The start of the NFL regular season is just around the corner and it’s time for season predictions. I’ll start with the Minnesota Vikings’ division rivals and end with the Vikings season forecast in early September.
As I have the last couple years, I’ll go through the key areas that can lead to changes from the previous season. Namely coaching and roster changes, injury and luck factors, and strength of schedule.
Up first among the Vikings’ division rivals: the Chicago Bears.
Chicago Bears 2025 Season and Offseason Changes
The Bears won the NFC North
division last season in unconvincing fashion. They finished the season 11-6 after an 0-2 start with a last place schedule and having gone 3-3 in division games- splitting the series with each division rival. They finished the season with a top ten offense and bottom ten defense in both points, yards, and DVOA. Their net point differential was +26, which was third lowest among playoff teams and tied for 15th overall. If those stats lead you to believe that the Bears won a lot of close games to finish 11-6, you are correct- they did. Seven of their eleven wins were one-score games and thirteen total (wins and losses) including the playoffs. But in terms of the just the regular season, the Bears post-game expected win total, based on what happened during each game and considering luck factors, was just 8.8 wins- just over two fewer than their actual win total.
An example of a team winning a game they weren’t expected to win based on what happened during the game is the Vikings victory over the Bills a few years ago with Jefferson’s iconic catch on 4th and 18 or whatever it was and Josh Allen fumbling the snap on the goal line. Neither is something likely to happen more often than not so while it was a game the Vikings won, it was also a game they would not be expected to win given the events of the game and the likelihood of them reoccurring that way (i.e. how many times out of 100 would Josh Allen fumble the snap at their one-yard line late in the game and the Vikings recover?).
The reason for the Bears success last season, and why they outperformed expectations, was largely due to turnovers. The Bears defense, while ranking 23rd in points allowed and 29th in yards allowed, also ranked 1st in takeaways by a large margin. They had 33 takeaways last season- the same number the Vikings had in 2024. They also had the fewest giveaways offensively of any team last year, committing just 11 turnovers all season. And so while the Bears allowed more yards per play (6.0) than they gained (5.7), turnovers helped tilt results in their direction.
But while the Bears may not have won the division in convincing fashion, new head coach Ben Johnson and his staff deserve a ton of credit for turning things around for the Bears, who hadn’t had a winning season since 2018. Like Dan Campbell in Detroit, Ben Johnson has turned around a losing culture in Chicago and along with Caleb Williams is giving the Bears hope that the team is in good hands and the best is yet to come.
Offseason Changes
The Bears have some welcome continuity this year among the coaching staff, as head coach and de facto offensive coordinator Ben Johnson returns (although Press Taylor replaces Declan Doyle with the OC title) and Dennis Allen returns as defensive coordinator. That should help each side gain more scheme mastery although defensively there have been a number of roster changes.
Defensively, the Bears moved on from safeties Jaquan Brisker and Kevin Byard and cornerback Nanshon Wright. Those three played just about every snap defensively for the Bears and accounted for 15 of their 33 takeaways. They also moved on from linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, who played about 90% of snaps last season.
The good news for the Bears is that they brought in some good replacements for Brisker and Byard in Coby Bryant and first-round pick Dillon Thieneman. The bad news is that Bryant will miss most or all of the season with a knee injury, which means new addition Xavier Woods, a one-time Viking now 31, will be starting alongside rookie Thieneman at safety. The Bears are elevating 2023 second-round pick Tyrique Stevenson to replace Wright at cornerback opposite Jaylon Johnson (2nd-team All-Pro in 2023). 2022 second-round pick Kyle Gordon, who missed most of last season, returns as slot corner.
At linebacker, the Bears are replacing Edmunds with Devin Bush, who put together a couple good seasons with the Browns after failing to live up to his #10 overall draft pick status with the Steelers and a one-year stint with the Seahawks.
The Bears opted for continuity along the defensive line, however. The problem with that is the Bears defensive line ranked 26th last season according to PFF, with only edge rusher Montez Sweat grading above 70 (72.4). Both defensive tackles Grady Jarrett and Gervon Dexter Jr. and edge rusher Dayo Odeyingbo graded in the mid-50s. The Bears ranked 29th last season in net yards allowed per rush (5.0) and ranked 23rd in pressure rate (28.1%). So, while there will be some new starters for the Bears this season defensively, they may not represent improvement overall. Having Jaylon Johnson healthy all season, and Kyle Gordon too, may help, but it’s difficult to see much roster improvement overall for the Bears defensively.
Offensively, the Bears moved on from D.J. Moore and will effectively replace him with Luther Burden III, who by most accounts could have a breakout season. Moore was something of a disappointment for the Bears last season, as was Rome Odunze, who the Bears are hoping will live up to his #9 overall pick status at some point. The Bears also added former Lion Kalif Raymond as a slot receiver.
Along the offensive line, the Bears dealt with the surprise retirement of starting center Drew Dalman by acquiring former Viking Garrett Bradbury, which represents a downgrade. The Bears are hoping left tackle Ozzy Trapilo is able to return sooner rather than later (he tore his patellar tendon in the playoffs) but may miss the first month or so as he ramps up after his recovery. He was recently taken off the PUP list but may start the season on IR which would mean he misses the first four games of the season. Braxton Jones is the backup and has been less reliable. The Bears are solid with Darnell Wright at right tackle, and future Hall of Famer Joe Thuney at left guard (although he turns 34 later this year), and Jonah Jackson has been fine at right guard. Bradbury has his limitations, as Vikings fans know, but otherwise the Bears offensive line should be pretty solid once Trapilo returns.
The Bears also return tight end Colston Loveland, who is proving to be one of the best tight ends in the league, and D’Andre Swift, who had his best season last year. But how well the Bears offense does this season will depend largely on whether quarterback Caleb Williams is able to take another step forward.
Williams has shown the off-schedule ability for which he was drafted #1 overall in 2024 and culminated last season in his improbable hail mary to force overtime against the Rams in the playoffs. But it’s his ability to do the more routine on-schedule tasks that has been lacking. He was the least accurate starting quarterback in the league last season by adjusted completion percentage (69.4%) which was lower than even J.J. McCarthy. PFF charted nearly 1 in 4 of Williams’ passes (24.3%) last season as inaccurate and uncatchable, which ranked 40th of 43 quarterbacks charted. Inconsistent mechanics are a part of the problem.
And he also continues to hold the ball and revert to lower percentage off-schedule stuff- although with some spectacular mixed in. The issue with Williams is he does not throw with anticipation- he almost always needs to see his receiver open before throwing. Whether he doesn’t trust his receivers or his read of the defense or both is unclear. But Williams is also very cautious in avoiding interceptions (and successfully so as his interception rate is among the lowest in the league although his turnover-worthy play rate is average) which leads him to place the ball away from defenders which sometimes results in inaccurate passes. Fixing the problem is one of processing, trust, and overall mentality.
Williams was able to improve his pressure-to-sack ratio dramatically last season, going from 3rd worst his rookie season (27.8%) to 3rd best last season (9.6%). But whether he can improve his on-schedule ability will determine whether he, and the Bears offense, can take another step forward.
Overall for the Bears offensively, Luther Burden may prove to be an upgrade over D.J. Moore last season as he takes on a larger role, but Bradbury is a downgrade from Dalman and so overall the roster changes are a wash. That leads to a neutral rating for offensive changes as its difficult to gauge whether Caleb Williams will make more improvements this season or continue like last season.
Injuries
Last season the Bears ranked 17th in adjusted games lost (AGLs) due to injury. The methodology attempts to account for starters missing due to injury or not playing at 100%. They ranked 8th in offensive AGLs and 26th in defensive AGLs. What we are looking for here are outliers in terms of extraordinarily good or back luck with injuries in the previous season that may revert to the mean or average the following season and therefore result in an adjustment to the team’s projected win total.
Overall, the Bears ranking 17th is very close to average and therefore no adjustment for injuries need be made for this season’s projection.
Luck Factors
I’ve had to slightly modify the sources for luck factors this year as one of the sources from last year stopped publishing their data. To determine luck factors, I am going again with the Luck Ratings from Team Rankings, and using the differential between actual and estimated wins from the DVOA stats at FTN. I average the two numbers to get a game adjustment amount.
In the Bears case, the numbers are +2.3 and +2.2, indicating that the Bears won just over two more games than expected last season based on luck factors. So, assuming the Bears have average luck this season, that results in a two-game reduction in their win total from 2025.
Strength of Schedule
The Bears have the sixth most difficult schedule in the league this year, based on oddsmaker forecasted win totals (over/under win totals), which is a better measure of difficulty compared to last season’s results as it incorporates offseason changes that may impact team performance from a season ago.
Last season, the Bears actual strength of schedule, based on actual win-loss records of the teams they faced rather than the preseason prediction, was the fourth easiest in the league- they had a last-place schedule.
This season, they have a first-place schedule and the estimated sixth-most difficult schedule in the league.
That’s a big swing in strength of schedule, good for a two-game reduction in forecasted win total compared to 2025.
Here is the Bears 2026 schedule:
The Bears first-place schedule gives them games against the Eagles, Seahawks, Jaguars as first-place teams last year in their respective divisions, in addition to the normal division games and a total of eight games against the NFC South and AFC East. The Bears schedule is a bit on-again, off-again in terms of tough teams to begin with, but start Week 7 against the Patriots, I see only two easier games the rest of the season.
Prediction for the Bears This Season
I did not make any adjustments for the Bears this season due to changes in coaching staff or roster, as there was continuity at the key coaching positions and the net result from roster changes were not enough to move the needle. Nor did I make any adjustments for injury luck, which was about average last season.
I did subtract two wins from their 2025 win total for luck factors, which incorporates being outliers for both takeaways and giveaways, among other things.
I also subtracted two wins for having a much more difficult schedule this season compared to last season, as they go from having the fourth easiest schedule to the sixth most difficult.
Starting from the Bears 11-6 record last season, and incorporating a net four win reduction based on luck factors and strength of schedule, that leads to a prediction of a 7-10 record for the Bears this season which will most likely leave them out of the postseason.
The Bears have a 9.5 over/under regular season win total on DraftKings and have also been mentioned as one of the teams most likely to regress this season- based on the number of close games won last season, tougher schedule, and the outlier numbers for turnovers.
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