Chicago Bears on Hard Knocks: Everything You Need to Know

The Chicago Bears have been chosen to star in the HBO docuseries Hard Knocks for the upcoming 2024 NFL season.

The first episode airs Tuesday, August 6 at 9 p.m. ET.

At over 550 pages, Warren Sharp's new book 2024 Football Preview features dedicated chapters for all 32 NFL teams, fantasy football predictions, Vegas odds with forecasted wins plus hundreds of visuals and infographics breaking down the upcoming 2024 NFL season.

In honor of the first Hard Knocks episode, we're sharing Warren's team chapter for the Chicago Bears in its entirety, absolutely free below, to get you prepared for the upcoming series by delivering the smartest information & analysis in the fastest, most direct way possible.

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I was absolutely puzzled by the Bears' 2023 strategy because I feared it would leave them in purgatory.

Their over was a trendy bet last season. They were forecast to win 7.5 games, a number that was bet to the over. They were +400 to win the division in early March, and that was bet as low as +300 before the publish date of my 2023 Football Preview, where I wrote:

“Chicago is expected to win 8 games this year. While they could do that, how much value is there in expecting they will exceed that number? If Justin Fields isn’t making magic on third down, what is this offense doing? The high points for the 2022 Bears offense came in high-leverage situations, which are unlikely to repeat year over year. There is hope for the Bears, but there are also a lot of questions. And it still feels like Chicago could funnel more money into the roster but hasn’t. And that further restricts the upside we could see in Fields’ development in 2023.”

I generally didn’t understand why the Bears would roll out the #7 cheapest offense and the #10 cheapest defense when they had a quarterback in year three of a rookie deal window.

Their final cash spending was 18th in the NFL. Their young QB was off a season that saw him set the NFL record in sack rate (14.7%). They were coming off two straight losing seasons.

I wasn’t convinced the 2023 Bears would be able to turn it around and actually produce a winning season.

And that’s despite me expecting the Bears would play the #6 easiest schedule including what I predicted would be the #3 easiest schedule of defenses and #13 easiest schedule of offenses.

And I ended up being as close as reasonable given we’re talking about predicting the future.

By the end of the 2023 season, the Bears had played the #5 easiest schedule, the #1 easiest schedule of defenses, and the #11 easiest schedule of offenses.

The offense literally played half their games vs. defenses which ranked as follows:

#32
#31
#29
#28
#27 x2
#26 x2

In addition, they ranked #4 in fumble luck, #2 in field goal luck, were the #9 healthiest team, and finished +3 in turnover margin.

And yet despite all that luck going their way and them playing a top-five easiest schedule, the 2023 Bears went under their 7.5-win total, winning just 7 of 17 games.

And that was despite a late rally which saw them win four of their final six games after starting the season 3-8.

Bears fans certainly would love to forget the Fields era and are already dreaming about the Caleb Williams era. But it wasn’t all terrible last season. This team did begin a slight pivot into more efficiency, particularly on early downs.

In 2022, they ranked #31 offensively on early downs.

That improved to #16 last year.

And their defense made an even larger improvement, from #32 all the way to #4 on early downs.

Speaking of overall defensive improvement, we knew things would get better for them when you looked at the combination of their schedule and their defensive additions, particularly when they traded for Montez Sweat during the season.

But pay note to their schedule.

The 2022 Bears defense was the worst in the NFL but played the NFL’s #2 toughest schedule including the #1 toughest schedule of opposing QBs.

Last year, the Bears defense played the NFL’s #22 toughest schedule, a huge dropoff in strength. And they played the #10 easiest schedule of opposing QBs.

The only QBs the Bears beat last year?

Bryce Young (rookie)
Aidan O’Connell (rookie)/Brian Hoyer
Sam Howell (first-year starter)
Josh Dobbs (backup)
Taylor Heinicke (backup)
Kyler Murray
Jared Goff

Overall, the Bears ranked #30 in pressure rate and recorded just 30 sacks (#31).

Elements of the defense improved such as a sharp improvement in run defense, which ranked #5. But the Bears played the #10 easiest schedule of run offenses, which helps boost those numbers artificially.

We know the big change on offense is the addition of Williams.

And while talent is abundant and I’m eager to see it on full display, I’m particularly interested to see one key factor:

How will Williams’ time to throw the football look in 2024?

And that’s because we know holding the ball leads to more pressure. It’s one of the most causal relationships in NFL statistics.

A quick time to throw results in infrequent pressures and sacks. Think Tom Brady in his last season in Tampa.

But a longer time to throw allows for more pressure and thus more sacks. Think Fields in each of the last two years.

2023: 3.1 seconds to throw (#1 most of 35 QBs), 52% of dropbacks lasted 3+ seconds (#1)
2022: 3.1 seconds to throw (#1 most of 33 QBs), 54% of dropbacks lasted 3+ seconds (#1)

This is just who he is as a QB.

And that style puts a LOT of pressure on an offensive line.

That’s how a QB breaks the NFL record for sacks taken.

2022: 46% pressure rate (#1 highest), 14.7% sack rate (#1 highest)
2023: 49% pressure rate (#1 highest), 10.6% sack rate (#3 highest)

In his first three years, spanning 40 games, Fields was sacked 135 times.

That’s 3.38 sacks per game, the #2 most in NFL history for the first three years of a career.

It was only exceeded nearly 40 years ago in 1985-87 by Randall Cunningham.

If we look at all years of a player’s career, over a 40-game span, the last time a QB was sacked more than 135 times was Jon Kitna back in 2006 when he played as a journeyman with Cincy, Dallas, and Detroit.

For a QB playing on the same team, the last time was David Carr in Houston from 2004-06 (141 sacks).

So whether you’re looking at any 40-game span or the first three years of a player’s career, the 135 sacks taken by Fields were historic.

We haven’t seen this many sacks in almost 20 years, and haven’t seen this many to start a career in nearly 40 years.

And we know one thing about sacks: they are drive-killers.

Over the last five years across the entire NFL landscape when you remove drives with offensive penalties:

Drives with zero sacks: 27% TD rate, 41% score rate, 2.28 points/drive
Drives with 1+ sacks: 8% TD rate, 21% score rate, 0.97 points/drive

Drives with zero sacks are over three times more likely to score TDs, two times more likely to score points, and average 2.4 times more points than drives with at least one sack taken.

This difference is obviously game-changing.

We know the Bears' offensive line hasn’t been great, but the question for 2024 will be how much of that line wasn’t great because of Fields?

Because tracking data seems to believe Fields was responsible for a ton of the Bears' problems last year.

If you look at ESPN’s “win rate” metrics, which use player tracking data from Next Gen Stats to identify how often pass blockers can sustain their blocks for 2.5 seconds or longer and how often run blockers prevent defenders from impacting the running back within three yards of the line of scrimmage, the Bears offensive line recorded HIGH marks last year:

#5 in pass blocking and #2 in run blocking

Despite the Bears ranking dead last in pressure and sacks, they ranked #5 in pass block win rate.

When you take the metric’s 2.5-second cutoff and look only at Fields pass attempts thrown within 2.5 seconds, he doesn’t become Superman by any means.

In fact, he ranked #31 in EPA/att, #40 in success, and still was pressured on 28% of these dropbacks, which ranked #44 of 48 QBs.

Those numbers don’t jive with the tracking data at all, although the tracking data is on a per-player basis whereas it takes only one weak link along the line to flush Fields out of the pocket.

Regardless of how much stock you put into ESPN’s pass block win rate metric, there is a lot of reason to be optimistic with a different passer behind this offensive line.

And a lot of hope for 2024.

All we need to do is look at 2023 when Fields and the Bears weren’t shooting themselves in the foot. Because the Bears could have been so much more than they were in 2023 on offense had they just not killed themselves with mistakes.

Case in point: sacks and penalties.

The Bears allowed 50 sacks (#25) and an 8.9% sack rate (#26) last year. Both were slight improvements over 2022, but both remained among the worst in the NFL.

The Bears also had 54 offensive accepted penalties (#26) and ranked #32 in offensive penalty EPA (-12.8).

The offense wasn’t good enough to overcome these penalties.

Look at their offensive drive rates when they had to overcome a sack or penalty.

Drives with at least 1 sack but no penalties:

0.94 points/drive
6% TD rate
24% score rate
18% of drives reach the red zone

Drives with at least 1 penalty but no sacks:

1.82 points/drive
21% TD rate
32% score rate
18% of drives reach the red zone

The Bears were abysmal when sustaining sacks and/or penalties and certainly not good enough to overcome them.

However, on drives when they didn’t have a sack or a penalty:

2.44 points/drive (#11)
25% TD rate (#15)
49% score rate (#4)
33% of drives reach the red zone (#10)

The offense was extremely impacted by these mistakes, but on the clean drives they had, they produced respectable results.

The other positive for the prospect of the Bears line in 2024 protecting Williams is the fact that, while the Bears were the #9 healthiest team as a whole, that was not the case for the offensive line, which ranked #20th in health.

Their most frequent offensive line combination was on the field for just 22.4% of their offensive snaps, which ranked 25th in the league.

They had only one offensive lineman appear in all 17 games (rookie RT Darnell Wright) while starters LT Braxton Jones (six missed games), RG Nate Davis (six), LG Teven Jenkins (five), and LG Cody Whitehair (three) all missed three or more games.

The Bears added C Ryan Bates in free agency, but he has made only 19 starts over five NFL seasons and will be replacing Lucas Patrick.

If the line can stay healthier than last year’s unit, most of these players have experience together and can look to build on it in 2024.

If Williams gets the ball out faster and has enough protection, he should be able to get it into the hands of a few wide receivers who are a perfect complement to one another.

As our own Rich Hribar pointed out after the signing of Keenan Allen, it’s truly amazing how well he and D.J. Moore pair given where each of them wins.

First, where they’ll line up is a perfect compliment.

In 2023, Moore played 80.6% of his snaps out wide and 18.6% in the slot.

Allen played 58.2% of his snaps in the slot compared to 41.0% outside.

Perfect blend.

Second, Williams will always have a specialist at beating the coverage, regardless of what the defense chooses to deploy.

In 2023, Moore ranked #4 among all wide receivers in yards per route run against man coverage but ranked #34 vs. zone.

Allen was the inverse. He ranked #10 among receivers in yards per route run against zone coverage but ranked #30 vs. man.

Defense in man? Moore’s your man.

See zone at the line? Allen’s your guy.

And the team added Rome Odunze with the No. 9 overall selection.

Coupled with Cole Kmet at tight end, the Bears have a very balanced and talented receiving corps.

They even attempted to address their weakness at receiving back by signing D’Andre Swift in free agency.

That’s because this RB room was absolutely dreadful through the air last year:

#32 in EPA/target (-0.32)
#31 in success rate (30%)
#31 in YPA (4.4)
#31 in completion rate (70.8%)
#23 in YAC

But the team used them often. RBs saw 106 targets, 11th most in the NFL last year, and were targeted at the 10th highest rate on early downs.

Swift will need to be ready to step up and deliver better production than what the Bears RBs brought to the table last year.

It remains to be seen how OC Shane Waldron will perform as a play caller in Chicago.

At the Super Bowl, there was this hilarious interview with Jaxon Smith–Njigba, who was with Waldron in Seattle the entire 2023 season.

Reporter: “Bears fans are super interested about the offensive coordinator coming in, Shane Waldron. What can you tell about who they just hired to try to get this offense where it needs to go?”

JSN: <silence> “Ummmm. Ahhhhh… This is live?”

“Ahhhh, good luck to y’all. I mean, he’s… a….he’s a great person.”

Certainly not a ringing endorsement. But that said, Seattle’s offense ranks:

2023: #10 EPA/play, #4 early down success, #12 play action rate, #20 motion rate, #5 explosive play %
2022: #15 EPA/play, #11 early down success, #14 play action rate, #25 motion rate, #6 explosive play %
2021: #16 EPA/play, #13 early down success, #12 play action rate, #28 motion rate, #6 explosive play %

Each year the offense got a little bit better by these metrics.

They won’t use a lot of motion, but they’ll use above-average rates of play action. And they will definitely look to hunt explosives. These are things you can get behind.

For the 2024 offense, things can’t get much better than I expect them to be from a schedule perspective.

My forecast for the 2024 Bears offense is that they will face the #1 easiest schedule of defenses including the #1 easiest schedule of pass defenses.

Things will get a little harder on the ground, as I project them to face the #11 toughest schedule of run defenses, but all systems are set to go for Caleb Williams through the air.

In fact, it sets up perfectly because the only pass defenses that Williams will face which ranked above average last year will be the 49ers, Vikings, and Patriots, and all of those games come Week 10 and later, giving Williams plenty of time to get acclimated and Waldron time to make adjustments.

The schedule of opposing offenses won’t be easy, however, as I project the Bears defense will face the #8 toughest schedule of offenses including the #8 toughest schedule of pass offenses.

Lastly, one nitpick with the Bears' schedule is the way it lays out.

It’s not bad when you zoom out from a general rest perspective. They are +5 in net rest edge and top-10 in all my rest & prep metrics.

However, several things with this schedule could present challenges.

This one isn’t the worst, but hear me out.

The Bears play in Chicago and should lean into that cold, home-field advantage as much as possible and embrace it.

Their 2024 schedule is filled with 10 games vs. either dome teams or teams from California (SF) or Florida (JAX).

It would be great to play some of those dome and warm weather teams in the bitter Chicago cold. But of those 10 games, only one will be at home from Thanksgiving onward.

The other nine games?

Week 2 in Houston (dome team)
Week 3 in Indianapolis (dome team)
Week 3 vs. LA Rams (dome team)
Week 5 vs. Jacksonville (Florida team) in London
Week 9 in Arizona (dome team)
Week 12 vs. Minnesota (dome team)
Week 13 in Detroit (dome team)
Week 14 in San Francisco (California team)
Week 15 in Minnesota (dome team)

That’s nine games vs. teams where the Chicago winter could wreak havoc, but none of those games will be played in the Chicago winter.

These other schedule issues, however, could actually present more tangible rather than theoretical problems.

The Bears lose a home game to London (the game vs. Jacksonville).

The Bears also play four of their final six games on the road.

The Bears also play three straight road games late in the year (Weeks 13, 14, and 15).

The Bears also play a short-week road game (Thanksgiving in Detroit).

The Bears also play three games in 10 days late in the year (Week 15, 16, and 17).

So a short week road game kicking off three straight road games which concludes by kicking off three games in 10 days?

Absolutely brutal.

The Bears must prioritize stacking wins early in the season so they aren’t playing too many “must-win” games during this late stretch of the schedule.

Chicago Bears 2023 Passing Recap & 2024 Outlook

A make or break season for Justin Fields ended up breaking. He finished 29th among 32 qualified quarterbacks in completion rate, throwing for 2,562 yards, 16 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions across 13 games. With the No. 1 overall pick in hand, the Bears decided to ship Fields to the Steelers and reset. Caleb Williams was the quarterback of choice with the top pick, and he enters the league with high expectations. Williams was in the 97th percentile for college passing production, the 92nd percentile in yards per pass attempt, and the 96th percentile for touchdown to interception ratio among all quarterback prospects going back to 2000. Williams was able to create outside the pocket in college, averaging 9.4 yards per attempt and taking a sack on just 4.3% of those plays. Given the talent around him on this roster, the Bears will have a real chance to compete immediately if Williams hits the ground running.

Chicago Bears 2023 Receiving Recap & 2024 Outlook

Acquired in the trade that ultimately resulted in Caleb Williams joining the Bears, D.J. Moore had a great first season in Chicago. Moore was targeted on 28.5% of the Bears’ attempts, catching 96 passes for 1,364 yards and 8 touchdowns. He finished 15th among qualifying receivers in yards per route run and seventh in yards per target. Moore will have extra target competition this season with both Keenan Allen and No. 9 overall pick Rome Odunze joining over the offseason. Allen is an established target earner who has been targeted on 26.1% of his routes throughout his career. Odunze projects as the third option who should offer a good complement for the top two receivers. Cole Kmet is also still in the picture at tight end after setting career highs in both catches (73) and receiving yards (719) last season. With D’Andre Swift also a solid option in the passing game, this is as strong a pass catching corps as a rookie quarterback could hope for.

Chicago Bears 2023 Rushing Recap & 2024 Outlook

Bears running backs combined for 360 carries (16th) for 1,519 yards (14th), and 9 rushing touchdowns (11th) last season. Khalil Herbert and Roschon Johnson are back from that group, and the Bears added D’Andre Swift in free agency. Swift set career highs with 229 carries for 1,049 yards (4.6 YPC) and scored 6 total touchdowns for the Eagles last season. His receiving usage took a hit, but he averaged 7.7 yards per catch on nearly 4 catches per game over his three seasons with the Lions. While the Bears' offensive line is maligned because of how much pressure Justin Fields invited when he was quarterback, they finished second in ESPN’s run block win rate last season. There is a lot of talent in this rushing attack, and it would be a surprise if they cannot move the football on the ground this season.

Fantasy Football Impact for the 2024 Chicago Bears

The additions of Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze give Chicago the best receiving corps it has had in quite some time.

Both Allen and D.J. Moore were inside the top 10 in fantasy points per game last season.

Allen’s counting stats were inflated a bit by the number of routes he ran paired with the absence of Mike Williams, but he still produced when given target opportunities.

Moore is coming off his best season, posting career-highs with 96 receptions for 1,364 yards and 9 total touchdowns.

In addition to being a talented duo, Allen and Moore complement each other well.

In 2023, Moore played 80.6% of his snaps out wide and 18.6% in the slot. Allen played 58.2% of his snaps in the slot compared to 41.0% outside.

Moore has struggled versus zone coverage while Allen has thrived. Allen has struggled a bit more against man coverage at this stage of his career whereas Moore has smoked man coverage.

In 2023, Moore was fourth among all wide receivers in yards per route run against man coverage (3.88). In 2022, he was WR17 in that area (2.54).

Against zone coverage, however, Moore ranked 34th in 2023 (1.86) and 46th in 2022 (1.60).

Moore has yet to have a season in his career where he averaged more yards per route run against zone coverage than man coverage.

Allen is the inverse.

This past season, he was 10th among receivers in yards per route run against zone coverage (2.57) and 13th in that department in 2022 (2.23).

But against man coverage, Allen was 30th in 2023 (2.14) and 29th in 2022 (2.13).

Allen has not been inside the top 25 wideouts in yards per route run against man in any of the past five seasons.

This is a tremendous mesh, but for fantasy, there has to be some concern about targets, especially for a rookie (Odunze) joining these two established veterans as well as the oft forgotten Cole Kmet.

The Bears were 28th in the NFL in dropback rate last season (56.3%) but have made a transition by hiring Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator.

Waldron is the one branch from the Sean McVay tree that we have not seen deploy a high usage of 3WR sets, but his Seattle offenses were still far more aggressive than what Chicago has put on the field.

Over the past three years in Seattle, Waldron’s offenses were right in line with the game script. The Seahawks ended those seasons at 1%, 2%, and -1% compared to pass rate expectations.

The Bears over those seasons have been -4%, -13%, and -2% compared to pass rate expectations.

Chicago should throw more moving forward, but all three receivers carry some fantasy fragility in this loaded receiving corps.

Defensive Projections for the 2024 Chicago Bears

Chicago allowed 3.7 yards per running back rush (4th) and finished fifth in yards before contact allowed per RB run a season ago, but they ranked 21st in ESPN’s run stop win rate. Justin Jones, who played the most snaps along the defensive line last season, left in free agency. Andrew Billings is back after recording 10 run stuffs a season ago, but it was not his strongest year as a run defender. As it stands, Gervon Dexter would be tasked with filling the spot vacated by Jones, but the 2023 second-round pick struggled against the run as a rookie. He was better as a pass rusher, though, logging a 10.4% pressure rate and 2.5 sacks. 2023 third-round pick Zacch Pickens also struggled.

From Week 9 on, Montez Sweat’s first game with the team, the Bears were 24th in pressure rate and 24th in sacks. That is still not great, but it was an improvement. Sweat himself had 6 sacks in those games. DeMarcus Walker did not shine in his first season with the squad, recording 3.5 sacks and a 10.4% pressure rate. Dominique Robinson was not able to do any better on limited attempts. The Bears did bring in Jacob Martin, who has a solid pressure rate on very limited snaps over the last two years but has bounced around a few teams.

Linebacker is one of the stronger units on this defense. Even with Tremaine Edmunds missing two games a season ago, he and T.J. Edwards combined to play 1,916 snaps for Chicago. Edwards recorded a tackle on 20% of his run defense snaps and finished with 19 run stuffs on the season. That number was fifth among all linebackers. Edmunds was not quite at that level, but he still recorded a tackle on 16.4% of his run defense snaps and had better numbers than Edwards in coverage.

The Bears gave up 6.5 yards per attempt (9th) and finished fifth in EPA per dropback last season. They led the league with 16 interceptions. Coming off an outstanding season in which he finished first in PFF’s coverage grades among all cornerbacks, Jaylon Johnson earned a four-year, $76 million extension through the 2027 season. A second-round pick last season, Tyrique Stevenson held up his end of the bargain on the other side of the field, and Kyler Gordon took a step forward in his second season, providing solid play as the slot corner.

Long-time stalwart Eddie Jackson is gone, starting a new era for the safety position in Chicago. 2022 second-round pick Jaquan Brisker appears ready to take over as the leader of this group. He finished fourth among safeties in PFF’s run stop percentage metric and held up well enough in coverage. The other safety position has some questions, but the Bears brought in Kevin Byard as a possible solution. Byard has not played at an All-Pro level for a couple of seasons, but he was still solid for both the Titans and Eagles a season ago.

2024 Chicago Bears Personnel Rankings by Unit

The Bears will begin the Caleb Williams era in 2024, and the expectations from our panel ended up pretty high with Chicago’s overall ranking sitting just outside our top 10.

Despite the addition of Caleb Williams with the first-overall pick, the Bears actually dropped six spots in our quarterback rankings from a year ago. However, that’s more of an indication of how high the expectations were for Justin Fields in the preseason as opposed to his actual performance.

Where the Bears have made up the most ground this year is with their offensive weapons. Chicago added D’Andre Swift to their backfield after Swift rushed for a career-high 1,049 yards for the Eagles in 2023. Roschon Johnson and Khalil Herbert will also get touches after both topping 500 yards from scrimmage.

The biggest makeover in Chicago comes at wide receiver, where they added Keenan Allen and ninth-overall pick Rome Odunze to complement D.J. Moore. Fifth-year tight end Cole Kmet has started every game over the past three years and topped 500 yards in each campaign.

The only new addition to the Bears’ offensive line is center Coleman Shelton, who signed after spending the first five years of his career with the Rams. Shelton joins a unit that finished fifth and second in ESPN’s pass block and run block win rates, respectively.

The Bears made headlines trading for Montez Sweat at the deadline, and he ended up leading the team in sacks despite playing just nine games. The addition of Sweat and the emergence of T.J. Edwards, who topped 150 tackles in 2023 for the second straight season, pushed the Bears front seven up nine spots in our rankings from 30th to 21st.

Chicago’s biggest jump in our rankings comes in the secondary, where they moved 19 spots up from 23rd a year ago to fourth this season. Cornerbacks Tyrique Stevenson and Jaylon Johnson each had four interceptions and the Bears led the NFL in picks with 21. Chicago also added former All-Pro safety Kevin Byard in free agency.

Matt Eberflus enters his third year as the Bears head coach with a 10-24 record, winning seven of those games last year. The former Colts defensive coordinator moved up three spots in our rankings this season but still sits at 22.

Rookie Player Impact for the 2024 Chicago Bears

No team improved more than the Bears on Day 1 with the additions of Caleb Williams (first round) and Rome Odunze (first round). Williams is certainly not a finished product, but he was the obvious choice given his elite playmaking potential. He’s the closest thing we’ve seen to a prospect with Patrick Mahomes-like traits since the Chiefs selected him in 2017.

The fear regarding Williams’ ability to play on schedule is likely overblown. When throwing from the pocket with no pressure, Williams completed 78% of his attempts (ranked third in FBS) at 9.9 yards per attempt (ranked ninth). Much of the “hero ball” we saw from Williams was out of necessity due to the lack of talent around him.

Odunze may have been the third receiver off the board but would have been the first in most draft classes. He’s known for his ability to produce down the field, but his production after the catch is underrated and worth highlighting. Based on route-adjusted data, Odunze gained 18% more yards after the catch than expected over the last two seasons on the most common NFL routes (screen, slant, curl, dig, drag, flat, out).

Kiran Amegadjie (third round) is a developmental prospect who has the length to play tackle but also the power to play on the interior. With just three years of experience against FCS competition, he’s probably not ready to see the field. Larry Borom and Teven Jenkins are in the final year of their rookie contracts, so Amegadjie’s development likely plays a significant role in the future of those linemen in Chicago.

Special teams selections before the final rounds are unnecessary risks, so it’s impossible to praise the selection of Tory Taylor (fourth round). Given the volume of his workload at Iowa, he might be the first punter in college football history to get enough recognition to be considered overrated. When punting from inside his own 40-yard line, Taylor flipped the field and pinned opponents inside their 20-yard line 19.6% of the time.

Austin Booker (fifth round) looks like a potential steal as he was expected to be in consideration to come off the board on Day 2. Although Booker’s production was inconsistent, he elevated his performance against top competition. In three games against teams ranked in the top 50 of pressure rate allowed, Booker generated a strong 19% pressure rate. Booker is just 21, so the inconsistent play is less of a red flag. It’s certainly reasonable to focus on the flashes to top-tier production given where Chicago landed him in the draft.

Although a five-man draft class typically doesn’t shape a roster in any meaningful way, the additions of Williams and Odunze alone could make this a franchise-altering draft for Chicago. You can nitpick the other selections (especially Taylor), but none of that matters if Williams lives up to his potential.

Penalty Analysis for the 2024 Chicago Bears

The Good

The defense ranked 24th in surrendering automatic first downs. They were able to accomplish this while being one of the more physical defensive units in the NFL
The special teams unit ranked 31st in penalties per game

The Bad

The offense was responsible for 56% of the team's overall penalties. That's acceptable for a competent offense. For an offensively challenged unit, it's too high
The offense was tied with the Patriots in generating the fewest automatic first downs via penalties
The offense was the primary culprit for an above-average 41% of overall team penalties being committed pre-snap. They were a top-10 penalized unit in this category
The Bears were the only offense to not benefit from a roughing the passer penalty in 2023
The offense generated the fewest pre-snap penalties on opposing defenses in 2023. That is a result of very little pre-snap motion and a vanilla offensive scheme

From a penalty perspective, the offense will be a big improver in several key categories detailed above.

The front office in Chicago has constructed a playoff-caliber roster, and that has brought with it sky-high expectations.

Expect an increase in offensive holding penalties with Caleb Williams at quarterback. Chicago’s numbers in this category will mirror what has transpired in Kansas City since the arrival of Patrick Mahomes.

That's the cost of doing business when your quarterback can extend plays, putting additional pressure on his offensive line. The payback though can far outweigh the cost if you have “the guy.”

Now it's a matter of your confidence level in head coach Matt Eberflus and a rookie quarterback to navigate Chicago on the road ahead.

While there is skepticism around Eberflus’ ability to be a head coach, he deserves credit for having the defense playing well. However, there is tangible pressure on him to have this team winning early and often in 2024.

If the Bears were a stock, you'd be buying them at an awfully high price prior to the season. New pieces have to align immediately for this team to take advantage of their favorable early-season schedule.

If that occurs, this Bears team will be right in the mix late into the season, and the payoff could be a playoff berth in Williams’ rookie season.

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