The Chicago Bears offense was frankly, a mess last season. Ups and downs are expected for a rookie quarterback, but Caleb Williams had three offensive coordinators and two head coaches and everything tumbled into dysfunction from there.
Head coach Ben Johnson is quickly bringing order to the operation, and with Williams being better set up to succeed, everything else will naturally look better in the Chicago offense.
Last season, Bears' wide receivers D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze operated on the opposite ends of extremes. Odunze was a downfield target and not much else, and his numbers were suppressed by Williams' struggles throwing deep. On the flipside Moore set career-lows in yards per catch (9.9), air yards per target (7.5), yards per target (6.9) and yards per route run (1.45) last year, which yielded one positive; a career-high 98 receptions.
Johnson will not pigeonhole Moore or Odunze into such distinct, and frankly inefficient, roles. From a fantasy perspective the Bears' top two wide receivers can only be better this year, in direct parallel to Williams being better.
Fantasy notes on Caleb Williams, D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze fortify upside for Bears' offense
ESPN fantasy analyst Tristan Cockroft recently compiled a long list of numbers fantasy football managers should be aware of heading into drafts, and the Bears were the subject of some interesting ones.
Moore does not scream "contested catch guy", but this stat is particularly interesting if his downfield route tree comes back this year/his rapport with Williams improves.
"10-In the past three seasons combined, DJ Moore had a league-leading 10 catches on throws that Next Gen Stats calculated had a 25% chance of completion or worse."
The inefficiencies in Odunze's production as rookie last year are well-documented, but Cockroft put a finer point on it in a "one of these things was not like the others" way.
"7-only seven receivers saw at least 15 red-zone targets, had at least 10 yards average depth of target and averaged at least 30 routes run per game last season. The obvious five were Justin Jefferson, Drake London, Sutton, Tee Higgins and Tyreek Hill, all of whom finished among the top 18 wide receivers in PPR fantasy points. You might reasonably have guessed a sixth, Jordan Addison, who finished 21st."
"The seventh was a much tougher one to guess: Rome Odunze, who finished 49th."
During their 10-game losing streak after the bye week last season, the Bears lost by at least 16 points (two scores, to put it more directly) five times. So this nugget from Cockroft isn't surprising.
"55 -Of Caleb Williams' 254.54 fantasy points last season (16th-most among quarterbacks), a league-leading 55% came with his Chicago Bears trailing by at least a touchdown. In fact, he amassed 35% of his seasonal fantasy point total in what's commonly considered "garbage time," after halftime of games and with his team needing at least two scores in order to tie."
Garbage time can be a gold mine in fantasy football, so if the Bears are more competitive this year Williams will have less of it. But that will be offset by being better and more efficient all game long, so the Year 2 upside for the Bears' signal caller remains firmly in place.
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When that potential red flag for Williams can be rightfully ignored, we know the Bears' offense is loaded with fantasy potential this year. The three players Cockroft had data nuggets for lead the way.