PICK: Chicago Bears<\/p>\n
\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffIdeally, the Kickoff Game is a rip-roaring barnburner that keeps everyone buzzing until Sunday. In that light, the Bears might seem like an odd match, coming off a five-win 2024. But as tempting as the Rams, Lions and Commanders might be, we won’t actually know the shape of each team’s season — and their ability to push the Eagles — until long after the first Thursday night of play. So let’s zero in on one of the questions I’m most eager to see answered: Can Ben Johnson and Chicago’s remade offensive line unlock \ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffCaleb Williams<\/a>\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff? As litmus tests go, this would be a doozy for the Bears, with none of the cover provided by a 1 p.m. ET start on Sunday against, say, the Browns or Raiders<\/a>. But that’s part of the appeal. If they can hang with Philly, the hype that’s been building in Chicago will be at least partially realized — and if they can’t, the amount of work Johnson and Co. have left will be brutally revealed. To this offseason-addled brain, either outcome feels compelling. (Plus, we could get a shadow version of one of the clashes — the offense of ex-Detroit coordinator Johnson vs. Vic Fangio’s defense — that the Lions’ early exit denied us in the postseason.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PICK: Chicago Bears \ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeff\ufeffIdeally, the Kickoff Game is a rip-roaring barnburner that keeps everyone buzzing until Sunday. In…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[90,391,146,113,2506,7,6516,393,147,58,6,609,109,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-10806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-chicago-bears","10":"tag-detroit","11":"tag-detroit-lions","12":"tag-detroitlions","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-instant-debate","15":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","16":"tag-lions","17":"tag-los-angeles-rams","18":"tag-nfl","19":"tag-no-minute","20":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","21":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114423512790901588","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}