{"id":891343,"date":"2026-05-14T21:36:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/891343\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T21:36:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T21:36:59","slug":"odds-revealed-for-panthers-reported-week-1-matchup-vs-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/891343\/","title":{"rendered":"Odds revealed for Panthers’ reported Week 1 matchup vs. Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, the NFL schedule is mostly already known before it’s officially revealed at 8:00 p.m. ET. While we don’t have the full picture for the Carolina Panthers<\/a> yet, a bunch of games have already been leaked for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The biggest news item is that the Panthers will open the season<\/a> at home against the Chicago Bears<\/a>, the reigning NFC North champions at Bank of America Stadium. But despite the home-field advantage, the early odds have Chicago favored by 2.5 points . . .<\/p>\n

The Bears pulled off a stunning turnaround in 2025 thanks to the addition of the first gifted offensive playcaller in their 100-year history, head coach Ben Johnson. He got a very impressive second season out of quarterback Caleb Williams<\/a>\u2014who posted nearly 4,000 passing yards, 27 touchdowns, 7 interceptions and a 90.1 passer rating.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

As usual, Chicago has a strong ground game, with running back D’Andre Swift reaching over 1,000 rushing yards and nine touchdowns and backup Kyle Monangai<\/a> chipping in another 783 yards and five scores. Rookie tight end Tight end Colston Loveland<\/a> led a balanced passing game with 713 receiving yards and six touchdowns.<\/p>\n

While their secondary is stacked, the Bears no longer have a solid defensive front-seven and finished last season ranked 22nd in sacks. They ranked the same in passing yards allowed per game and even lower (27th) against the run.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, their vastly-improved offense pushed the team to an 11-6 record, which was good enough for first place in an extremely tight division race. They’d go on to lose to the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> in the divisional round of the playoffs in a close finish.<\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0@ThePanthersWire<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter\/X for more Panthers content.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: NFL schedule: Panthers underdogs for reported Week 1 tilt vs. Bears<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, the NFL schedule is mostly already known before it’s officially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[1036,235,260,2567,391,590,7,40053,2526,58,6,236],"class_list":["post-891343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-caleb-williams","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-chicago-bears","tag-colston-loveland","tag-football","tag-jaime-eisner","tag-kyle-monangai","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-nfl","tag-panthers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116575093131144741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891343","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=891343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}