Thursday, November 20th, 2025, week 12 already of the NFL season kicks off tonight. The Bills, the Texans, good game actually. Be fun to see how Josh Allen handles this really good Texans defense, playing how he's been playing for the last few weeks, which is just hero ball. If you haven't watched the Buffalo Bills, I do recommend you watch them. Josh Allen is back to where he was a couple of years ago, where there seems to be no offensive structure whatsoever and he's just doing things. And there's nothing more fun to watch in this league than when Josh Allen gets into hero mode because all of a sudden he's throwing lateral passes 20 yards down the field. He did that last week. The craziest play of the week. Bears Steelers in Chicago. Bears about a field goal favorite. I think that'll come down a little bit before kickoff. Hard game to analyze because these are two really strange teams. This is not a vintage Chicago Bears team. They do not play particularly good defense. They do get turnovers. They have no pass rush. They are depleted in the secondary, but they are driven by their quarterback and driven by their offense. Something we have not said in a long time about this organization. The Steelers aren't particularly good at anything, except they also do what the Bears do. They win. Now, Rogers, is he playing, is he not playing? If he's hobbled, I don't think it really matters. I don't think Rudolph's any good, but again, I don't think who plays quarterback against the Bears is all that big a deal. If that guy can simply make throws because we've seen it. You're going to have opportunities against this Bears team, regardless of conditions, regardless of your skillset. You're going to have opportunities because they simply don't get enough pressure to compensate for the depletions on the back end. Now you get Jalen Johnson out there. You get Tyler Gordon out there healthy. You get these guys back. That changes. But unless pass rush suddenly starts to emerge out of nowhere and it would be coming out of nowhere, whoever plays quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers is going to have a chance to make plays down the field. JJ last week just missed them and he missed a lot of them and they weren't even difficult throws. Rewatching the game, there was a couple of moments where I really shook my head where he sailed balls 10 and 15 yards over people's heads. Whoever plays quarterback this week for the Steelers is going to have opportunities. Now the Steelers don't defend the pass particularly well. They defend the run better. My expectation is they're going to look at the tape. They're going to try to take this run away from the Bears and then they are going to try to tee off on the left tackle. I cannot imagine the Pittsburgh Steelers meeting rooms aren't all talking this week about the vulnerability on the left side of the offensive line at tackle for the Bears. Benedict was really bad a week ago and I would expect them to try to confuse him more, overpower him when they can, and if not try to contain Caleb in the pocket, at least try to hurry his decision making because otherwise they're going to get lit up on the back. Offensively, I think the Bears will commit to the run game. I think they're always going to do that at home. But this is also a game where you don't want that Steelers pass rush to start to get confident. So this is a good game to go to a quick release offense. Get the ball out of Caleb's hands quickly. Get it to Loveland. Get it to Burden. Get it to Swift out of the backfield. You're going to have to loosen the pressure. This is by no means a Vintage Steelers pass rush, but you don't have to be that to take advantage of what is the glaring roster hole on offense, which is left tackle. So I think it's telling that Ben Johnson said this week to the media that he wants to be scheming his guys open. He doesn't want the 50-50 balls. He doesn't want the jump balls down the field. That's not his structure. And that's still the negotiation that has to take place between Caleb and Ben Johnson. Caleb wants to chuck it. He wants those 50-50 balls. Ben doesn't want those. He wants to be hitting guys on the shallow cross in stride for big yards after the catch. This is the kind of week to really zero in on that approach. Because if the Steelers take the run game away and the Bears find themselves in that third and five plus, that's when Theo Benedet becomes the real problem. It's a real problem. The big picture on this game is you've got to try to sneak out a win here. And the reason why has nothing to do with this game. If you sneak out a win here, it's house money next week against the Eagles. That game is going to be incredibly difficult to win. The Eagles' flaws offensively have been their inability to mount a consistent downfield passing game. They're not going to have that problem against the Bears. Hearst will be under very little pressure. And those big, talented wide receivers are going to be open all over the field. Unless the Bears get healthy quick. So there's no way I'm picking the Bears to go to Philly and win next Friday. If you win this week and can get to eight and three, house money game in Philly, empty out the kooky playbook, see what happens. But this game here and these two teams that are very similar to each other right now, this is a game where the Bears, I think, can stamp, stamp this playoff conversation. This is the kind of game where you can go out, you win the game at home, you go to eight and three. And now you're saying to yourselves, we are just consistently proven that when we show up on Sunday, we can win every game. That's what this game is. These are evenly matched teams. This is another coin flip matchup, Bears and Steelers. But I think the difference in this game is going to be Ben Johnson. And I think the difference in this game is going to be the Bears ability to move the ball in the passing attack. They're going to run it. But this feels like a breakout game for the passing attack. It was really close last week against Minnesota. And Minnesota is a far superior defense to Pittsburgh. This feels like, and I'm going to predict it, this feels like the breakout game. Caleb throws for like 340, two touchdowns and runs for another. It's that kind of game. And I'm going to predict what I don't like to predict with this team. I'm going to predict them to win one, not in the last minute. I'm going to call it 27-17. Bears win at home and get to 8-3. Bear down.