Bear Digest

Bears Mid-Term Report Card: A Tale of Unmet Expectations

Analysis: The NFL reaches its midpoint this week and the Bears have failed to live up to the preseason hype in the season's first half but doing it going forward will be much tougher.

Gene Chamberlain

Caleb Williams is flushed out of the pocket and looks for a target against the Cardinals in Sunday's Bears loss.
Caleb Williams is flushed out of the pocket and looks for a target against the Cardinals in Sunday's Bears loss. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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What a difference a period of eight days made in the outlook on this Bears season.

They cruised through the win over Jacksonville and the afterglow lasted through the bye week.

Then came the last play of the Washington Commanders game, the reaction, injuries and then a complete physical beating at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals and the sky is falling at 4-4.

"I just know that's where we are," coach Matt Eberflus said. "That's where we are and that's where it is. That's what we have to work from. That's the reality of the situation that we're in.

"We're a growing team. We're an improving team. We haven't improved the last couple weeks in terms of the win loss column. We have to continue to find answers and continue to improve to where we are in the season. We're 4-4, we're halfway through and we got to do a good job of finding answers coming into the Patriots week."

Eberflus can look at it this way but it's not as simple as this.

His view discounts expectation.

The players say expectation doesn't matter to them, that it's from the outside. Expectation definitely was higher than 4-4 at the midpoint.


The perceived weaker schedule and an anticipated ability to win at least one or two road games makes for the disappointment.

It's not too late for the Bears to alter their course and much of it will depend on Caleb Williams playing better than in the last two games.

However, several key injuries make this more difficult. The most difficult schedule facing any team over the second half of the schedule adds to an even lower chance the Bears become serious contenders for a playoff spot.

Here are the grades for the first half of the season with nine weeks of the NFL's 18-week schedule now complete.

Running Game: C

The Bears have dropped from second in the league in rushing to 23rd. Anyone could see this coming and it only partially occurred because of

Justin Fields' rushing yardage being shipped to Pittsburgh. The effect of Fields in the running game helped to make the run blocking and the running backs better. Defenses had to worry about too much in the running game to stop everything. A decline was natural. But to drop from second to 23rd, and 26th in yards per attempt is too steep of a decline to pin it all on losing Fields.

The run blocking has been inconsistent. D'Andre Swift started slowly but has come on strong over the last five games with 505 total yards. Roschon Johnson also had a slow start after getting over an injury.

It is the running game on offense where the Bears need to step up the most so they can operate the play-action passing game and give defenses something to worry about so they are not able to tee off on Williams.

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Passing Game: D+

The tendency is to look at the last two games when Williams struggled but for four straight games he was pulling down a 106 passer rating and no one could be disappointed with that efficiency. The problem is Williams' strong games came against weaker defenses and looming is a second half with six divisional games and also one with San Francisco. The lack of a target for Cole Kmet in the last two games is more Williams' fault for not getting through his progression to his tight end. Williams' deep passing has been terrible and it's largely due to not being comfortable in the pocket and using bad footwork.

The Bears brought in a new QB, added Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen and they sit 29th in passing, four spots worse than they they finished in 2023 with Fields at quarterback and Darnell Mooney and Equanimeous St. Brown at receiver instead of Allen and Odunze.

One positive for Williams is how he has maintained a low interception percentage. It's at 1.9% with five picks, and this is often a problem for rookies.

The pass blocking hasn't been effective. They're on pace to get Williams sacked more than 60 times, but unlike when Fields was QB, not much of that can be blamed on Williams. He's taking 2.91 seconds to get rid of the ball according to NextGen Stats, and that's better than Sam Darnold, Lamar Jackson, Brock Purdy, C.J. Stroud, Jalen Hurts and Bo Nix.

Run Defense: C-

They've declined almost as much here as they have in the running game. The NFL rushing defense leaders last year, they're 20th now largely because of the last game when they struggled against Arizona.

Losing free agent Justin Jones apparently took a bigger toll than was expected as he had 22 tackles for loss total the previous two seasons and no one is making that kind of impact.

Gervon Dexter has been a strong interior pass rusher but his run defense needs to improve and Andrew Billings has been more effective as a pass rusher this year than as a run stopper. Last year he was the main force in their run defense.

Their tackling at linebacker hasn't been as solid, and it hasn't helped playing without Jaquan Brisker as he frequently came up in run support. The same is true with Kyler Gordon, who has been out two games.

Pass Defense: B+

Even with two starters out for a good chunk of the first half, the Bears have performed to expectations or better at stopping the pass. Their interceptions total has dropped off to five for the season and has been on hold the last two games, and since the injuries to Brisker and Gordon. They're also ranked eighth in preventing third-down conversions (33.02%).

Still, they're top three in passer rating against and red zone defense. They've stayed in the top 10 or near it in sacks even with Montez Sweat's sack total down due to injury and the double-teaming he's facing more often. Players like Billings, DeMarcus Walker, Dexter and Darrell Taylor have contributed in the rush-and-cover approach.

This would be an A grade if not for one pass, and everyone knows what that one was.

Special Teams: B-

A punt coverage group allowing 11.5 yards per return and kick coverage giving up 29.3 yards have been their major issues. The actual kicking of the football has been no problem. Tory Taylor has been worth more than the fourth-round pick Ryan Poles used on him as he's not only good at getting it inside the 20, but also inside the 10. Cairo Santos has missed two kicks, one caused by a high snap.

They can't claim to be the best special teams units in the league until they start to cover punts and kicks better but a solid performance nonetheless.

Coaching: D

Shane Waldron's goal line play call for Doug Kramer to carry and to pitch out on fourth-and-goal against the Colts rank among the worst calls made in short yardage in Bears history.

Matt Eberflus' tactical problems included the plays leading up to the Hail Mary pass and the blitz call just before halftime against the Cardinals when it wasn't necessary because it wasn't the end of the game. Why blitz when they won't be able to stop the clock to set up for a field goal?

The penalty situation with Tyrique Stevenson and his penalty, all added up to a chaotic first half of the season.

Personnel: C

Ryan Poles valued his draft picks next year too much to trade away for pass rush or offensive line help at the trade deadline Tuesday and it's difficult to question his logic. It's up to Eberflus to win with this group and if he doesn't do better then he might not even be the head coach next year. So why waste draft picks now?

Poles had to swallow a bitter pill and did when they waived Velus Jones Jr., his third-round pick in 2022.

Poles deserves credit for bringing in enough offensive line depth to get them through yet another series of injuries to blockers, even if the starters haven't been as consistent as they need to be.

The contract Poles signed DJ Moore to hasn't paid off yet as they've struggled too much to get him the ball a sufficient number of times, but they know what he's capable of doing.

Poles has a few other issues to address in terms of signings, including Teven Jenkins, but the real problems facing the team have nothing to do with personnel at this point. Rather, they just need to play, they need reps on offense to get the running game and passing attack going.

Overall: C

A 4-4 record is disappointing but it could be worse, and has been since Eberflus has been coach. A .500 mark is the best the Bears have been under Eberflus at this point since he's been coach but it's likely they'll need to continue making progress if they expect to keep the regime together in the future..

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.