press sets up the Bears game

First look: Rams look to bounce back in Week 7 vs. Bears

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) October 21, 2020

Are The Chicago Bears Good Or Just Lucky?

* https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-the-chicago-bears-good-or-just-lucky/

With one NFL Sunday left in the month of October, the Chicago Bears hold sole possession of first place in the NFC North. They’re 5-1 after six games, and FiveThirtyEight’s Elo-based projections give them an 85 percent chance of making the playoffs. Even if they played .500 football the rest of the way, they would still finish 10-6.

So why are some observers labeling their success as “fraudulent”?

The easy answer is they haven’t faced many good teams — and they haven’t won by very much. Their five conquests to date (the Detroit Lions, New York Giants, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers) have a combined win percentage of .379. Given that the Bears have only outscored their opponents by a total of 128-116, predictive metrics like the Simple Ranking System don’t love them.1 With a weak slate like that, it’s no surprise that opponent-adjusted stats like Football Outsiders’ Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) aren’t impressed by their performances so far, either.2

But winning five of six NFL games is never a complete accident, and there are plenty of concrete football arguments for the Bears being what the scoreboard says they are. They rank seventh in both scoring and yardage defense, thanks to a secondary that’s allowed the lowest completion rate of any team in the NFL. All-Pro edge rusher Khalil Mack has 4.5 sacks as part of a unit that’s tied for 10th-most sacks in the league despite blitzing less often than all but five other teams. They’re an especially good situational defense, allowing the second-lowest third-down conversion rate and lowest red-zone touchdown rate in the league.

These numbers don’t stack up to those of hallowed Bears defenses like the 2006 and 1985 units. But it’s reasonable to believe the 2020 edition will still be tough to score against for the rest of the regular season — and, likely, the playoffs.

The obvious problem is on the other side of the ball, where a quarterback combination of Nick Foles and Mitchell Trubisky has made for one of the league’s most anemic passing attacks. The Bears rank 26th in team completion rate and passer rating, and they sit in 30th in both yards per attempt and yards per completion. As good as their situational defense has been, their situational offense has been nearly that bad: They rank 27th in third-down conversion rate and 26th in red-zone touchdown rate. The passing attack has generated just 17.5 expected points, seventh-worst in the league.

The Great NFL Passing Boom of the 2010s primed football-watching minds to correlate passing success with team success — and if there was an opportunity for defenses to cycle back to ascendance, the rise of do-everything quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Russell Wilson 2.0 seems to have squashed it.

If the NFL is still a pass-first league, just how badly can Chicago’s quarterbacks perform without killing the team’s postseason hopes? Let’s compare what the Bears have gotten from Foles and Trubisky so far with where the bar seems to be.

There have been 60 playoff teams over the past five full NFL seasons, and most of them have been very effective through the air. Last year, eight of the NFL’s top 10 passing offenses3 made the playoffs.

Here’s where the 2020 Bears stack up against the best, worst and average passing attacks — by adjusted net yards per attempt — from the past five playoff fields:
Chicago’s passing looks like the worst playoff teams

Passing stats for the top five and bottom five 2015-19 playoff teams by adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/Att), plus the 2020 Chicago Bears
Team Year Comp% TD% Int% Yds/Att ANY/Att
Bears 2020* 61.3% 5.0% 2.9% 6.0 5.1

Top 5 teams Year Comp% TD% Int% Yds/Att ANY/Att
Falcons 2016 69.6% 7.1% 1.3% 9.2 9.0
Chiefs 2018 66.0 8.6 2.1 8.8 8.9
Patriots 2016 66.9 5.8 0.4 8.1 8.5
Chiefs 2019 65.6 5.2 0.9 8.1 8.1
Saints 2018 73.4 6.4 1.3 8.0 8.1

Bottom 5 teams Year Comp% TD% Int% Yds/Att ANY/Att
Panthers 2017 58.5% 4.4% 3.2% 6.6 5.2
Bills 2017 60.7 3.4 2.1 6.5 5.2
Broncos 2015 60.7 3.1 3.8 7.0 5.1
Titans 2017 61.7 2.8 3.4 6.8 5.1
Texans 2016 59.5 2.6 2.7 5.9 4.5
Years Comp% TD% Int% Yds/Att ANY/Att
Average 2015-19 65.1% 5.2% 1.9% 7.6 6.9

*2020 stats through games of Oct. 18.

Adjusted net yards per attempt is calculated as (pass yards + 20*(pass TD) – 45*(interceptions thrown) – sack yards)/(passing attempts + sacks). Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com

The Bears are definitely getting more from their passing attack than the worst-throwing recent playoff team, the 2016 Houston Texans. But “more” than Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage were able to contribute to a team that barely won the dire 2016 AFC South is not much.

In fact, if you drop the Bears’ current passing rate stats in with that field of 60, they would rank near the bottom in almost all of them: completion rate (49th), touchdown rate (34th), interception rate (56th), yards per attempt (60th), passer rating (55th) and adjusted net yards per attempt (58th).

But unlike the 2016 Texans, the Bears don’t have a productive tailback, let alone two. Lamar Miller and Alfred Blue gained 1,493 yards for those Texans at a 4.06 per-carry rate, leading that season’s eighth-most-prolific rushing attack. With 2020 Bears starter Tarik Cohen already out for the season, second-year back David Montgomery has managed just 305 yards over six games, averaging 3.7 yards a pop. The team’s No. 2 active rusher? Wideout Cordarrelle Patterson, with just 70 yards.

To stay competitive for the rest of the season — let alone make noise in the playoffs — the Bears will likely have to get better at one of these phases of the game. But if Foles can’t get closer to his top form, Montgomery can’t run more effectively, and the defense can’t find an even higher gear, there’s still one element driving the Bears’ success: fumble luck.

On defense, the Bears have forced four fumbles and recovered three, while on offense, they’ve recovered all six of their own fumbles. All in all, they’ve picked up 81.8 percent of the balls that have hit the ground in their games so far, the highest rate in the NFL. For comparison, the highest recorded full-season recovery rate since 2003 was the 69.8 percent put up by the 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But whether the Bears have been lucky, good or both, it doesn’t change what’s happened. They’re still 5-1, with remaining games against the 1-5 Texans, 2-3 Detroit Lions and 1-5 Jacksonville Jaguars — and two games against the 1-5 Vikings. Even if their fumble luck regresses a little, and even if they don’t play significantly better, the Bears’ hot start has given them a nearly 50-50 chance to win the division and a 17 percent shot at a first-round bye.

Bears fans probably like those odds, even if the numbers lead everyone else to call them frauds.

Rams out to prove Week 6 clunker was a fluke versus Bears

Lindsey Thiry

https://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/42155/rams-out-to-prove-week-6-was-a-fluke-versus-bears

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Missed tackles. Dropped passes. False starts. Errant kicks.

The Los Angeles Rams’ second loss of the season, a 24-16 clunker against the San Francisco 49ers, featured every miscue.

“We had a lot of uncharacteristic things, we had a lot of our players that we count on not come through in some situations that they typically do,” Rams coach Sean McVay said, while also shouldering some of the blame. “It’s a great learning opportunity for us.”

The Rams are 4-2 overall and 0-1 in the NFC West, far from any need to panic, but they must quickly fix issues that plagued them against their division rival before they take on the Chicago Bears (5-1) at SoFi Stadium on Monday Night Football.

The offense, which entered Week 6 averaging 27.2 points per game, must return to establishing its dominance on the ground behind a trio of healthy running backs, Darrell Henderson, Cam Akers and Malcolm Brown, while quarterback Jared Goff and wide receiver Cooper Kupp must renew their connection through the air.

“It was just some uncharacteristic stuff for me,” said Goff, who passed for a season-low 198 yards and had a pass intercepted in the end zone against the 49ers. “Missing guys open there early. It’s something that I’ve never done in my life and don’t expect to ever repeat.”

However, even when on target, Goff’s receivers performed few favors. Kupp, who has caught 31 passes for 374 yards and two touchdowns, found himself turned around on a throw over the middle, then later dropped a pass in the end zone.

Even veteran Andrew Whitworth stumbled into multiple mistakes, as the sturdy left tackle twice was penalized for false starts.

“It’s one of those things that you’ve had a couple games where your execution is not as good as it should be,” said Whitworth, also referring to a Week 3 loss to the Buffalo Bills. “Just all the little details, and for some reason sometimes, you’re just off.”

The defense, which has been sporadically struck by tackling issues this season, must solve the problem for good while finding a way to pressure Bears quarterback Nick Foles after they were unable to disrupt 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

“We got punched in the mouth this past week,” said linebacker Micah Kiser, who fell victim to brutal stiff arm from 49ers running back Raheem Mostert. “We’re just ready to get that taste out of our mouth and get back to work. That’s all you can really do.”

Cooper Kupp and the Rams were off in San Francisco and couldn’t quite catch up to the 49ers, a scenario they can ill-afford to repeat against the Bears. Tony Avelar/AP
Defensive tackle Aaron Donald leads the NFL with 7.5 sacks, but did not take down Garoppolo, as the 49ers spread the ball quickly to the perimeter.

“We just wasn’t playing our ball,” Donald said. “We just didn’t play good as a team.”

Donald has not gone back-to-back weeks without a sack since Weeks 4 and 5 in 2019, and could be extra motivated to take down Foles, who he has yet to sack in his career.

And finally, there’s special teams, where rookie kicker Samuel Sloman connected on a season-long 42-yard field goal Sunday but otherwise continued to struggle connecting on extra points (15-of-18) and executing strategically placed kickoffs.

On Tuesday, a day after McVay expressed frustration with Sloman’s development saying, “He’s got to improve,” the Rams signed veteran kicker Kai Forbath from the Bears’ practice squad.

Forbath last kicked in an NFL game last season, when he appeared in the final three games with the Dallas Cowboys and converted 10 of 10 field goal attempts, including a 50-yarder.

Despite the underwhelming performance that plagued every phase last Sunday, McVay is continuing to express optimism about the Rams’ capabilities moving forward.

“The thing that I do genuinely believe is when you look at, ‘Okay, where did we fall short, are these things we’re capable of doing or are we just physically outmatched?'” McVay asked, rhetorically. “No, we’re capable of executing and playing better football, being a cleaner operation.”

Rams' 4 biggest causes for concern vs. Bears in Week 7 https://t.co/IXOkAgb512

— Rams Wire (@TheRamsWire) October 24, 2020

ALBERT BREER from https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/10/21/nfl-mailbag-cowboys-mike-mccarthy-jets-trevor-lawrence

I love the Bears’ defense, and their ability to pull out wins in tight spots. They may have the NFL’s most physically imposing front, anchored by Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn and Akiem Hicks, Roquan Smith’s starting to live up to his enormous potential and a secondary led by Eddie Jackson and Kyle Fuller has gotten a nice boost from rookie Jaylon Johnson.

They may not be quite what the 2018 defense was, but I think they’re close.

Which brings us to the offense. The line is an issue. Running back depth is paper thin. And Nick Foles has been fine, but he’s not the sort of quarterback who’s going to cover up all the issues the team has. Now, could they get better? Sure. Rookies Cole Kmet (who I think is a real one) and Darnell Mooney should continue to ascend, and that’ll help. GM Ryan Pace could add a piece on the line before the deadline. It’s realistic to expect improvement.

To me, how much improvement they see on the offensive side—and maybe I’m Captain Obvious on this—determines how far they will go, and could be the difference between being a fringe playoff team, and one to be taken seriously in January. Stay tuned.