Al Harris can be like, okay, he's got tools.

74:39I can turn him into something. I did it with Nashawn Wright.

74:43I could do it with him. And if he does it with Muhammad, and again, that's not outside the range of possibility or even probability.

74:51That's a real value. If you get a starting level corner in the fourth round, you're doing really well.

74:57In the fifth round of pick 166, they get Keyshawn Elliott, linebacker, inside linebacker out of Arizona state.

75:036'2", 235 moves really well. The thing that impressed me when I watched his tape fairly early in the process was aggression.

75:10He is a very aggressive and physical player. He's a hitter.

75:13He reminds me a lot of Noah Sewell. Noah Sewell is a little bit bigger, but in terms of play style, in

75:20terms of role deployment, usage, versatility, like Keyshawn Elliott is a lot like Noah Sewell.

75:25He is a better linebacker going forward. He has more range than you think he might, but he is not the speediest,

75:32which is why he's available down in the fifth round, and he's going to make his living early in the year as

75:39a special teams player, as a hitter, as a backup for inside linebacker.

75:43He's a smart guy. I really like his ability to diagnose.

75:46He doesn't necessarily have the top end tools to always be able to get where his eyes lead him, but he is

75:53going to use aggression to make up for that and try and go through people.

75:58So I appreciate the approach and the style. I thought he was a skilled player, but in terms of where he has

76:05to grow, it's definitely in the game against the pass.

76:08Their last pick was one of my favorites in all of day three, and I'll tell you why, because it's one of

76:15the most absurd stats of any player in this class.

76:18Yep. Jordan Vandenberg, DT out of Georgia Tech. His average tackle against the run was a tackle for loss.

76:24As in the average depth of tackle was negative 0.1 yards behind a line of scrimmage.

76:29The next closest DT to him in college football was plus 0.6, meaning a little over half a yard past a line

76:36of scrimmage, which by the way, completely batshit insane.

76:39Caden McDonald was like one and a half, right?

76:42Jordan Vandenberg's average tackle against the run was in the backfield.

76:46He is a complete freak of nature athlete. Doesn't really know what he's doing as a pass rusher whatsoever, but we're talking

76:53like a 10 RAS, crazy, crazy productive against the run just because he's so much more athletic than everybody else around him.

77:00If you're doing a dart throw in the sixth round for a really bad defensive line where it's like, can't possibly be worse than what we have.

77:08Yeah. You invest in the like absolutely historically freak, freak, freak, freak of nature and you figure it out.

77:14Yeah. In terms of not knowing what he's doing, um, when it hits, it is amazing.

77:19It really, his tape reminds me of those videos where somebody throws a lit match into a barrel of fireworks because he just annihilates people.

77:27It's not pretty. And he makes some really odd turns, but he's able to do it physically, which is both astounding and also confounding at the same time.

77:36You'll see him literally make 90 degree turns going through an offensive line.

77:40So he'll penetrate running back cuts to the outside.

77:43He's like, see ball, get ball. He turns sideways and runs through like three guys and gets there as if he didn't run through anybody.

77:51He's just like a human bowling ball right now.

77:54And if you can harness and hone that, even if it's just situationally as a guy that comes in and gives other

78:01guys a break, he's going to be a mess to deal with.

78:04Like he is incredibly strong, wound up twitchy, everything you want from a defensive tackle.

78:09You just kind of get the, got to get the targeting system in the eyes, sink to that crazy physical ability.

78:16And if you can do that in the sixth round, you're cooking with gas.

78:20As far as UDFAs, really the only one that I care about is Miller Moss just because he played some good, you know, football in college.

78:28Did I ever think that he had like starter quality tools?

78:32Not particularly, but if he can be your QB three for no money, you know, if he could be a really good

78:39scout team quarterback for you, I think you can get some, you know, some value out of that.

78:45Again, he played some good football in college, not necessarily at Louisville.

78:48I would say before that at USC, I think there's something there.

78:52I mean, shit, Max Brossmer made the NFL. Miller Moss can't.

78:56Yeah. Miller Moss was something in college football at one point.

78:59He was a highly touted recruit. He looked better earlier in his career, fell off a little bit.

79:05It's not a, not an unheard of story. In fact, it's a pretty common story among college quarterbacks.

79:11And if you get them as a UDFA, as a lottery ticket, you bring them in.

79:16If there is something there and there could be, and he develops it to even a, you know, very stable clipboard holder.

79:23Like you said, practice squad quarterback, scout team quarterback.

79:25That's a value. The only other guy on the list that ticks my, ticks my radar is Caden Barnett.

79:32One of the best nicknames in all of college football, the vanilla gorilla.

79:36He is a bulldozer out of Wyoming, interior offensive lineman.

79:39And he is a throwback. This is, we're talking about neck roll, run through your face, bulldozer.

79:44Like that's what he is there for. He is a tough guy on the inside.

79:49He needs to develop his movement skills laterally, not necessarily the greatest, but very good athlete, very strong.

79:55And right now is just a, you know, see defender, destroy defender type offensive lineman.

79:59And look, if Chicago fans love anything, it's that archetype.

80:03Before we get to our Patreon note, one last reminder for the show.

80:07If you want to refresh your Bears merch collection before this season, or if you want to get some bootleg merch or

80:14any other merch you can think of, whether it's for like your favorite video game, 80s slasher movie, comic books, whatever, it's probably on homage right now.

80:22They've just been collecting licenses like crazy over the last, I don't know, four or five years since we started working with them.

80:29They have almost anything you can think of. So go check out their catalog.

80:34Even if you're not getting bootleg merch, if you're just getting college football merch or NFL merch or anything else, whatever you

80:41get at our link or at our QR code on the screen, we get credit for.

80:46We do a rev share with homage. It does help directly support the show and you get clothes out of it too.

80:53So thank you to everybody who's already done that.

80:56And if you want to go check out the catalog for yourself and get something, whatever you get helps out the show.

81:03Now, speaking of supporting the show, every single episode, we do have comments and notes from our Patreon supporters, you know, because we reach out to them.

81:11We say, hey, can you guys give us, you know, narratives or threads that we can pull on as we're writing and, you know, structuring these episodes.

81:20They've been a great help to us to make sure we don't miss any corners here.

81:25And this is an interesting one that we got from Ryan Hahn about the Bears.

81:30Ryan says, Bears fan here. The Bears lost their starting center and somebody who they thought was going to be their starting

81:37left tackle moving forward, to which I'll say, which one?

81:40There's multiple. He says, first, do you think that we might see multiple guys throughout the season?

81:45Jedrick slash Braxton or Bradbury slash Jones. Second, how can Ben's schemes and how he uses his offensive line and even tight

81:52end slash running backs to block help the offensive line hit their stride that they hit late last season?

81:58So this is another stat from Ryan Paganetti, which I think perfectly answers that question.

82:03From 2023 to 2025, the sixth offensive lineman for every single NFL team averaged 400 snaps per season.

82:09The seventh offensive lineman averaged a little over 250.

82:11OL six and deeper. So your entire, you know, backup pool of offensive linemen combined for a thousand snaps per team.

82:18A typical wide receiver two is about 700. So your backup offensive linemen are more important than they ever have been before,

82:25especially because there's an extra game in the regular season.

82:28You know, there's a lot of wear and tear at the position.

82:32You're going to get your backup guard, your backup center, your backup tackle.

82:36In the Bears case, like four tackles throughout the year.

82:39You know, you're going to play Jordan McFadden in a playoff game.

82:43It's just going to happen. They're going to play a thousand snaps every single year.

82:48So offensive line depth is critical. Having an offensive line coach that can develop that depth is critical.

82:54All that to say, yeah, we are probably going to see Logan Jones and Bradbury.

82:58We are probably going to see Jedrick Wills and Braxton and Theo.

83:02We're going to see everybody because in typical Bears fashion, somebody is going to get hurt at some point.

83:08Multiple people are probably going to get hurt if we're being honest about it.

83:13So I don't think they're going to have the luxury of having all five guys healthy throughout the year.

83:19They're all going to play. They're all going to have to play.

83:22And in the games where they do happen to have even an 80% healthy offensive line, yeah, you're probably going to see

83:29Colt Komet help out and pass pro. You're going to see the running backs help out and pass pro.

83:35They're going to need to because their left tackle situation isn't great.

83:39You know, they're going to use the fact that they have an elite right tackle to their advantage.

83:45Let him handle the one-on-ones over the other side, slide the support to the left side and do what they can.

83:51And luckily, they also have the benefit of having a quarterback who just gets out of sacks even when the protection doesn't hold up.

83:59So to answer your question, you know, what's Ben going to do?

84:03He's probably going to use the whole roster because he needs to.

84:07And he's going to rely on his magician quarterback to make him right even when they're wrong.

84:12It's going to be the same story as 2025.

84:15And, you know, 2025, I would say, worked pretty well.

84:18Three different ways to answer Ryan's question for me.

84:21The first is Ben's scheme helps. We talked about all the balance and keeping defenses guessing, right?

84:26If you don't know runner pass, you're already giving your offensive line the benefit of hitting first in the run game if

84:33they're thinking pass or if they're expecting run and now the guys are dropping into pass pro, they get an extra half second set up.

84:41So the way he schemes the game and hides things from the defense is already helping the offensive line no matter who's playing.

84:48And this staff has shown the ability or I'll say the willingness to switch offensive linemen, not even for injury, but also for ineffectiveness.

84:56If there were guys that weren't getting it done and they wanted to see somebody else, that guy got the start.

85:03And some staffs, especially about offensive line, are rigid.

85:06These are our starters. And unless one of them is hurt, and I mean really hurt, you know, below maybe 60% effectiveness, we're not pulling him.

85:14This staff was not that staff. They showed in their first season, yeah, if we think we can get an upgrade or

85:21a different flavor, we're going to do it. So yeah, we're going to see multiple guys throughout the system.

85:27And interesting note, you're talking about Darnell Wright at right tackle and leaving him with one-on-ones.

85:32When I was at the combine, I was talking to somebody that knows the Bears assistant offensive line coach and got an interesting nugget on right.

85:40Early in the season, they were using more duo blocks with him and the guard on that side.

85:46And they thought he was less effective in terms of that communication.

85:50And so they started shifting the protection away from the right-hand side.

85:53And they were like, and both the guys over there, Jonah and Wright, were like, what the hell, man?

85:59You're not giving us any help. And they're like, yeah, and look what's happening.

86:04You're absolutely mauling people one-on-one. When we're basically lining them up so it has to be them on you, you're crushing them.

86:11When you have to communicate with the other guy, you're less effective.

86:15They're getting more things by you. You're both locked down if we just let you be solo artists.

86:20And they were like, oh, okay. So it wasn't something we did and you took our help away?

86:26They're like, no, you're actually playing a lot better when it's a cleaner look and we can basically arrange one-on-ones by sliding the protection away from you.

86:35And they were like, oh, okay. And from that point out, the right side of the line is stainless.

86:41Why didn't you say so? Motivation comes in all kinds of factors.

86:44So I thought that one was fascinating. It's just one of those little insights you get to the game by going to

86:51an event like the combine and talking to different people.

86:55But I can see both those guys storming into the offensive line of like, why'd you take all our help?

87:01Why don't we get to do things together anymore?

87:04It's like, because you're better when you do it solo.

87:07So thanks very much to Ryan. Always love the questions from fans in these episodes.

87:12Helps us think about the teams in different ways.

87:14Maybe dig a little bit deeper, find some answers we wouldn't have otherwise.

87:19So really appreciate it. Now, one more segment for the show.

87:22And at the risk of pissing off a significant chunk of our audience, my ceiling for them is at 11.

87:28Keep in mind, regular season ceiling, not playoff ceiling.

87:31Playoff ceiling? Go nuts. Project them for whatever you want to project them for.

87:36Once they're in the dance, this team has a nasty habit of winning games.

87:40They're not supposed to. They could go all the way.

87:43Wouldn't shock me whatsoever. It's going to be tough, right?

87:46Because the Rams are the Rams. The Seahawks are just about as good.

87:51They're going to be good, quite frankly. You have the rest of the NFC North to contend with.

87:56Cowboys are going to be good. Eagles are going to be good.

88:00You know, NFC South is just like this cauldron of chaos down there.

88:04You don't know what's going to happen with them.

88:07Once they're in the dance, they could win, but it will be difficult because I think the NFC is way better than the AFC.

88:15But my regular season ceiling is 11, and here's why.

88:18The stuff that dragged them down last year isn't really that different.

88:22The defense is still bad. Upgraded at a couple positions, but overall, the defense is still bad.

88:27We're hoping they're in the top of the bottom third in the NFL.

88:31Like, that's best case scenario. And to me, if you have a defense that bad, you're going to look a lot like the early 2010 Saints.

88:39You're going to look like the early 2010s Patriots.

88:42You're going to look like a team that can score on anybody, can't stop a nosebleed, right?

88:48The Chiefs went through it. Basically, every really good team you can think of went through that phase where they get a

88:55young quarterback, they score a bunch of points, they can't stop anybody, they spend two straight off seasons investing in the defense,

89:02and then they win the Super Bowl. I feel like that's what's going to happen with Chicago.

89:07They're going to win 11 games. It's going to be like pulling teeth at times because it's going to be a bunch

89:14of like 30 to 28 type matchups where you're hoping that Caleb can just pull shit out of his ass in the fourth quarter.

89:21And he will. But it's going to be a really, really annoying 11 wins.

89:26Exciting, but annoying. Once they get to the playoffs, yeah, sure, anything can happen.

89:30But this defense has not gotten better enough to the point where I can be like, oh yeah, they're going to win 13 for sure.

89:38I was kind of being cheeky in the beginning of the show when I said they could win 14.

89:44I really don't think they can. Defense is still bad.

89:4711 is admirable. Could maybe win the NFC North with that, but it's going to be tough.

89:53My floor, by the way, is nine. They're not going to be a bad team.

89:58It's going to be a very narrow range, similar to the Packers yesterday.

90:02But I don't think this team is complete enough to have the same kind of ceiling that even Minnesota does.

90:08It's rare air to say that a team in the NFL can win 13 or 14 games.

90:13There are very few teams every year that ascend to that height.

90:17And the wide middle of the NFL is right in this range between ceilings and floor that we've been talking about all

90:24week, whether it's ceilings of 11, floors of nine.

90:27I'm going to characterize my ceiling as why I could all work and my floor as why I could all fall apart.

90:34I'm going to say 12 wins, one more than last year.

90:37Here's why. Why I could all work. Ben Johnson's offense in its second full year should be even more powerful, just like it was in Detroit.

90:46And he has more weapons of his choosing at his disposal.

90:49If Caleb moves towards greater consistency, we talked about that at the top of the episode, he can sustain more drives.

90:56Happy might've learned how to putt at that point.

90:59And that's a scary thought for NFC defenses and a revamp secondary could frustrate opposing passers just a little bit more than they did last year.

91:07And that could lead to this team cooking with gas and winning one more game.

91:12How it could all fall apart. Nine wins. I don't think they're going to be bad either.

91:17I don't think Ben's going to allow them to.

91:20If the pass rush doesn't accelerate and the defensive takeaways drop off, which they're going to the defense could struggle again, period.

91:27And that leaves the offense in more shootouts than they want to be in.

91:31Will Caleb win a bunch of them because he's Caleb?

91:34He will. But that is again, playing with fire and you're sometimes going to get burned.

91:40Sometimes going to win in one of the NFL's most balanced divisions.

91:43Again, if you have watched all the episodes this week, all the ceilings and floors are within one game of each other for all four teams.

91:52This is a tight window, a tight division. It's going to be a tight race and every little bit's going to count.

91:59So if the defense doesn't get substantively better, and right now on paper, it doesn't look like it's going to, even if

92:05the offense scores some more points, they're still going to be in shootout.

92:10So they might win one more game. They might win nine games, which again, would have tied them for second, third, fourth

92:17place in the NFC North this year. So I think between the two of us, we set a record for the most

92:24amount of times that substantively has ever been said in a podcast, but all the last 10 minutes.

92:29It's very true. All right. I want to thank everybody for watching and listening, wherever you happen to be watching and listening

92:36reminder tomorrow on the Patreon, if you're watching this on Thursday.

92:40Uh, so Friday this week on the Patreon, we're doing our NFC North recap show.

92:44So we're going to pick our NFC North division winner, you know, MVPs, rookies of the year, coaches of the year, all

92:51that, uh, that again, goes live as a patron only episode.

92:55And then next week we're going to the AFC South.

92:58This is officially the halfway mark of the summer series.

93:01We are 16 teams down. We got 16 to go.

93:04Thank you to all of our patrons for helping to make it possible.

93:09Our executive producers on Patreon, our sponsors, homage Woodinville.

93:11BuzzR, everybody. You guys have been amazing. We are 50% of the way through.

93:16So we will see you next week.

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