Ian Hartitz provides a thorough breakdown of the Chicago Bears heading into the 2025 fantasy football season.

Last year's Bears were riding high fresh off a second consecutive offseason championship that produced franchise QB Caleb Williams, WR Rome Odunze, and WR Keenan Allen. It sure seemed like these moves were yielding desired results after Chicago entered the bye with a sterling 4-2 record … and then the Jayden Daniels Hail Mary happened … and then the Bears lost 10 straight games to finish in last place in the NFC North.

That sure escalated quickly. While the defense largely continued to put its best foot forward, this offense struggled mightily to get much of anything going more weeks than not last season.

Chicago Bears in 2024:

  • Points per game: 18.2 (28th)
  • EPA per dropback: -0.04 (25th)
  • EPA per rush: -0.14 (28th)
  • Points per game against: 21.8 (13th)

Enter: 2025, and you'll never believe this, but the Bears have won another offseason championship! Lions OC wunderkind Ben Johnson is the new man in charge, more playmakers were added to the WR and TE rooms, and—arguably most importantly—a plethora of offensive line upgrades should help improve PFF's reigning 24th-ranked unit.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy related) questions about the Bears ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Bears 2025 Fantasy Football Team Preview

Will 2025 be any different for Caleb Williams with Ben Johnson?

Williams' disappointing rookie campaign was mostly just relative to his "generational" billing as the 2024 NFL Draft's No. 1 overall pick. There were still plenty of highs; the former Heisman winner is certainly blessed with some special arm talent and can evade pass rushers with the best of them.

Still, there were too many times when the easy was hard, and negative plays were far too frequent, particularly when it came to avoiding sacks: Only Will Levis (30.4%) had a higher pressure-to-sack rate than Williams (28.2%) in 2024. PFF assigns blame on each sack, and Williams led the league in his OWN sacks taken (17) independent of the offensive line's own much-publicized issues.

Some weeks Williams looked like Superman, other weeks … yikes.

So why will 2025 be any different? Well …

  • The scheme: Ben Johnson is anyone's idea of a top-five playcaller and oversaw the league's highest-scoring offense from 2022 to 2024. More on him in Question 5.
  • Offensive line upgrades: Chicago replaced the interior of its offensive line, signing Falcons C Drew Dalman and trading for former Rams G Jonah Jackson and Chiefs G Joe Thuney. PFF graded Dalman and Thuney as top-10 players at their position last season, while Jackson started 25 games with Johnson during their final two years together in Detroit.
  • More juice in the passing game: It's not fair to say DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, and Keenan Allen were anything close to a bad WR trio, but it's also hard to deny the 2025 Bears have managed to make a strength even stronger. The probable departure of free agent Keenan Allen (turned 33 in April) was met by spending the 39th overall pick on Missouri playmaker Luther Burden. Additionally, stud Michigan TE Colston Loveland was added with the team's 10th overall pick.

Bottom line: The Bears have turned every stone in an effort to make Williams' second season work far better than the first. And you know what? I'm buying it … to an extent. We already know Williams' magician act out-of-structure has translated to some incredible plays; an improved environment and the presence of an S Tier playcaller should make for far more consistency and hopefully fewer negative plays.

Now, I don't love the fact that Williams (ADP QB9) is actually more expensive than he was this time last year, but he's firmly in that low-end QB1 tier alongside dual-threat mavens Justin Fields and Kyler Murray. That said: I would want to hedge my bet just a bit in re-draft formats by also using a later-round pick on someone like J.J. McCarthy or Trevor Lawrence, AKA cheaper archetypes in the same "this offensive environment could be quite sick" mold.

Can fantasy managers trust D'Andre Swift as a Zero-RB staple?

There exists this idea that new Bears head coach Ben Johnson was one of the decision makers behind trading Swift to the Eagles prior to the 2023 season. Even if true, does it necessarily mean Johnson "hated" Swift if the girl he wound up calling instead was Jahmyr Gibbs?

Look, I'm not going to sit here and say Swift is a great RB. Anyone who's caught a few of his performances in recent years has seen more than a few examples of poor vision, and his advanced metrics last season were largely all among the league's bottom-10 backs.

That said …

  • Swift joined De'Von Achane in the league's bottom-seven rushers in rushing yards over expected per carry.
  • Jonathan Taylor and Kyren Williams joined him in the bottom-10 backs in yards after contact per carry.
  • His tackles avoided per carry mark was only 0.01% worse than Joe Mixon.

Those RBs all finished as top-10 producers in PPR points per game anyway (Swift was RB21) because high-end volume in a halfway decent offense tends to lead to bunches of fantasy points even if the efficiency isn't great. 

It's the latter point on volume that is the crux for supporting Swift in fantasy land at the moment: The Bears' only addition to the position this entire offseason was seventh-round Rutgers RB Kyle Monangai. Even the rumored addition of someone like Nick Chubb would seemingly be more of an impact to the early-down/David Montgomery component of this backfield (Roschon Johnson).

Again, Swift is not great, but he's also not some sort of "Kalen Ballage" level of terrible RB incapable of doing a single good thing on the football field! (Sorry for the stray, Kalen Ballage).

Swift has never finished worse than the RB24 in PPR points per game since entering the league in 2020. He was the RB16 during his only season with Johnson as OC. It's curious that Swift gets cut seemingly no slack for operating behind the same offensive line that apparently ruined Williams' rookie campaign.

Bottom line: Still just 26 years old, Swift has the explosive, pass-catcher profile we want in fantasy with real room for upside in an ascending offense—don't be too quick to hold Swift's porous 2024 efficiency stats against him if you didn't do it for Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry, or Josh Jacobs prior to their bounceback campaigns last season. There's legit RB1 upside here at an RB3 price tag.

Roschon averaged just 2.7 yards per carry last year on 55 attempts—dead last among 70 RBs. That said, a lot were in short yardage and a robust 36.4% were against stacked boxes, which would have been the highest mark in the league if qualified. Of course, if this backfield could become a lower-middle-class man's version of Detroit, Johnson could still provide enough goal-line excellence and handcuff upside to smash his late-round RB51 ADP.

Who will lead this revamped WR room?

DJ Moore's first season in Chicago produced career-high marks across the board. Life was good with Justin Fields under center, as the ex-Panther dodged, ducked, dipped, dived, and dodged his way to the ninth-most PPR points per game among all WRs.

Unfortunately, DJM's encore campaign wasn't quite as cool. Shane Waldron's more gadgety usage didn't help, and the chemistry with Williams simply wasn't there. The result was career-low efficiency numbers across the board and per-game counting stats that were far removed from what Bears fans had seen before 2024. 

Of course, Moore had plenty of competition in the offense in the form of Rome Odunze and Keenan Allen. The 2024 rookie struggled to live up to his top-10 billing, ranking 11th in yards per route run (1.18) and 10th in passer rating when targeted (82.7) among 12 rookie WRs with at least 50 targets last season.

Hey, there were some flashes amidst the *throws up in mouth* WR59 finish in PPR points per game …

 

… but man: We're talking about a campaign that produced just the 39th-most PPR points per game among rookie WRs over the last five years. Relatively meh talents like Gabe Davis, Treylon Burks, and Michael Wilson all had more productive debut seasons than Odunze, who, yes, had plenty of target competition. But, also yes, still did manage to get fed triple-digit pass-game opportunities when it was all said and done.

Finally, there's the newbie in town: Missouri WR Luther Burden. Fantasy Life draft expert Thor Nystrom had the following to say on his predraft WR4:

"Burden is very much like Percy Harvin in that his north/south explosion not only chews up yards quickly, but it converts into an element of power that gives him a little tackle-breaking juice. When Burden gets chugging, he’ll bounce off off-angle attempts from defensive backs. 

"Burden’s 4.41 40 at the NFL Combine was 95th-percentile, and his 10-yard split of 1.54 was 90th-percentile—he has house-call, angle-erasing speed with green grass in front of him. 

“Burden profiles as a flammable third banana for an elite passing offense. If your boundary receivers are good enough to demand double-high safety looks for four quarters, Burden is going to punish defenses for the short and intermediate spacing that is naturally going to be there.”

The YAC upside is the story here: Burden joins Malik f*cking Nabers as the only two SEC WRs to force at least 30 missed tackles on receptions in a single season over the last five years. Burden's 0.49 missed tackle forced rate is the second-highest mark of any Power 5 WR of the last decade.

Final note: Shoutout Olamide Zaccheaus. He's a good WR4!

Bottom line: There have been subpar vibes surrounding DJ Moore this offseason after some questionable effort throughout 2024. Then again, the 28-year-old talent is easily the most proven pass catcher in an offense most of us expect to rebound in a big way this year, so his low-end WR2 price tag isn't too big of an issue considering the proven top-10 upside at hand. I wouldn't say I've gone out of my way to draft Moore this offseason, but I'm cool with him at that price and would draft him ahead of guys like DK Metcalf and Xavier Worthy.

That said: I've been less inclined to pick Odunze (ADP WR34) ahead of more proven No. 2 options like George Pickens and Jaylen Waddle as well as higher-volume ceiling WR1s like Calvin Ridley and Chris Olave. Burden also hasn't exactly been someone I've gone out of my way to select at his top-50 price tag; Keon Coleman and Rashod Bateman are preferred targets for me in that range thanks to their more likely potential to be the No. 2 WR in higher-upside passing attacks.

Is Colston Loveland poised for a TE1 rookie season?

It's certainly possible! Here's to hoping the Injury Gods help the current shoulder recovery go smoothly; Bears senior director of player personnel Jeff King said Loveland should be ready to go for training camp in July, and that the team wouldn’t push his return.

If healthy, we're looking at a potential (rare) Year 1 difference-maker at the position. Per Fantasy Life Director of Analytics Dwain McFarland: “Loveland is a midrange TE1 prospect with high-end TE1 upside. Loveland offers high-end TE1 upside in dynasty formats, making him worthy of a mid-Round 1 selection in rookie drafts. In redraft and best ball formats, it might take Loveland time to get going, but he could come on strong late, making him a high-end TE2 target.”

One of just six TEs to earn top-10 draft capital since 2000, Loveland's talent profile alone is worth betting on, and there's also plenty of optimism surrounding Ben Johnson's history with Sam LaPorta. Overall, the Lions' rising third-year talent posted TE3 and TE10 finishes in Utilization Score during his first two seasons while scoring 14 (TE3) and 11.3 (TE8) PPR points per game.

There's just one “problem:” Cole Kmet is still alive and well. GM Ryan Poles gave him a four-year, $50 million extension in 2023 for a reason, and the Bears can't reasonably get out of the contract without a trade before 2026. I'm not implying that Kmet will keep Loveland on the bench; just realize things could be more split than fantasy managers would prefer, a la Dawson Knox and Dalton Kincaid in Buffalo. This is reflected in the Fantasy Life projections with Loveland (82 targets, 12th at the position) working ahead, but not exactly shutting out Kmet (37). 

Bottom line: I'm fine betting on the talent of Loveland when looking at fellow borderline TE1s in crowded offenses like Kincaid, Brenton Strange, Tyler Warren, and Tucker Kraft. That said: His top-10 re-draft ADP is a bit too stiff for me at the moment; I prefer the target ceilings of Evan Engram and David Njoku at that price. Still, the long-term upside for Loveland can't be understated. I've scooped him up as much as possible in dynasty land this offseason.

What makes Ben Johnson's scheme so great?

Well for one thing: The man loves play-action and keeping the opponent off-balance at the snap via motion.

Overall, Johnson's play-action rate in three seasons with the Lions was the highest in the league by 5.2! Top-eight marks in pre-snap motion (59.3%) and trick looks (7%) reflect the reality that there is a LOT for defenses to worry about on any given play.

Pushing these sorts of "Easy Buttons" in the passing game is made all the more effective thanks to the reality that teams have needed to account for Johnson's explosive run game. The Lions were the NFL's fifth-most run-heavy offense last year in dropback rate over expected, and Johnson deserves a lot of credit for essentially being the league's top offense in yards before contact per carry *without* the assistance of a high-end dual-threat QB.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Johnson's Xs and Os, or the Lions' Jimmies and Joes, had more to do with all the big point totals in Detroit over the past few years. We'll find out soon enough!

Chicago Bears Prediction for 2025

I fully understand the bounceback potential of the 2025 Bears, but unfortunately, this loaded division is just more proven all the way around. That is more so my argument against the Bears clearing 8.5 wins as opposed to anything necessarily against them; a positive three-win boost over last season still wouldn't quite get them there.

Give me under 8.5 wins despite a solid offensive improvement, and my bold fantasy call is that D'Andre Swift will emerge as one of the better Zero-RB picks by supplying a top-15 finish in PPR points per game.