Bear Digest

Bears and Caleb Williams Earn Little Respect in First On SI Poll

The first On SI power rankings are in and the Bears' offensive performance appears to be what has attracted the most attention, even over their outstanding defense.

Gene Chamberlain

D'Andre Swift is dragged down as he tries to cut outside during Sunday's Bears loss. The running game has been a Bears problem almost as much as the pass blocking.
D'Andre Swift is dragged down as he tries to cut outside during Sunday's Bears loss. The running game has been a Bears problem almost as much as the pass blocking. / Thomas Shea-Imagn Images
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On SI has begun polling all of its website publishers for a complete NFL ranking and the Bears come across here just about the way they did in most power rankings.

In other words, they're not really close to being a playoff team at this point.

The first ranking has them at 22nd overall based on the vote of all sites.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge ahead for the Bears is that all three of the other NFC North teams are rated 13th or better and the Bears won't even face any of them until the second half of the season. So they need to make up ground now while Caleb Williams is still in the process of trying to figure it all out.

The Packers are ranked 13th, mainly because they lack Jordan Love at the moment.
The Vikings are rated 11th, with Sam Darnold's career taking a route like he's the 2024 version of Geno Smith.

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And the Lions remain sixth despite losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 2.
On an overall scale, the Chiefs, Bills and 49ers are no strangers to playoff discussion and are rated at the top of SI's poll.

The Bears will need better running, pass blocking and accuracy from Caleb Williams to ascend. They may even need Keenan Allen healthy, as well.

Obviously they won't need better play from their defense. That's really not possible unless they make even more takeaways. They have allowed three points in the second half of games this year.

All this and they haven't even had a sack yet from Montez Sweat.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain

GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.