A Cinderella story in Chicago? Probably not. This is the worst possible divisional round matchup for the Chicago Bears and the best possible divisional round matchup for the Los Angeles Rams.
Only two teams have allowed 36 passing touchdowns this season. One of those teams has the second pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and the other one is hosting the probable MVP quarterback in the divisional round of the playoffs on Sunday.
Puka Nacua and Matthew Stafford will have Bears head coach Ben Johnson saying, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo Doubs?”
The Chicago Bears had the worst pass defense of any team in wild card weekend,
allowing 4 touchdowns to Jordan Love and a playoffs-worst +0.28 EPA per passing play according to Next Gen Stats. That means that Chicago’s defense — which ranked 28th in passing touchdowns allowed and 29th in net yards per pass attempt allowed in the regular season — was essentially giving up one total point for every four PASS ATTEMPTS against the Packers.
The Jaguars were the second-worst pass defense of the weekend at +0.19 EPA/pass and they faced Josh Allen.
Just what do you think is going to happen when the Bears are facing the NFL’s leader in touchdown passes and the NFL’s leader in touchdown catches (Davante Adams) and arguably the best receiver in the NFL on the other side?
Allowing 36 passing touchdowns in 18 games
Has a team ever allowed this many touchdowns and reached the Super Bowl? Well yes, sort of. The 2022 Chiefs allowed 36 passing touchdowns but that was over all 20 games, including the Super Bowl. The Bears would need to all of a sudden become a lockdown pass defense and allow 0 more passing touchdowns the rest of the way.
The 2020 Titans, 2020 Browns, 2023 Eagles allowed 36+ touchdown passes, including playoffs, but they all lost in the wild card round of the playoffs. Chicago has now made it one round further, barely escaping the Packers by the skin of their teeth.
The Chiefs team that won the Super Bowl in 2022 allowed a lot of passing touchdowns but only 5.6 net yards per attempt. That ranked 4th in the league.
The Bears are allowing 6.8 N/YA this season. That’s ranked 29th.
That is in spite of Chicago leading the league in interceptions. First-team All-Pro Kevin Byard has a league-leading 7 interceptions and that gets the headlines. Byard has allowed the most passing touchdowns of any safety in the league also, and that doesn’t. “Breakout” star cornerback Nahshon Wright has allowed 6. Safety Jaquan Brisker has allowed 5 and has the 12th-worst passer rating allowed of any safety.
By pure Y/A, the Bears are allowing 7.6, which ranks 27th. The Bears allowed the second-most air yards of ANY team in 2025, a hair better than the Detroit Lions. By EPA on pass defense, the Bears rank 23rd even though interceptions should in theory give a defense a massive point boost. Chicago leading the league in interceptions only masks the fact that they have one of the worst pass defenses to ever make the divisional round of the playoffs.
This is why the Bears went 2-6 in the regular season when they failed to generate multiple turnovers and 9-0 when they did.
The Bears live and die by forcing turnovers, which should also work in L.A.’s favor:
The Rams went 0-3 when they had multiple turnovers in 2025. They’re 13-2 in every other game. That means that for every one game that the Rams have multiple turnovers they have FIVE games with 0-1 turnovers.
Forget the cold weather statistics: Those don’t matter as much as how the Bears have played defense for the entire season, which is…poorly.
They have a terrible defense.
Teams are usually not in the playoffs when their pass defense is this bad, let alone in the second round hosting a playoff game. But the Chicago Bears made it this far — also in spite of their quarterback Caleb Williams being one of the least accurate passers in modern history to win a playoff game — so maybe history will repeat itself like it did against the Packers because this is the NFL and any team can win one game.
It’s just fascinating that a team as bad as the Bears have made it this far:
- 29th in yards per carry allowed on defense
- Only 6 teams have fewer sacks than Chicago’s 35
- 32nd in passing touchdowns allowed, including playoffs
- Worst defense of the wild card round, including the teams that lost
- Second-worst rushing offense of the wild card round by EPA
- Lost the turnover battle 2:0 to the Packers
- Worst rushing success rate of the wild card round (28.6%)
The Rams had the second-best rushing success rate of the first round (51.7%) and now they’re going against the worst run defense left in the playoffs.
The Rams actually played good pass defense against the Panthers, except that Bryce Young is so bad that it’s difficult to judge what that means. Luckily, Caleb Williams isn’t better.
Matthew Stafford has thrown a league-leading 49 touchdowns in 18 games. The Bears have allowed a league-worst 36 passing touchdowns in 18 games. It should not be that hard to run the ball down the field in between the 20s against Chicago’s defense and then close the deal in the red zone (Rams scored the most red zone touchdowns in the NFL, the Bears allowed the 11th-most red zone touchdowns) between Stafford and his receiving options.
Former NFL quarterback Alex Smith said it best: The Rams might drop 50 this weekend.
Just like Cinderella, the Bears are a nice story. But in the world of reality, the Rams are just a much better team.
