Post Draft Predictions Thread!

[Epyon]

As good a time as any, predict where you think this ends up and call your shots now!!  Can be team stats, player stats, win/loss records

 

1. Caleb stats: 4450 passing yards, 31 passing TD, 4 Rushing TD.  17x INTs

2. Running game takes a big step back this year. It gets kind of exposed how much Fields was carrying it. I think there's also going to be WAY MORE passes to running backs out of the backfield, that also soak up many of the "would be runs"

3. Allen ends up with 850ish yards, he gets a bit more banged up here than in LA and is either limited or misses some time

4. Odunze gets around 750 yards. Being the the third target, he gets a number of "go ball" chances early, and becomes a valued member of the WR screen game (both blocking for Moore, and just getting the ball himself).... As Allen starts getting more banged up, his role will increase.

5. DJ Moore starts going off with actual other threats pulling coverage and ends with 1200 yards.

6. Tyler Scott also becomes a role player as the deep threat, mostly in the later part of the year when he's the #3 with Allen more limited, but even earlier as a pure coverage stretcher. He won't put up crazy numbers, however... maybe 350 yards, but its going to be big deep shots.

7. Kmet comes down to earth a bit, but not much.... Still going to be a huge part of the offense, Everrett takes some pressure off.  Right around 1.1k yards between the TE room, Kmet getting 600 ish, Everette getting 300ish.

8 Overall record is 10-7

9. Defense/Pass rush is grading poorly and there's a mid season move.... possibly also something on the offensive line.

10. Offense has difficulties in the redzone..... running game being weak being the culprit

[Sugashane]

.I'll play as an optimist and expect to be right about none of it. 

 

Caleb - 345 for 567 (60.8%) for 4390 yards, 23 TDs and 14 INTs, has 5 fumbles, 39 sacks, 355 yards rushing on 60 attempts and 2 rushing TDs. 

Swift - 220 rushes for 858 (3.9 YPA) and 4 rushing TDs. 41 rec for 357 yards and 2 TDs

Herbert - 150 rushes for 720 yards (4.8 YPA) and 6 rushing TDs, 21 rec for 162 yards and 1 TD

Moore - 82 rec for 1164 yards, 6 TDs

Allen - 97 rec for 1196 yards, 6 TDs

Odunze - 41 rec for 514 yards, 4 TDs

Kmet - 62 rec for 556, 2 TDs

Everett - 30 rec for 240 yards, 1 TD

Rest of team - 12 rec for 201 yards, 1 TD (someone breaks one really long one, like Scott or Velus get a broken coverage for 60+)

 

Swift disappoints as a runner and goes from being near the bellcow to being the back up rusher (60/40 split, but 3rd down specialist) by week 10. 

Bates is an improvement but by season's end C is one of the bigger wants on the OL, Bears go into 2025 wanting to extend Jenkins, replace Davis and Bates. They cause sacks in the redzone too often. 

Caleb protects the ball well in the redzone, but in doing so he takes way too many sacks down there (13, lead last year was 8). Still with Santos it ends up being 3 but a lot more potential points left on the field than we are happy with. I'm going to say 5 INTs are a combination of hail mary INTs and tipped passes that the WR caused. 

Braxton Jones ends the season well enough to be happy with, but with a LOT of questions if he can hold of Amegadjie, I repeatedly claim to try him at RG or C to no avail so Davis can be cut. 

Sweat has a monster year with 13 sacks and a ton of QB hits

No one lese has more than 5 sacks, Dexter has 5 and is the next best DL, he gets a ton of pressures but can't quite get the sacks. 

LBs look good, but Edwards has some games where he is exposed as he slows down. 

Byard plays well but Brisker makes me complain roughly 381 times this year. (starting from the HOF game)

Bears CBs (Johnson, Stevenson, Gordon and Smith) all play really well overall. Not as many INTs as last year but completion percentage for opposing QBs drops. 

Bears make a move to trade  for another EDGE in-season as no one does well opposite Sweat. 

 

Bears end the season 10-7, losing 3 games by under 5 points. Two are WTF HOW DID WE LOSE THAT games that cause way more fan clamoring for Eberflus to be fired than deserved. 

 

[Ty21]

8 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

Swift - 220 rushes for 858 (3.9 YPA) and 4 rushing TDs. 41 rec for 357 yards and 2 TDs

100%

[AZBearsFan]

Why not:

-Williams is OROY. 4300 yards, 28 TD, 11 INT. Our WR room is pretty ridiculous, and he’s a top tier QB prospect. I have to think with these passing weapons we’ll look to open things up more, especially after the first month or so when CW has settled in a bit. SEA passed over 60% of the time last year under Waldron. I expect that to continue.

-Swift is an adequate runner and a passing game asset. 230/966/6 rushing, 45/338/2 receiving. 

-Johnson is our primary RB2 over Herbert since he can block and catch (Herbert can do neither), and gets a decent amount of GL work. 102/408/5 rushing and 15 or so catches.

-Moore/Rome/Allen combine for about 3000 receiving yards with each guy having games where they’re the top producer. None has huge individual stats, but the collective is consistently effective. 15-20 total TDs across the three.

-Kmet/Everett excel in the RZ in favorable matchups and primarily on check down type passes but step back yardage/target wise as secondary tier targets. 600-800 combined yards, but near double digit TDs together.

-OL is good enough but not great, but Bates is a solid player at C. Guard has some attrition issues that we think we’ve prepared for, but it’s clear that G will be a primary offseason upgrade target. 

-Defense is better at getting to the QB but still has games where they can’t, and we get into a few shootouts because of it (where we actually have a chance now!). Back 7 continues to be a strength. Overall defensive scoring wise we are in the 8-12 range, giving us a chance to win basically every week.

11-6 record. We’ve lost so many “show me what you got” games at QB the past few years. This year we win a few more of them. The buzz going into 2025 will be electric. 

[Ty21]

I think Caleb’s absolute peak is 3800 in his rookie year. 4k would be a ton for a bears qb in his rookie year regardless of ability. We’d have to be way more pass heavy 

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

Honestly it's hard to see how this could fall flat besides "It's the Bears" which they're showing signs of shedding anyway.

Like, piano falls on Caleb?  OK fine. Harder to picture him just not being any good.

If I was to pick nits, I'd say the coach needs to prove he can run the team without having to fire everyone. OC needs to show he can set a pretty decent assembly of talent up for success.   I don't love the RB room, and the OL seems like an average unit, but seems like WR, TE and QB should be very good at the least.  I guess our punter could return to his convict ways and rob Halas Hall one night? 

[chisoxguy7]

1 hour ago, Ty21 said:

I think Caleb’s absolute peak is 3800 in his rookie year. 4k would be a ton for a bears qb in his rookie year regardless of ability. We’d have to be way more pass heavy 

I expect we're going to pass more--but the key in hitting 4k will simply be being more productive and efficient. More first downs. More third down conversions. That's where I anticipate the increase in production will come from.

[Epyon]

1 hour ago, Ty21 said:

I think Caleb’s absolute peak is 3800 in his rookie year. 4k would be a ton for a bears qb in his rookie year regardless of ability. We’d have to be way more pass heavy 

I think the FLOOR is going to be something like 3650 yards year 1, barring catastrophic injuries.

Waldron passed 60% of the time last year.... we're going to be more pass heavy in general, and I foresee a few other factors that will also cause us to throw more:

1. Caleb will be a rookie, and Rookies will turn the ball over.  There's going to be a number of INTs that result in points going up for the other side. He's never seen the kind of exotic hybrid coverages and disguises he saw in college.

2.  I'm expecting a regression in the running game this season. Honestly, our running game hasn't really been that great, when you remove Fields' numbers from it, and I expect Caleb to be running about 1/3rd as much as Fields did at most.

3. As I said above, I think the screen game will get more play from us, as well as running back "check down" passes, which is where Swift will come in.

4. Finally, I'm still not really sold on the defense, particularly as it pertains to pass rush. If anything, we have actually gotten worse there this offseason.  I'd be more surprised if we had a dominant defense than if we had a number of games that where 40+ points on both sides of the ball.... and some of that will just be the D getting put into impossible situations because of #1. Also we're basically one Sweat injury away from having literally no pass rush.

Edited April 29 by Epyon

[AZBearsFan]

2 hours ago, Epyon said:

I think the FLOOR is going to be something like 3650 yards year 1, barring catastrophic injuries.

Waldron passed 60% of the time last year.... we're going to be more pass heavy in general, and I foresee a few other factors that will also cause us to throw more:

1. Caleb will be a rookie, and Rookies will turn the ball over.  There's going to be a number of INTs that result in points going up for the other side. He's never seen the kind of exotic hybrid coverages and disguises he saw in college.

2.  I'm expecting a regression in the running game this season. Honestly, our running game hasn't really been that great, when you remove Fields' numbers from it, and I expect Caleb to be running about 1/3rd as much as Fields did at most.

3. As I said above, I think the screen game will get more play from us, as well as running back "check down" passes, which is where Swift will come in.

4. Finally, I'm still not really sold on the defense, particularly as it pertains to pass rush. If anything, we have actually gotten worse there this offseason.  I'd be more surprised if we had a dominant defense than if we had a number of games that where 40+ points on both sides of the ball.... and some of that will just be the D getting put into impossible situations because of #1. Also we're basically one Sweat injury away from having literally no pass rush.

Removing the MIN game (since he only played about a half), Fields averaged 208.3 ypg last year on 30 pass attempts per game in those games, which extrapolates to 3547 yards over 17 games. Assuming Williams doesn’t get hurt, it’ll be a MASSIVE upset if he doesn’t eclipse that IMO. 

Waldron’s offense in SEA last year had 575 pass attempts which is 33.8/game. If we match that, and Williams throws all our passes, then getting to 4000 yards would only require 6.95 yards per attempt. I expect Williams will be at least as efficient and reasonably likely better than Geno Smith and 2 games of Drew Lock were in SEA in 2023 on those 575 passes (4167 pass yards, 23 TDs, 12 INT).

[dll2000]

I don't know about stats.

I know all 4 teams in NFCN have talent now.  No gimmies in our division.

Detroit still gets nod to me, even though a lot are picking GB based on a strong finish.  

I am not counting us out.  Going to be a war of attrition.

 

[TankWilliams]

I think 9 to 11 wins if the team remains reasonably healthy.  Every position group of the team is the same or better than it was at the start of the year last year.  

[dll2000]

 I think a key factor will be Bates. 

If C position continues to be sieve and produce bad snaps it doesn't matter that much if all the other positions are all pros.  

Kenny Clark has been blowing up Bears game plans for 5 years or so now.  

Det just signed DJ Reader to do same.

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

2 hours ago, dll2000 said:

 I think a key factor will be Bates. 

If C position continues to be sieve and produce bad snaps it doesn't matter that much if all the other positions are all pros.  

Kenny Clark has been blowing up Bears game plans for 5 years or so now.  

Det just signed DJ Reader to do same.

I mean, they like this guy to an almost comical degree.  It's like a rom com where teens grow up and decades later one finally gets to date their crush.  Wait.  If we apply romcom logic, then Poles is going to realize he secretly loves Lucas Patrick. F this analogy, lets hope Bates is good.  

[Bowler1215]

It won't take much for Williams to pass Bears rookie passing yards(2193 I believe) and TD passes(11)  3000+ yards and 20 TD passes isn't out of the question.  

At worst, we match our win total from last year 7.  11 wins seems like our ceiling.

I doubt we win the division this year, but we'll be in the hunt for a wild card spot. 

[beardown3231]

3 hours ago, BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW said:

I mean, they like this guy to an almost comical degree.  It's like a rom com where teens grow up and decades later one finally gets to date their crush.  Wait.  If we apply romcom logic, then Poles is going to realize he secretly loves Lucas Patrick. F this analogy, lets hope Bates is good.  

It's like when Kenny Williams was running the Sox. For a long time the joke was "Kenny always gets his guy" as it relates to signing or trading for veterans who used to be good but suck now: Jimmy Rollins, Manny Ramirez, Omar Vizquel, Ken Griffey. There's probably a lot more