Bear Digest

Roster Rankings Reveal Why Bears Need to Compete for Playoff Spot

Analysis: Roster rankings from several websites say the Bears have a real opportunity to be in the running for a playoff berth even with a rookie quarterback.

Gene Chamberlain

Cole Kmet scores a touchdown against Washington as the Bears break out to a big lead. They face the Commanders again this year.
Cole Kmet scores a touchdown against Washington as the Bears break out to a big lead. They face the Commanders again this year. / Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
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It's easy to get carried away with individual player rankings.

After all, when you compare a player against the whole of the league, who is to say a player ranks 89th in the league or 37th or 232nd?

The great sea of numbers swallows up anyone not named Mahomes.

On the other hand, rating full teams against the rest of the league seems less of an inexact science. 

It's a group of 53 against the other 31 groups of 53. It's much easier to be exact with smaller numbers.

The Bears' roster ranks 17th against the league according to ESPN and 20th according to Pro Football Focus.

That's fine. It's worth little now anyway.

What were the Houston Texans before they started last season? PFF did a late ranking on the eve of the regular season in 2023 and ESPN had done one earlier. The Texans ranked 29th in both.

Surprise!

The 33rd Team came out with its bottom 10 rosters in the league this week, just as ESPN and PFF had done their rankings.

The Patriots have the worst roster, the Cardinals the fourth-worst, the Panthers fifth, Commanders sixth and the Titans seventh.

The significance here, of course, is all five of those teams rated in T3T's worst 10 are on the Bears' schedule. They start with the Titans.

If you're playing a team here or there from the bottom of the league, that's one thing. As Houston showed last year, the rankings can get a team or two wrong.T

The Bears are playing half their schedule against teams not from the middle of these roster rankings but from the bottom and very near it.

All five of those teams plus some more the Bears face are identified by PFF as bottom third of the league. ESPN does the same.

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In fact, ESPN has the Bears playing nine games against teams ranked with worse rosters than they have.

Before schedule dates even came out, the Bears were said to have the third-easiest set of opponents based on last year's winning percentages. Since the schedules have come out and teams went through free agency, the draft and offseason work, it looks no tougher and even easier.

In a five-game stretch starting Oct. 6, the Bears play the Panthers (30th PFF, 29th ESPN, 28th 33rd Team), Commanders (27th PFF, 30th ESPN, 27th 33rd Team), Cardinals (28th PFF, 28th ESPN, 29th 33rd Team) and Patriots (29th PFF, 27th ESPN, last 33rd team). The hard game in the group of five is in London against Jacksonville.

They even have a bye after the London game to rest up before resuming the steady diet of cupcakes.

So which is tougher, the bye or some of those games?

If the Bears can't emerge from their first nine games at least 6-3 or better before starting their NFC North games Nov. 17 with Green Bay, they're going to need an awful lot of late-season development to make a run at a playoff spot. Even with Caleb Williams trying to figure out the league, they should be able to handle that type of slate.

While the chances would appear strong for at least a playoff run, it should only add to the pressure building on their coaching staff to produce wins in a year widely predicted as crucial for coach Matt Eberflus if he hopes to get another contract.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.