12 Predictions for the 2026 Chicago Bears Season

I completed my deep dive on the 2026 Chicago Bears here. There's plenty of detail in that piece analyzing the roster that GM Ryan Poles has built and with which Head Coach Ben Johnson and Defensive Coordinator Dennis Allen will go to battle.

But that piece addressed the team in broad strokes. This piece will address specific predictions for the team, encompassing thoughts that didn't otherwise have a natural home in the full preview. So, here are a dozen predictions about the season to come.

1. QB Caleb Williams will become the first Bears QB to eclipse 4,000 passing yards in a season.
1. This isn't too aggressive, right? Williams got to 3,942 yards last season. The Bears figure to throw the ball plenty in 2026 and Williams should continue his growth with Johnson. 4,000 yards are coming. This is a bet that (i) the offensive line stays healthy enough and produces, and (ii) Luther Burden, Rome Odunze, and Colston Loveland prove to be an elite trio. I believe all of that, so here we go.
2. The Bears will field a bottom-five defense by EPA/play.
1. Ugh. This one isn't fun like the first one. The Bears defense finished 19th in EPA/play last year, so falling to 28th or worse is quite the drop. So what gives? Well, Poles did nothing to improve the pass rush and actually made it worse, trading away top interior rusher Gervon Dexter. Dexter was a terrible run defender in 2025, but Poles didn't replace him with a high quality run defender. He replaced him with Neville Gallimore, Kentavius Street, and Jordan van den Berg. We all have hope that van den Berg's elite athletic profile translates into production in 2026 in a way that it never did at Georgia Tech or Penn State, but short of van den Berg being an All-Pro as a rookie, the DL figures to be worse in 2026. The LB group should be about the same. The CB group should be similar, with hope that Malik Muhammad can handle the slot and Jaylon Johnson returns to his top form; no comment regarding Kyler Gordon, whose career might be over. But the safety room will be worse and could be dramatically worse having swapped out above-average starters Jaquan Brisker and Kevin Byard for an exciting rookie (Dillon Thieneman) and Coby Bryant's season-crippling knee injury. Yikes! Forced to peg the specific spot, I'll guess that the Bears land at 30th in EPA/play.
3. The defense will force turnovers at less than half of the rate they did in 2025.
1. There are two parts to this prediction: luck and the schedule. Last year, 18.3% of opponent possessions ended with a turnover, the highest rate of any team since Pittsburgh in 2019. So, the Bears are due for massive luck regression. But dig in deeper and it's even more daunting. Of the Bears' 33 takeaways in 2025, 14 of them came courtesy of Spencer Rattler's Saints, Geno Smith's Raiders, Joe Flacco's Bengals, and Shedeur Sanders's Browns. They've been replaced on the 2026 schedule with names like Kyler Murray, Drake Maye, Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, Trevor Lawrence, and Josh Allen. There will still be opportunities for takeaways, to be sure. But the defense is bad and the opposition looks better. Yikes! A 9.1% takeaway right would've ranked 21st in the league in 2025. It's well within the realm of possibility.
4. Luther Burden will emerge as the #1 WR...but he'll be in a tight battle with TE Colston Loveland all season to be the #1 target in the offense.
1. The Bears are going to give up a lot of points, so they'll spend plenty of time playing from behind. As a result, they'll need to throw the ball, and there's nobody better to handle the ball than Burden. I don't know how much more Williams will prefer Burden to Odunze, but Burden is better at getting open and better at creating with the ball in his hands. It's an easy call.
5. The Bears will have no Pro Bowlers on defense.
1. Yikes! Making the Pro Bowl isn't a terribly high bar. The only players with a plausible chance to make it are CB Jaylon Johnson, DE Montez Sweat, and LB Devin Bush if Bush meshes immediately with the roster. But I don't see any of them getting there.
6. The Bears will have either four or five Pro Bowlers on offense.
1. I'm torn here. I feel good about Williams, Loveland, LG Joe Thuney, and RT Darnell Wright. I'm torn on whether Burden or RG Jonah Jackson can sneak in there, but I don't think that the Bears will win enough games to garner all of those post-season individual accolades. Let's stick with four then.
7. DE Austin Booker will lead the team in sacks...but he'll do so with less than 6.5 sacks.
1. That is a seriously paltry number. Allen will send numbers with regularity to generate the pressure that he's not getting from his front four. Booker has shown some juice and also proved unable to stay healthy. So, here's a bet that he garners roughly a sack in every other game that he plays, missing a few games and getting to 6.0 sacks on the year.
8. We will hear an unholy amount about QB Caleb Williams's completion percentage...and it will continue to be a red herring.
1. I chuckle every time I hear about Caleb's completion percentage. He's like Steph Curry. Here's a thought experiment: would you rather have a center shoot 55% on exclusively two-point shots or a guard shoot 45% on exclusively three-point shots? It's not a hard question to answer: the center scores 1.1 points per shot whereas the guard scores 1.35 points per shot, blowing the center out of the water despite the lower shooting percentage. Caleb is a three-point shooter, hunting for big plays. Could he eschew those plays with more frequency to improve his completion percentage? I mean, yeah, sure, but why would you do that? Of course, we all want every play to work and to have Caleb complete 100% of his passes, all of them for touchdowns. But in the real world, I'd rather have a 60% completion percentage with big plays all over the place as opposed to 2016 Sam Bradford with his 71.3% completion percentage...and absolutely no big plays anywhere.
9. The Bears will feature a top-five offense by EPA/play.
1. The club jumped from their normal home in the 20s all the way up to #9 in 2025. They were dramatically better in the second half of the season, and even in the absence of WR D.J. Moore and LT Ozzy Trapilo, I expect further progression into the upper echelon of the entire NFL this year.
10. GM Ryan Poles will trade at least one future draft pick for a defensive lineman during the 2026 season.
1. Poles really has his hands tied here. If the offense produces as hoped/expected, the Bears will have the chance to be a top team in 2026. However, if the defense simultaneously faceplants as expected, Poles will have no choice but to supplement that unit during the season if he can. By late-October, some number of teams will have joined the Dolphins in dumping their 2026 team in favor of future glory, and Poles will be there to dangle picks to try to save his job. As of now, the following players appear to be the most likely targets:
1. Arizona DE Josh Sweat
2. Las Vegas DE Maxx Crosby
3. Miami DE Chop Robinson
4. Miami DT Zach Sieler
5. New York Jets DT David Onyemata
6. New Orleans DE Chase Young
7. Washington DT Tim Settle
8. New York Giants DE Kayvon Thibodeaux
9. Indianapolis DT Grover Stewart
10. Cleveland DT Maliek Collins
11. Dennis Allen won't be brought back as DC.
1. It won't be fair. None of this will be Allen's fault. He didn't build the defensive roster.
12. GM Ryan Poles will be fired.
1. Yes, I really think that the defense will be that bad. Poles has built a wonderful offense helmed by an elite mind and a top QB. But after using nine of his 11 top-100 picks on offensive players from 2024-26 and whiffing on his primary defensive free agents last year (Jarrett and Odeyingbo), the defensive cupboard is bare. If the Bears post a losing record in 2026 despite an MVP-caliber season from Williams, Poles is out.