Bear Digest

Chicago Bears gain in latest power rankings just not against NFC

The pre-draft power rankings from Pro Football Focus have the Bears inside the top 14 teams but not necessarily in a playoff position.
Gene Chamberlain|
The NFC entire NFC north is the league's top 13 teams, according to Pro Football Focus' latest power rankings.
The NFC entire NFC north is the league's top 13 teams, according to Pro Football Focus' latest power rankings. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Bears have made their offseason moves and situated themselves for the draft.

The end result is they still have not cracked the barrier to be considered a playoff team, according to the rankings of the website Pro Football Focus.

It's a sign of how tough the NFC North is and also how the NFC has more good teams than the AFC, but the Bears are in the top 14 and 14 teams make the playoffs—they're just not in the top seven for their conference and the top seven NFC teams are playoff teams.

PFF ranks the Bears 13th in NFL power rankings going into the draft. However, there are seven teams from the NFC ahead of them, the last one being the Green Bay Packers at No. 12.

The Vikings are also in the top 13, ranking eighth even without a starting QB who has taken an NFL regular-season snap.

The Eagles are No. 1 and Detroit, even without Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn as coordinators, is ranked second.  

Somehow, the Bears moved up two spots since their last PFF power rankings at the end of the first week of free agency. Maybe it was the later free agency signings like Devin Duvernay and Olamide Zaccheaus that put them over the top in the eyes of the bean counters at this analytics site.

In his summary, PFF's Bradley Locker doesn't discount the notion the Bears could actually become a playoff team.

"The talent is there for Chicago to reach its first postseason since 2020, but Caleb Williams (63.5 PFF passing grade) and Rome Odunze (65.3 PFF receiving grade) will need to play like top-10 picks to make that happen," Locker wrote.  "Overall, it’s easy to be bullish on a new-look Bears team with Ben Johnson calling the shots, especially with what’s expected to be a new, high-profile running back—but there could be growing pains for a first-time head coach on a big stage."

Maybe the most interesting part of PFF's ranking is the team needs listed for this draft. They say the needs are edge rusher, defensive line and safety.

All are definite needs, but they kind of forgot two massive needs like offensive line depth and, oh by the way, maybe a running back.

After all, it was Pro Football Focus that graded Bears starting running back D'Andre Swift 43rd out of the 47 backs league-wide last season. That was one season after he was 45th out of 58 backs while playing with the Eagles.

If that doesn't say PFF should think they need a running back in the draft, what does?

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.