What the Hell is Wrong with the Bears?

In August, Ben Johnson said he wanted the highest-scoring offense in NFL history, ahead of the 2013 Broncos' 37.9 points a game. After one week the Bears were ahead of that pace. They put 59 on Carolina.

They have scored 60 points in the four games since.

That is 15.0 a game from Week 2 on, 30th in the league. Minnesota held them to a field goal at Soldier Field. Green Bay beat them 31-7 on Sunday and took the ball away five times. Chicago is 3-2, two games behind the 5-0 Vikings, and both losses came inside the division, so the Bears sit last in the NFC North on tiebreakers.

So what the hell is wrong with the Bears? We ran every 2026 snap through the play-by-play and FTN charting data to find out. The short answer: less than it feels like, but the parts that are wrong are expensive. Three things explain most of it. The starting quarterback is hurt, the red zone has stopped producing touchdowns, and the turnover luck that carried 2025 is gone. A fourth problem, a defense that gives up big plays, isn't new at all.

Start with the quarterback

Before he got hurt, Caleb Williams was playing the best football of his career. Through 70 dropbacks he was producing +0.31 expected points added (EPA) per dropback, 6th among 42 quarterbacks with at least 30. His completion percentage over expected (CPOE) was +6.2, also 6th. Last season he finished 14th in EPA per dropback and 34th of 38 in CPOE.

Most of that came in the Carolina shootout, so treat it as a strong start, not a new baseline. Week 2 was harder. Minnesota, the best defense in football by EPA allowed, blitzed him on 78% of his dropbacks per FTN charting, and he finished the night below zero. Then, with 7:42 left, the Bears down 6-3 and the ball at the Minnesota 6, he went down on a rollout and was carted off with a strained right hamstring. Later reports described a Grade 2 strain with a three-to-four-week timeline. He has missed every game since.

What followed was a carousel. Tyson Bagent replaced him and was concussed in the same game. Case Keenum, the third-stringer, started and won Week 3. Johnson went back to Bagent for Week 4, another win, then benched him at Green Bay after two interceptions.

Combined, the backups have run 127 dropbacks at -0.09 EPA each. As a team number, that would rank 26th. They have kept the offense on schedule: their success rate on dropbacks is 48%, right in line with Caleb's. What they don't do is threaten anyone deep. Bagent and Keenum throw 20-plus yards downfield on about 8% of attempts, 34th and 38th of 42. Bagent's interception rate is 38th, and FTN charted 6.3% of his throws as interception-worthy, 39th. That number could be worse: Jets penalties wiped out three more interceptions in Week 4.

One way to price the injury: swap the backups' -0.09 for the +0.11 Caleb averaged across all of 2025, not his hotter 2026 start, and spread it over the 35 to 40 dropbacks the Bears run in a game. That is about seven points a game. It doesn't flip a 24-point loss in Green Bay. It very likely flips a 9-3 loss to Minnesota.

The red zone is where it costs points

A backup who can move the ball between the 20s but won't throw into tight windows shows up most where the field gets small. Since Week 1 the Bears have reached the red zone 17 times, not counting drives that ran out the clock at the half. They have scored six touchdowns. That is 35%, last in the NFL, against a league average of 63%. Seven of those trips produced zero points, the most in the league. Last season they turned 66% of red-zone trips into touchdowns, 9th.

Some of this is bad luck. Two of those trips died on runs at the 1-yard line, one on a fumble and one on a replay review. But look at how the backups have done with the field squeezed. Inside the 5, Bagent and Keenum are 0-for-7 throwing. Caleb is 1-for-1, a touchdown to Jahdae Walker in Week 1. When the quarterback can't win in a phone booth, Johnson is left handing it to Swift and Kyle Monangai and hoping.

The turnover bank ran dry

To understand 2026, go back to 2025. Johnson's first Bears team went 11-6, won the NFC North, came back from 21-3 down to beat Green Bay in the wild-card round and lost to the Rams in overtime a week later. It led the league with 33 takeaways and a +22 turnover margin.

A lot of that was skill. Some of it was simply the ball bouncing their way. There were 33 fumbles in Bears games last season, and Chicago recovered 22 of them. That is 67%, the best rate in the league. The league average was 46%. Fumble recoveries are close to a coin flip from one season to the next. Six of the Bears' 11 regular-season wins came after they trailed inside the final two minutes, and the wild-card win made it seven.

Points said the same. Chicago outscored opponents 441-415, a margin that usually buys about nine wins, not eleven. By EPA per play the Bears were a solid team, 12th in net efficiency, not a dominant one.

This year the Bears have six takeaways in five games and none in Weeks 2, 4 or 5. They have given it away ten times, five of them at Green Bay, four on consecutive second-half possessions. Ball security was an issue before that: Swift lost the fumble at the Minnesota 1, then another against the Jets that Johnson called egregious before sitting him for the rest of the game.

Still, the 2026 Bears are 3-2 with a +23 point differential, almost exactly the record their points predict. The difference from last season isn't that this team got worse at football. It is that the coin flips stopped landing their way.

The defense: a better rush, the same leaks, fewer bodies

Dennis Allen's defense has been all or nothing. Carolina scored 37 points and gained 478 yards in Week 1. The next three opponents scored 9, 7 and 12, and the Jets finished with 157 yards. Then Jordan Love threw for 367 at Lambeau. Game by game, Chicago allowed +0.18, -0.08, -0.30, -0.14 and +0.26 EPA per play.

The pass rush is better. Chicago is sacking the quarterback on 7.9% of dropbacks, 7th, up from 5.9% (22nd) last season. It is also blitzing more, on 38% of dropbacks (6th) versus 30% a year ago.

The cost is behind the rush. 7.6% of the plays run against Chicago gain 20 or more yards, 5th-most in the league. Against the pass it is 11.3% of dropbacks, 3rd-most. Last year the Bears allowed the 2nd-highest explosive rate in football and covered it with takeaways. This year the takeaways are gone and the big plays are not. Green Bay hit seven plays of 20-plus yards on Sunday, six of them passes, including Christian Watson touchdowns of 42 and 53 yards. The run defense isn't bailing anyone out either: 4.2 yards per carry allowed, 22nd.

Personnel explains a lot of it. Kevin Byard, Jaquan Brisker and Tremaine Edmunds are gone. Coby Bryant, the big free-agent safety signing, had knee surgery in camp and is on injured reserve. Nickel corner Kyler Gordon hasn't come off the PUP list. Tyrique Stevenson has had three separate injuries. First-round rookie Dillon Thieneman has played every defensive snap, and fourth-round rookie Malik Muhammad has played most of them.

The rush is about to thin out too. Montez Sweat was suspended two games for violating the league's PED policy and will miss Atlanta and New England. Dayo Odeyingbo hurt his quad at Green Bay, and T.J. Edwards left that game with a hamstring injury. Sweat and Odeyingbo account for five of the Bears' 12 sacks. Austin Booker leads the team with four.

What isn't wrong

Raw numbers make the Bears look worse than they are, because the schedule has been uneven. Minnesota's defense allows -0.24 EPA per play in its other games, the best mark in the league. Chicago's offense was below zero against the Vikings, but better than the Vikings' other opponents. Adjust every game for the opponent and the Bears' offense is 9th in EPA per play, the defense 20th and the team 12th overall.

The Green Bay game was the outlier on both sides: the worst schedule-adjusted offensive game and the worst defensive game of Chicago's season. One bad afternoon at Lambeau shouldn't define five weeks.

Other things are working. The run game is gaining -0.02 EPA per carry, 10th, while the league average is -0.08. Monangai has been the more efficient back (+0.10 EPA per carry) and carried 30 times for 146 yards against the Jets. The Bears face the 3rd-shortest third downs in football, 5.9 yards to go on average. And the flags have stopped. Chicago was penalized 20 times in Weeks 1 and 2, 3rd-most, and Johnson pointed to them after the Minnesota loss. It has been flagged 12 times in the three games since.

How Johnson has adjusted

With a backup under center, Johnson has pulled the offense in. In neutral situations (win probability between 20% and 80%, outside the last two minutes of a half) the Bears are passing 5.2 percentage points less than the situation predicts, 24th in the league. Last season it was 3.2 points under, 20th. Against the Jets the gap was almost 16 points.

Some of Johnson's signature is missing too. The Bears used pre-snap motion on 58% of plays last year (12th). This year it is 52% (25th). Play-action, the engine of the 2025 passing game, has stopped paying off: the Bears averaged +0.19 EPA on play-action dropbacks last season and -0.03 this season, worse than their non-play-action dropbacks. Defenses have noticed. They are blitzing Chicago on 40% of dropbacks, more than any other offense.

The line in front of the backups isn't the one Johnson planned on either. Left tackle Braxton Jones hurt his knee in Week 3 and went on injured reserve, so Theo Benedet has started at left tackle since. Ozzy Trapilo, the 2025 second-round tackle, hasn't been active this season. Joe Thuney, Darnell Wright and Jonah Jackson all showed up on the Week 5 injury report before playing every snap.

After Green Bay, Johnson put it on himself. "I've got to look at myself first," he said, and he questioned his own game plan and play calls.

Foundry read: Fantasy managers should value the passing game on Caleb's timeline. Rome Odunze is the receiver whose role is growing: 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 targets by week, and 35% of the team's air yards. Luther Burden III leads the team with 35 targets but has been below zero in EPA per target. Colston Loveland is playing roughly 80% to 90% of snaps and has been the biggest casualty of the backups: only 57% of his targets have been catchable per FTN charting, and he is at -0.39 EPA per target. Hold him through the injury. Kalif Raymond has caught 24 of 27 targets on short throws, a PPR depth piece and nothing more. D'Andre Swift has the volume (78 carries, four rushing touchdowns, 10 carries inside the 5), but the fumbles have cost him snaps, and Monangai, the more efficient runner, missed Week 5 with thumb and toe injuries. Monangai is the better bet when he's healthy.

So what the hell is wrong?

Ranked by how many points it costs:

1. The quarterback. The obvious one. About seven points a game, on a conservative read. It hopefully fixes itself when Caleb is healthy.

2. The red zone. Seven empty trips in four games. Part bad bounces, part a backup quarterback who can't win inside the 5. It should improve with Caleb too.

3. Turnovers. 2025's fumble luck has worn off. Expect the margin to drift back toward even, which from -4 is an improvement.

4. Big plays allowed. This is the structural one. It was a problem last year and it is a problem now, with a rebuilt secondary and no pile of takeaways to cover it. Sweat's suspension makes the next two weeks harder.

The Bears aren't the team that scored 59 in Charlotte, and they aren't the team that scored seven in Green Bay. Adjusted for the schedule they've been a little better than average, mostly without their starting quarterback. That is a team with a problem, not a team in crisis.

Whether it stays that way depends on the hamstring. Williams practiced on a limited basis for the first time last Friday, was listed questionable and was inactive at Green Bay. On Monday Johnson said no decision had been made for Atlanta. The calendar isn't kind: after Sunday in Atlanta, against a defense that ranks 12th in EPA allowed, the Bears host New England on a Thursday and then visit Seattle on a Monday night.

How we measured it

All numbers come from nflverse play-by-play for Weeks 1-5 of the 2026 regular season, with FTN charting for motion, play-action, blitzes, catchable passes and interception-worthy throws. EPA excludes kneels and spikes. Dropbacks include sacks and scrambles. "Since Week 1" means Weeks 2-5. Red-zone trips are drives that reached the opponent's 20, excluding drives that ended because a half ran out. Schedule-adjusted EPA compares each game with what that opponent allowed, or produced, in its other games. For team-level EPA by week, see the EPA board.