Matt Drufke knows very little about the NFL. Fortunately, Brandon Andreasen does.
Matt: Hey! We haven’t done one of these in a while, so let’s hope I still remember the format. Before looking at the playoffs, let’s focus on a team who will not be participating in them. The Chicago Bears ended the year at 7-10, making this the third year in a row they’ve finished with a losing record and the fifth year in a row they haven’t had a winning record. Seven wins is nothing to sneeze at, however, and the team wasn’t mathematically eliminated from the playoffs until the last week. So, let’s start with this question: What kind of bad are the Bears? Are they a few breaks from turning it around or do things feel hopeless?
Brandon: I’d say the Bears missing the playoffs was unprecedented. And by that I mean there is literally no precedent for how they missed the playoffs. They lost three games this season in which they were statistically 98 percent favorites to win a game in the fourth quarter. It’s nearly impossible to do that once a year, let alone twice a year. Three times is cataclysmic. If they even win two of those games, they would have been going into the Packers game as the favorite to make the playoffs. Now, they got beaten badly by the Packers in Week 18 anyway, so none of this would have mattered, but still.
The issue is, two of those three losses fall squarely on the coaching. In the Broncos game, all they had to do was run the ball on third down, burn the clock, and not leave Russell Wilson enough time to drive downfield to win the game. Instead, the Bears passed, it didn’t work, missed a field goal, and the Broncos marched down the field and won the game in regulation. It’s worth noting the Bears were outscored 17-0 in the 4th quarter of the game. The offensive play calling was basically run-run-run-punt for the entire second half of that game. The exact same thing happened in the Browns game a few weeks ago, where the coaching took the ball out of Justin Fields’ hands, played too conservative until it was too late, then tried to win the game in desperate fashion. The Lions game, well you get the idea.
How close is this team? Probably closer if they were coached by someone else. The defense has gotten better under Matt Eberflus, but that’s only because he was coaching the defense due to having to fire his defensive coordinator midway through the season because of inappropriate actions by the defensive coordinator. Oh, and a couple weeks later, the running backs coach got fired for the same reason. That falls on Eberflus. He brought these guys into the building. He also brought in Luke Getsy, who reeks of Matt Nagy. Both were hired due to their connection to a legendary quarterback, and both could game plan out the first 15-20 plays with efficiency. Then, the moment they really needed to start coaching, everyhing falls apart. Getsy doesn’t know how to coach with a lead, and he doesn’t know how to coach from behind. If Eberflus insists on keeping Getsy, then they both should be fired. In fact, they both should be fired, anyway.
Part of what made the Bears so good towards the end of the season was that they weren’t playing good teams, and they were remarkably healthy. Then, the moment they lost their All Pro cornerback in Jaylon Johnson, Jordan Love shredded them. They do have stars on defense. Montez Sweat was a trade that actually worked out for the Bears. Sweat ended up being the first player in NFL history to lead two teams in sacks in the same season after splitting time between the Commanders and Bears. He is already signed to an extension. Jaylon Johnson should have gotten an extension before the season started. Now after the season he has had, he is going to be even more expensive. Tyrique Stevenson came on strong as a rookie. TJ Edwards was a great signing from Philadelphia. Jaquan Brisker has been a launched cannon at everyone unfortunate enough to get in his way. The defense will be good next year regardless of who is coaching it.
The offense is….well, DJ Moore had one of the greatest seasons in Bears wide receiver history and is part of what could go down as one of the best trades in NFL history. The problem is, he is the only receiver on the team worth a damn. Tyler Scott can’t catch. Darnell Mooney has gotten consistently worse as his career has gone on and the Bears would be justified in just letting him leave for nothing this offseason. Velus Jones is not a guy. Khalil Herbert is a good running back and Roschon Johnson has the potential to be good as well. The team is pretty well set on 60% of their offensive line with Braxton Jones, Teven Jenkins, and Darnell Wright. As for the most important position…
Matt: You cannot talk about the Bears without talking about their quarterback Justin Fields. Depending on whom you ask, Fields is either the future that the Bears need to build around or he’s a guy who needs to be tossed so rebuilding can begin. He threw for 2,500 yards but people still question his accuracy and ability to move the ball down the field in large chunks. As the Bears enter a draft with two first round picks, should one of those picks be used to replace the QB? Or is he the guy the Bears should be betting their chips on?
Brandon: I think Fields is done with the Bears, and i’m not happy about it. His only hope to stay on the Bears is that both coach Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy keep their jobs. General Manager Ryan Poles and Team President Kevin Warren might not want to bring in a new quarterback to a coaching staff they might not want to retain after the 2024 season, thus forcing another shotgun marriage for the Bears quarterback and coaching staff. At least, that’s the common sense thing to do. The Bears keep making the same mistake over and over, and that is to draft a rookie quarterback and bring them into a system, only to fire the coach after one year, and force the quarterback to learn a second offensive system in as many seasons. It’s a relly good way to ruin a quarterback’s potential.
It might be best for the Fields and the Bears to split after the season. Fields is signed through next year with a reasonable extension on the table for 2025. This is not the coaching staff that is going to maximize him, though. Fields would be best suited on a team that is one piece away from being serious contenders, like the Steelers or Falcons. The Bears can most likely get a late 2nd or 3rd round pick for Fields, which isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing, I suppose.
If that is the case, the Bears most likely hang on to both of their top 10 picks, and most likely use them on offense. If you have the first pick, and there is a quarterback worthy of the first pick, then you have to pull the trigger on it. Caleb Williams is most likely going to be the guy at one. Drake Maye is another name being mentioned, but Bears fans have PTSD from North Carolina quarterbacks. Jayden Daniels is another option, having won the Heisman this season, but might look too much like a Justin Fields clone for them to pull the trigger. For people calling on the Bears to draft JJ McCarthy from Michigan: shut up, idiot.
At 9, there are a couple potential options, both on offense. You could hope that one of the two top offensive linemen in the draft, Joe Alt or Olumuyiwa Fashanu, are still there. Or you see which wide reciever falls. If you don’t trade out of one, then you have no chance at getting Marvin Harrison Jr, who some consider the best overall player coming into the 2024 draft. That said, there are three other awesome receivers, at least one of whom would definitely still be there when the Bears pick again at 9. If they ended up with Caleb Williams and one of: Keon Coleman, Malik Nabers, or Rome Odunze, then that would settle a lot of offensive issues while still leaving the team a lot of free agent money to spend filling gaps on the offensive and defensive lines, and giving extensions to their best players.
Matt: Let’s talk about the two teams from the NFC North that are currently in the playoffs. Which is more surprising: That the Packers are in the playoffs in what many expected to be a rebuilding year? Or that the Lions are the division winner for the first time in, literal, decades?
Brian: Most people were in on the Lions potential after the way they finished last season. Their biggest problem is that their coach is a numbskull whose impetuous need to win every moment of every game is really just false bravado. In a game that was functionally meaningless for them on Sunday, they still played their starters and managed to lose their record breaking rookie tight end, Sam LaPorta, to injury.
The big surprise to me was Green Bay. And by surprise, I mean abject disappointment. In fact, if you would have told me at midseason that the Packers ended up as a playoff team, I would have assumed you were on cheese flavored meth. But as the Packers tend to do, they found their franchise quarterback. Jordan Love overcame a bad start to finish the season with 4159 passing yards and 32 touchdowns. He is currently 25 years old, which means that he has another decade of this. That means that he will become a sociopath and burn his bridges around the year 2034. That would mean the Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers/Jordan Love era will last 43 years. That is absolutely nuts. And depressing.
Matt: Before we talk more about the playoff picture, I want to focus on the big news story from the last week of the season. The Atlanta Falcons fired their coach Arthur Smith, and he went out in flames, ending Sunday’s game by screaming at Saints coach Dennis Allen after the game. With the Saints up by 24 with under a minute, Allen chose to run the ball in for a touchdown instead of taking a knee. Who is right? Was Smith correct in being furious that the Saints rubbed dirt in the wound? Or should the Saints be trying to win every second of the game?
Brandon: Jameis Winston claims that the players decided to go over Dennis Allen’s head and give Jamaal Williams the touchdown because he was such a good teammate and they felt like he deserved it. Arthur Smith’s hissy fit is hilarious, especially considering he got fired eight hours later. If Smith was going to be red assed at anyone, maybe he should have been mad at his team for going into the final five weeks of the season with a legitimate shot at not only the playoffs, the to win their division, and then proceeding to lose four out of five to end the season, including a loss to the Carolina Panthers, who it should be noted, won exactly one other game all year, and then lost to Chicago by 20 and Atlanta by 31 to end the season.
As a fantasy football fan, I say that Arthur Smith definitely deserved this exact fate. Being a bloviated cry baby and out of a job. He frittered away Bijan Robinson’s rookie season. He has buried Kyle Pitts after making him one of the highest drafted tight ends of all time. I’m not even sure Drake London, the 8th pick in the draft two seasons ago, even exists half the time. Smith treated offense like a venereal disease. Good riddance to him. I hope he is coaching in the XFL at this point next year.
Matt: Moving to the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs are back in the playoffs. This was expected. What seems to be shocking to many is how beatable they seem, even with the #3 seed and an 11-6 record. Living in Chicago, it’s a surprise that a team with 11 wins could be considered as underachieving, but Chiefs fans seem worried. Is their worry justified? Is this Chiefs team vulnerable? And, if so, where?
The Chiefs biggest enemy is the Chiefs. They have arguably their best overall defense since Patrick Mahomes became a starter. Honestly, the defense has saved their asses on a regular basis this season. The problem is, the Chiefs have decided that Mahomes can turn any wide receiver into a star. The truth is, Tyreke Hill has been proving for the past couple seasons that he was a star regardless of who is throwing to him. What every other receiver (looking in your direction, Mecole Hardman) that has left the Chiefs has proven if that they probably aren’t worth a damn without Mahomes throwing to them. And now, the receivers they currently have are proving that even Patrick Mahomes has his limits.
Rashee Rice has been pretty good as a rookie, but everyone else have been donkeys out there. Nobody seems to know how to catch a football. They keep trying to make Kadarius Toney and Marquez Valdes-Scantling happen, and those guys keep losing the team games with their inability to catch a football, which as wide receivers is 90 percent of their job.
In my post yesterday about whether the Chiefs can win the Super Bowl, I go into detail about why this really isn’t Travis Kelce’s, and by extension Taylor Swift’s fault. But it’s still amusing that dull minded people are blaming them, anyway.
Matt: The top dog in the AFC is the Ravens. In the NFC, it’s the 49ers. Who is more likely to win the Super Bowl? How did these teams get to the top of their divisions? And, if you’re one of the teams playing them, how can you beat them?
Brandon: When my predictions come out on Thursday, I’ll have these teams playing eachother in the Super Bowl, with the Ravens winning. The Ravens have a much more difficult path to the championship because the AFC is so deep, but they are the best team in the league for a reason. They lack weakness. You could nitpick and say they are shallow at running back, but then they go and let their third string running back at the start of the season, Justice Hill, get 150 all purpose yards in Week 18. Lamar Jackson has been the reason this team has been so good, but this is also the first time in his career that he has had this level of talent at Wide Receiver.
The 49ers got where they got because they are expertly coached by Kyle Shanahan, who knows exactly what players he wants to execute his playbook. They are never afraid to trade their draft picks to help improve their team. In fact, them and their division mates the Los Angeles Rams are working proof that having draft picks can be overrated when you can use them to get established talent. While someone could sneak up on them in the NFC, they seem to have a fairly straightforward path to the NFC Championship game, where they will hopefully play the Dallas Cowboys so we can get some good old fashioned mid 90s vibes.
The best way to beat either team is the same: pray their quarterback gets injured.
Matt: Last but not least, prediction time. Browns-Texans, Dolphins-Chiefs, Steelers-Bills, Packers-Cowboys, Rams-Lions and Eagles-Bucs. Who are you taking?
Brandon: Texans, Chiefs, Bills, Cowboys, Rams, Eagles. I look forward to losing all of my money betting on these outcomes.
Fancy Boys Club 