Bear Digest

This Week in the NFC North: Week Ones Can Be Deceptive

Analysis: The Bears drop a spot in the NFC North publisher rankings OnSI, even after winning, but it's quite often the case where people get deceived by Week 1 results.

Gene Chamberlain

Linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel celebrates an interception with teammates to lock up a Vikings road win over the Giants.
Linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel celebrates an interception with teammates to lock up a Vikings road win over the Giants. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
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One of the great certainties of Week 2 in the NFL is how people overreact to Week 1 in the NFL.

Teams that look spectacular in Week 1 often can look exactly the opposite in Week 2.

Lovie Smith used to like to say Week 2 is when you see a team's biggest jump. It's a silly notion because if that happens, how can anyone be better. Everyone gets better in Week 2.

What is more accurate is often how those who performed poorly in Week 1 can correct their issues while the teams with less impressive wins can look worse or even good teams can be a bit too confident in themselves after initial success.

Take the weekly poll of NFC North publishers.

The overreaction is to the Vikings' win over the Giants. The Giants might be the worst team in the NFL.

The Vikings are a very well coached team with obvious flaws and they beat a stumbling bunch of goofs who got rid of their main weapon in the offseason and let a division rival get him.

There is no reason to think Sam Darnold has hit a career epiphany of some sort until he is doing this against a good team, but even then the Vikings' holes on the offensive line and in a defense that has to rely on gambling too much can be their undoing.

The preseason expectations can't be discarded so quickly and yet they were. The Week 2 On SI NFC North ratings suddenly have the Bears in last after winning and the Packers dropping to third, based entirely upon losing QB Jordan Love due to injury.

The smart money says the Bears offense will get better, their defense already was better and proved it last year, even though many analysts wanted to be deniers.

They looked like it again in the second half Sunday after they got their bearings.

Likewise, Green Bay has too much talent to drop suddenly because of the QB being lost. There should be no surprise when Matt LaFleur is able to coax enough out of Malik Willis and the running game, the short passing game and the defense to win games and tread water until Love returns.

Here are the NFC North ratings for Week 2, but in the view of Chicago Bears On SI they are drastically and incorrectly altered by the voting from outside of Chicago.

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NFC North Rankings

1. Lions, 2. Vikings, 3. Packers, 4. Bears

By vote of 4 NFC North On SI publishers

This Week in the NFC North

Minnesota Vikings (1-0)

Joe Nelson, Minnesota Vikings On SI

This Week: Vikings vs. 49ers (Home, noon Sunday)

Key Lessons Learned from Week 1: Minnesota's offensive line is three parts good-to-great and two parts meh-to-awful. The good-to-greats include tackles Christian Darrisaw and Brian O'Neill and left guard Blake Brandel. Darrisaw and O'Neill made non-factors out of New York edge rushers Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeaux while Brandel was the second-highest graded guard in the NFL in Week 1 (per PFF). Earning the "meh" designation is center Garrett Bradbury and the "bad" tag goes to right guard Ed Ingram. Both were bullied by Dexter Lawrence and we're at the point in their respective careers that expectations shouldn't be very high going forward.

Biggest improvement needed in Week 2: If Ingram isn't better against Javon Hargave and the interior D-line of the 49ers, Sam Darnold could again find himself trying to slide away from big-time pressure up the middle. Perhaps the more important improvement, however, will be the rise of a No. 2 receiver if Jordan Addison (ankle) isn't able to play. Justin Jefferson will get all of the attention, giving Jalen Nailor, Brandon Powell and Trent Sherfield Sr. an opportunity to prove Vikings brass right that they made the correct decision not signing a free agent receiver during training camp.

Detroit Lions (1-0)

John Maakaron, Detroit Lions On SI

This Week: Lions vs. Buccaneers (Home, noon Sunday)

Key Lessons Learned from Week 1: The 2024 Lions can win ugly. After enduring a second-half lull that saw the Rams score 17 unanswered, the Lions mounted a late game-tying drive then left no doubt with their physicality on a game-winning drive featuring seven run plays. Despite not being able to get All-Pro Amon-Ra St. Brown involved for much of the day, the passing attack was able to survive thanks to Jameson Williams’ breakout performance. Meanwhile, the defense got key stops and showed it can get after opposing quarterbacks. Though the overall effort was sloppy at points, it was impressive to see the Lions find the resolve to win as they have so many times under Dan Campbell.

Biggest Improvement Needed in Week 2: The Lions were able to run the ball with success for most of the evening, but the passing game left more to be desired. Without St. Brown making a significant impact, the Lions relied on Williams for the bulk of their production. Moving forward, the Lions will have to continue finding ways to get St. Brown involved in the offense.

Green Bay Packers (0-1)

Bill Huber, Green Bay Packers On SI

This Week: Packers vs. Colts (Home, noon Sunday

Key Lessons Learned from Week 1: Good things happen when the ball is in Jayden Reed’s hands. The whole “No. 1 receiver” story line this offseason was so stupid. Reed is a stud. If not for a 12-man penalty, Reed would have hade more than 200 total yards and three touchdowns. Meanwhile, Green Bay’s safeties are infinitely improved with Xavier McKinney and Javon Bullard, both of whom had strong debuts.

Biggest Improvement Needed in Week 2: Especially without Jordan Love, the run game needs to be better. By the numbers, it was fabulous against Philadelphia with 21 carries for 163 yards. However, runs of 33 yards (for a touchdown) by Reed and 33 and 22 yards by Josh Jacobs skewed the numbers. Jacobs had six carries for 4 yards in the first half before finishing with 16 carries for 84 yards. He averaged 5.3 yards per carry. If he can consistently get 5 yards rather than 0, 0, 1, 22, the offense will be fine.

Chicago Bears (1-0)

Gene Chamberlain, Chicago Bears On SI

This Week: Bears vs. Texans (At Houston, 7:20 p.m. Sunday)

Key Lessons Learned from Week 1: Caleb Williams is a rookie quarterback and as such will go through struggles. He also isn't in college any more, where each of his attempts to move out of the pocket used to mean something good, because defenders are bigger and faster now. Also, the Bears actually may have an answer at defensive end as an extra pass rusher in Darrell Taylor (2 sacks, 8 tackles, forced fumble).

Biggest Improvement Needed in Week 2: Williams needs to find more receivers when they're going to be open, not when they actually are open. The offensive line must avoid total breakdowns blocking the run and pass both, but offensive coordinator Shane Waldron can't ignore the running game like last week, with 14 carries by backs, and can't ignore tight end Cole Kmet, who had only 27 play reps.

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.