The 2024 offseason was a franchise-altering time for the Chicago Bears. The team spent big, bringing in talent like D’Andre Swift and Keenan Allen, while cementing franchise cornerstones like Jaylon Johnson to long-term extensions. In the draft that ensued, the team selected Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze early in the first 10 picks to further outline an electric offense. Major offseason moves translated to high expectations, and quite simply, ‘Da Bears’ did not fulfill ‘da expectations.’ In, to their credit, the toughest division in the league, Chicago finished with a minuscule five wins. Even worse, the team fired former head coach Matt Eberflus and switched offensive play callers multiple times in the most pivotal season for Caleb Williams’ development as a pro.
Heading into 2025, Chicago has once again been declared the winner of the offseason by many. In this article, we will dive into the successes and failures that culminated in a poor 2024, recap what’s changed this offseason, and project what we can expect in 2025.
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The 2024 Season
The first season of the “Caleb Williams Era” in Chicago was pretty standard for a rookie. He showed flashes of why he went first overall while also making poor decisions that cost the team.
Comparing his EPA per play and completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) to the rest of the league, he finished 25th and 23rd, respectively, among 29 qualifying passers. Despite the advanced analytics, Williams put up solid numbers on his 2024 box scores; he finished the season with 3541 yards, 20 TDs, and six interceptions, riding on a 62.5% completion percentage. While fans love criticizing QBs, they love attacking coaches even more — in the case of the 2024 Chicago Bears, they were right.
2024 marked the third and final season of Matt Eberflus’ tenure with Chicago. As a defensive-minded head coach, fans doubted his ability to develop a QB, especially one with the pedigree of Caleb Williams. Thankfully, he made sure to bring in the league’s best offensive mind, Shane Waldron, to lead the team’s offense. If this is your first time hearing his name, please take this moment to understand I am using sarcasm. Stories circulated around the league of Eberflus’ and Waldron’s negligence toward the offense, specifically in the context of Caleb Williams’ development. Waldron was fired in the middle of November following poor coaching and offensive output. During the team’s biggest game of the season on Thanksgiving Day in Detroit, Eberflus made sure to showcase his coaching ability with one of the league’s biggest blunders of the season.
A wild end to this one. #CHIvsDET pic.twitter.com/zwR7g1Efv9
— NFL (@NFL) November 28, 2024
While most teams fire their coaches on the infamous “Black Monday,” Matt Eberflus was sent home on Black Friday. This now left the franchise’s rookie QB without the offensive coordinator, head coach, and play-caller he began the season with before December. Coaching was a massive issue for the team, but there were plenty of problems with the personnel beginning in the trenches.
While the exterior offensive line proved to be rather strong with veteran Braxton Jones on the blindside and the team’s 2023 first-rounder Darnell Wright at right tackle, the interior was weak and caused constant issues for the team on both the pass protection and run blocking fronts. The team’s interior starters averaged a PFF grade of 65.1, which contributed to Caleb Williams being sacked the most of any QB in the league at a staggering 68 times. Additionally, he was pressured at the fifth-highest rate. While sacks have been proven to be reflective of QB ability, Williams’ line did not do him or the run game any favors.
While D’Andre Swift can blame his line for some of his struggles, he finished last out of 41 qualified rushers with -0.7 rush yards over expectation per attempt. Chicago also made its RB room thinner this year when the team sent Khalil Herbert to Cincinnati for a late-round draft pick.
The Chicago WR room was made more interesting in the previous offseason when the team traded for veteran Keenan Allen and drafted Rome Odunze ninth overall. The two joined DJ Moore to make for a crowded receiver room. Unfortunately for their fantasy owners, three made a crowd as the team failed to produce a 1000-yard receiver despite all three being capable. Following his 2023 offseason extension, Cole Kmet continued to lead the TE room.
The 2024 offense had many new faces as a result of free agency spending, offseason trades, and highly drafted rookies. Despite the 2024 facelift, this team was in store for even more changes in the 2025 offseason.
Offseason Recap
For starters, the Bears went out and got the best coach on the market — former Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson.
Ben Johnson joined the Lions in 2019 and quickly climbed the ranks, securing three internal promotions within his first four years with the team. His final promotion came in 2022 when he was named offensive coordinator and offensive play-caller. Under his leadership, the Lions’ offense thrived thanks to incredibly strategic, complex, and often experimental scheming. Over his last two seasons with the team, he became a household name across the league and drew interest from many teams with head coaching vacancies. By signing on with the Bears, Ben Johnson joins a division rival with plenty of potential. However, the team Johnson is joining is quite different from the one fans saw on the field last year.
General manager Ryan Poles enters his fourth season with the team in 2025, and this offseason, he began where most teams should — the trenches. Poles traded a fourth-round selection to the Chiefs for Joe Thuney, shortly followed by a similar acquisition where he acquired Jonah Jackson for a sixth-round pick. The team also added Drew Dalman in free agency to start at center. Now, the team had secured the interior offensive line and was ready to build out the skill positions.
Keenan Allen remains a free agent after not being re-signed by Chicago. While Allen’s departure vacates 23% of the team’s targets from last season, the Bears would quickly reload with young weapons in the draft.
The Bears drafted Colston Loveland with the tenth overall pick, making him Chicago’s fifth consecutive offensive player drafted in the first round. While Loveland had the most targets and receptions of his three-year collegiate career in 2024, his true breakout came in his second year, in which his efforts helped lead the Wolverines to a National Championship. Loveland’s base stats experienced a notable dip, which can be largely attributed to the team’s change at QB since J.J. McCarthy’s graduation to the NFL. On the other hand, his advanced stats rose substantially. Loveland’s yards per route run (YPRR) grew from 2.38 to 2.67. Additionally, his PFF offensive and receiving grades each rose by roughly 10 points, up to 85.9 and 90.6, respectively. For a deeper dive into Loveland and his prospects as a fantasy asset, check out his Rookie Profile written by Matthew Betz (@TheFantasyPT).
Ryan Poles and the Bears weren’t finished tweaking with the offense; in fact, the team used its very next pick on Mizzou WR Luther Burden III. Similarly to Loveland, Burden’s stats also dipped in 2024, but this impacted Burden’s draft stock much more negatively. Burden’s YPRR fell from an incredible 3.29 in 2023 all the way down to 2.32 in 2024.
The Bears made another offensive-minded selection in taking offensive tackle Ozzy Trapilo 17 picks later. Trapilo will add to the depth of a stronger offensive front in Chicago, a key to Ben Johnson’s success in Detroit.
The Bears finished off their draft by throwing a dart on former Rutgers RB Kyle Monangai in the seventh round. While his low draft capital makes him less promising, Monangai had a very strong college career in which he ran for 1,279 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2024.
When Ben Johnson became head coach in the Windy City, the team had plenty of untapped talent, most notably in franchise cornerstone Caleb Williams. In the offseason, the team made many moves to not only surround their QB with increased protection, but also greater offensive talent at skill positions. Ben Johnson has the key to the city and all the tools necessary to create success; Chicago is his kind of town.
2025 Outlook
Caleb Williams steps into year two with a masterful new play caller in Ben Johnson, three new potential starters on the line, and a handful of young skill position players by way of the draft. All of these new additions beg the simple question: What will the Chicago Bears offense look like in 2025?
For starters, it can be expected that Poles’ hand-picked interior linemen will all start on day one. This will provide Caleb Williams with added time in the pocket and the team’s RBs with upgraded support on runs between the tackles.
Speaking of the run game, the Bears’ rushing attack is incredibly hard to examine. On one hand, D’Andre Swift has the most experience, especially given his history with the team’s new head coach. He was given the money in last year’s free agency to start and carry a strong majority of carries; at the same time, the analytics do not work in Swift’s favor. Roschon Johnson steps into year two behind Swift, and while he has shown flashes (most notably in the red zone), he hasn’t done enough to warrant the team looking in his favor. Finally, despite his low draft capital, Kyle Monangai projects to slot in as the third RB on the depth chart with plenty of upside in an offense where he will be able to showcase his talents. Any of these three rushers can be unlocked and upgraded in a new offense with a mind like Ben Johnson’s righting the ship.
Ben Johnson’s Lions ran 12 personnel at the fourth-highest rate in 2024, which made adding a stronger TE in addition to Cole Kmet a priority. Of course, Loveland will be the TE1 on the depth chart, and as a result, he will command the overwhelming majority of targets between the two.
While the WR room added a new face, we can expect a similar setup as was seen in 2025. DJ Moore will maintain his role as the team’s primary wideout, while Rome Odunze will remain as the second option on the outside. Keenan Allen operated primarily out of the slot, which is a set of routes that will likely be split between Luther Burden III working downfield and the aforementioned Colston Loveland operating near the sticks. While we know where everyone will line up, we don’t know what to expect in terms of target share. Rome Odunze and Colston Loveland were both drafted with top-10 picks, which will likely increase their usage to start. I would give Loveland an additional boost in gaining target share to start this season as a player that Ben Johnson hand-picked to join his offense.
While 2024 was a massive letdown to Bears fans and fantasy owners alike, everything changed this past offseason. Chicago filled holes and made major improvements through a series of trades, free agent signings, and draft picks. If these roster changes weren’t enough, they landed the most sought-after head coaching candidate in the league. The Bears approach 2025 in what will likely be the team’s most pivotal season in the past 15 years. Will Chicago “fly the W” into the playoffs for the first time in five years, or will its fans be forced to ride “the L'” back into another early offseason?
from Fantasy Footballers Podcast https://ift.tt/oTm0AvY
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