Four national media outlets that are wrong about the Chicago Bears

ESPN has the Chicago Bears ranked dead last in their FPI ratings

Finally, we have the last of the national media outlets that are off on where the Chicago Bears should rank at this time of the year. Of course ESPN is putting the Bears last. They know it will spark conversation and their ratings will go up. It’s honestly smart since the Bears are a bottom-third team but in a top-three market. If they ranked them 25th, no one is talking about it.

Now, to be fair, these aren’t actual power rankings. Instead, these are ESPN’s Football Power Index ratings. The ratings take projections and ratings into account — meaning they should be mostly data-driven. The problem is what data is being used in the projections? No projection model is perfect and I’ll go further to say that the Chicago Bears being last proves it.

Since ESPN created the stat QBR and Justin Fields finished last in that statistic last season, the model is obviously down on him as a quarterback. That’s one reason for the low rating. My guess is it’s also hard to rate rookies — especially their impact on a defense. The ESPN FPI ratings clearly have flaws. Losing Khalil Mack and Allen Robinson played a part in receiving the bottom spot too. It just makes no logical sense and I’ll explain why next.