NFC North 2025 Season Forecast: Chicago Bears

Now that all NFL teams have completed the preseason and made the cutdown to their 53-man rosters, including all the teams in the NFC North, it’s time for my annual forecast of how the Minnesota Vikings’ NFC North opponents will fare this season. It’s been an eventful offseason for the NFC North teams this year and judging by the odds, the NFC North looks to be the most competitive and best division in the league, top to bottom.

Having said that, it’s doubtful there will be three 11+ win teams in the division this season. The entire division faces a much tougher schedule than last season facing the AFC South and an injury-riddled NFC West. This season the NFC North faces the NFC East and AFC North. The AFC North is significantly better than the AFC South last season, and the NFC East is likely to be better than the NFC West was last season, given the injuries the 49ers had, and the Rams had against several NFC North opponents last year. The tougher non-division schedule is likely to bring down the win totals for NFC North teams this season.

That said, let’s take a look in more detail about what’s changed this season among the Vikings’ division rivals and how they may fare in the season ahead. I did a piece at the end of June sizing up the NFC North, detailing some of the issues and changes this offseason- some of which are outdated based on subsequent events- but I’ll start this series with the Chicago Bears and their current situation and prospects.

Chicago Bears

The Bears have once again gone through a coaching regime change this offseason, replacing head coach and coordinators while opting to keep (and extend) general manager Ryan Poles. It seemed premature for the Bears to give Poles a contract extension through the 2029 season with two-years left on his existing contract, given that the team has gone 15-36 since he was named general manager in 2022, but the Bears apparently wanted to align Poles contract with that of new head coach Ben Johnson, who was the top head coach candidate this offseason after enjoying a few years of success as offensive coordinator with the Lions.

Coaching Changes

Beyond hiring Ben Johnson as head coach, the Bears also signed former Saints head coach Dennis Allen to be defensive coordinator, and Declan Doyle to be offensive coordinator. Ben Johnson will be the offensive play caller. Johnson is expected to continue the offensive he was successful with in Detroit, while Dennis Allen is expected to run a more aggressive, blitzing defense with more man coverage than his predessor, Matt Eberflus who was both head coach and de facto defensive coordinator last season for the Bears.

The main task for head coach Ben Johnson will be to develop quarterback Caleb Williams, the #1 overall pick in last year’s draft who struggled in his rookie season. Johnson is in the process of adapting Williams to play within the structure of his offense, rather than the other way around. Williams’ super-power in college was his ability out of structure, which led to numerous comparisons with Patrick Mahomes, right or wrong, and ultimately to being selected first in a draft seen as one of the strongest for quarterbacks in recent years.

Key Roster Changes

To that end, the Bears invested heavily in their offense during the offseason. That started in free agency with the acquisition of All-Pro left guard Joe Thuney, along with veteran center Drew Dalman, thought to be the best center available in free agency, and right guard Jonah Jackson, who played his rookie contract in Detroit and last season with the Rams. Beyond shoring up their offensive line, the Bears also drafted tight-end Colston Loveland with the 10th overall pick in the draft and wide receiver Luther Burden III with the 39th overall pick. They also acquired wide receiver Olamide Zaccheaus in free agency, who may be ahead of Burden as WR3, replacing Keenan Allen from last season who was not extended.

Defensively, the main change was the addition of edge rusher Dayo Odeyingbo, who the Bears hope will shore up their pass rush opposite Montez Sweat.

2024 Season Stats

The Chicago Bears finished the 2024 season with a 5-12 record, including a 1-5 record within the division. They ranked 13th in points allowed (27th in yards allowed) and 28th in points scored (32nd in yards gained). They ranked 31st in net yards per passing attempt, and 31st in net yards per passing attempt allowed. In the ground game, they ranked 27th in yards per rushing attempt and 29th in yards per rushing attempt allowed. On third down, they ranked 31st in conversion percentage and 13th in conversion percentage allowed. In the red zone, which was easily the best area for the Bears last season, they ranked 8th in TD percentage and 2nd in TD percentage allowed. Lastly, when it comes to turnovers, the ranked 8th in turnovers lost offensively and 10th in turnovers generated defensively.

The Bears also ranked 20th in overall team PFF grade, including 27th on offense, 11th on defense, and 19th on special teams. Breaking it down further, offensively the Bears ranked 28th in pass offensive, 8th in pass blocking, 27th in receiving, 25th rushing, and 15th in run blocking as a team. Defensively, the Bears ranked 21st in run defense, 5th in tackling, 16th in pass rush, and 10th in coverage as a team.

In DVOA terms, the Bears ranked 25th in total DVOA, 27th in offensive DVOA, and 22nd in defensive DVOA.

Injuries

Using the Adjusted Games Lost (AGL) metric to weigh the impact of injuries on the Bears last season, the Bears had the 3rd-lowest total. They had the 4th fewest AGLs on offense and the 9th fewest on defense.

Luck Factors

I’m going to blend two measures of luck factors this year to hopefully provide a better overall measure of luck factors that can impact the outcome of a game. In the past, I’ve just used the Net Win Probabiliy Added measure, shown in the chart below for 2024, but this year I’m also going to blend it with the TeamRankings Luck Rankings, which are based on estimated wins, which is based on play-by-play expected outcomes vs. actual results, compared to actual wins. This encompasses some of the same factors as Net Win Probability but also considers less impactful plays.

Strength of Schedule

The Bears have the 7th most difficult schedule in the league this year based on over/under win totals compiled by oddsmakers. Last season they had the most difficult schedule by actual win totals of their opponents- not surprising given the records of the rest of the NFC North last season.

After a couple tough division games against the Vikings and Lions, the Bears have a couple easier ones against the Cowboys and Raiders- but no gimmes either. Then they have an early week 5 bye followed by 12 games with only three easier ones in the mix- the Saints, Giants, and Browns at home.

Prediction for the Bears this Season

The Bears have an over/under win total of 8 at the moment and are +600 to win the division.

Adding up the factors above into plus or minus wins over last season’s 5-12 record, here is how I account for the changes over last season:

• Coaching Changes: +2. I give them two additional wins for Ben Johnson and the new coordinators but there may be some heavy lifting to adjust to Johnson’s scheme. Matt Eberflus might have been terrible as a head coach, but he was a decent defensive coordinator. I’m not sure Dennis Allen will be as good.
• Roster Changes: +2. The main change was to the offensive line, but from a PFF grading standpoint, that wasn’t the Bears weak point on offense. Sure, they gave up 68 sacks, but how many were on Caleb Williams? The defense is largely unchanged and the receiver group may be a bit improved, but they had D.J. Moore, Rome Odunze, and Keenan Allen last season and that didn’t do much for them. I will give the Bears offense an additional win to account for development of Williams and Odunze as well.
• Injuries: -1. The Bears had good injury luck last season and I expect some reversion to the mean this year and the Bears don’t have much depth overall, nor do they have a training staff with a track record of fewer AGLs over several years.
• Luck and turnovers: 0. Blending the two luck measures gives the Bears below average luck last season, but slightly above average in turnovers. Not enough overall to warrant a change.
• Strength of Schedule: -1. I think the NFC North schedule is more difficult than it appears compared to last season, including for the Bears, who faced the Titans, Colts, receiver-less Rams, Panthers, and Jaguars to start the season last year, and later the Patriots too. There aren’t as many potential top ten draft pick teams on the schedule this season and the Bears were lucky to face the Rams missing their 3 top receivers and the injury decimated 49ers. The division isn’t likely to be as lucky this season facing injury-riddled teams.

Bottom line, adding up all of the above factors I arrive at a +2 over their 2024 record, or 7-10 for the season. That is likely to result in another last place finish in the division, given the strength of the other teams.

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