LAKE FOREST, Ill., — The bye weeks have not been kind to the Chicago Bears in recent history. Since 2014, the Bears are 1-10 coming out of the bye week, and at one point, lost nine-straight games from 2014-2022.
The Bears' lone win in that stretch came in 2023 when the Bears beat the Detroit Lions at home 28-13 in Week 14. It was the only win out of the bye for Matt Eberflus, who went 1-2, including a loss out of the bye against the Commanders at Washington last year. Prior to Eberflus, Matt Nagy went 0-4 out of bye, while John Fox was 0-3, and Marc Trestman was 1-1.
The last coach to have a winning record out of the bye was Lovie Smith, who went 6-3 in his nine seasons as head coach.
Overall, this will be the fifth time the Bears have had a bye week in Week 5. Of the previous four times that has happened, the Bears have made the playoffs just once. They have an overall record of 33-31 in those seasons combined.
With the Bears winning their previous two games before the bye to get to 2-2, the task for Ben Johnson is to get his team going fast out of the Week 5 bye. Getting to 3-2 and scoring a big primetime win over the Washington Commanders would be huge for momentum moving forward. But as you can see, history is not on his side.
Other stats of note:
- With Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels meeting in Week 6, it marks the second occurrence ever where the No. 1 and No. 1 overall pick quarterbacks from the same Draft meet each other as starting quarterbacks in each of their first two seasons (Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson in 2021 and 2022).
- The Bears offense has used 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE) on 31.2% of their called pass plays this season, the 5th-highest rate in the NFL.
- Week 6 brings us a matchup of the best rush offense in the NFL, with Washington averaging 5.9 yards per attempt, against the worst rush defense in the league with Chicago allowing 6.1 yards per attempt.
- Chicago wide receiver Rome Odunze was the only player in the NFL with a touchdown reception in each of the first four weeks of the season and can become the first player since Mike Evans in 2020 to record a touchdown reception in each of his team's first five games of a season.
- Jayden Daniels has scrambled on 20.5% of his dropbacks this season, the highest rate in the NFL.
- The Bears, through five weeks, are allowing the highest rate of rush yards before contact in the NFL, just as they did in 2024. They're also exceptionally bad at tackling; no one averages more missed tackles per carry this season.
- The Bears have scored 31 points in the first quarters of games this season, averaging 7.8 points scored in the first quarter, the highest average in the NFL through Week 5.
- Chicago's defense has held opponents to a 29.3 percent third-down conversion rate, ranking No. 1 in the NFL through the first five weeks.
- The Bears run game has really struggled this season. Of Chicago's 12 offensive touchdowns, 72.7% of them have come from the pass. That's tied for ninth in the NFL through the first five weeks of the season.
- Caleb Williams has registered a 124.3 passer rating against this blitz this season, the fifth-best passer rating by a QB when facing a blitz in the NFL through Week 5.
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