Are the Bears Going To Have the BEST Offense In NFL History?

Actual regular season games, at last. Chris had five different places he could have started, and he went to the one everybody watched last.

Sunday night in the Meadowlands. And to be clear, his take was not about the Cowboys.

"Led by Jaxson Dart, who was awesome, the Giants are the best team in the NFC East and legit NFC contenders."

Rich split it. Best team in the East is entirely possible and not an overreaction. Legit NFC contenders needs another week, starting with Monday night against a Rams team that is well rested, angry, highly talented and short Myles Garrett.

What he could not get past was the other sideline. He is patently disappointed by that Dallas defensive performance, and noted that the greatest offense there is, the acronym Dak Prescott has been selling as GOTI, made its debut in New Jersey and got buried somewhere in a parking lot.

The Giants, meanwhile, look physically absurd. Abdul Carter, Arvell Reese, Tremaine Edmunds and Brian Burns are big, fast and strong, and Rich reached for the Monstars of Space Jam. Healthy and well coached, that front is something to behold.

Offensively the questions are smaller than they were a week ago. Malik Nabers looked strong and got stronger. Odell Beckham Jr. was not a factor and presumably will be. The two Ravens John Harbaugh brought with him, Isaiah Likely and Patrick Ricard, have transformed the operation, with Likely functioning as the number two receiver and Ricard taking pressure off Dart in the run game and in protection.

The coaching is the part Rich kept returning to. Matt Nagy and Greg Roman are two of the more seasoned and more maligned offensive coaches in the league, maligned in Chicago and San Francisco and in Los Angeles with the Chargers, a subject that would come up again later. On Sunday night, Cris Collinsworth kept telling viewers to just follow Patrick Ricard to find the ball, right up until the fourth quarter when the Giants ran Ricard one way and Skattebo the other.

Chris added the damning part. They ran the same play three and four times in a row, and Dallas could not stop it.

Dart was efficient, led the team in rushing, and never looked reckless. Rich called the whole thing half proper reaction, half overreaction.

Next up, a grouping. "The top three in MVP voting this year will be Trevor Lawrence, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson in some order."

Rich did not call that an overreaction either, having picked Allen before the season. He did flag two names who could crash it. Joe Burrow, if he gets more efficient. And Caleb Williams, who was about to get his own segment.

The Allen numbers hold up to any scrutiny. Ninth career game with multiple passing and rushing touchdowns, five more than the next closest player, Steve Young. Two passing and two rushing touchdowns Sunday. He now has 303 combined passing and rushing touchdowns, the most by any player in his first nine seasons, and he is the only member of the 300 club. Houston gave up 36 points, the most that defense has allowed in a game since 2023, after surrendering 30 just once all of last season. The hair, Rich noted, was already in postseason form.

Then the Bears, and the take that has followed this show all week.

"The Bears are going to break the Broncos' 2013 total points record."

Chris was not freelancing. Ben Johnson has said it out loud, that it is a goal this season and they are going to do it. What made the take impossible to dismiss was what happened in the NFL Network screening room, where Rich was watching with Cooper, his 15 year old, who came to work with him.

Chicago got to the edge of 58 points, and a roomful of people had the same thought at the same instant. Would Ben Johnson go for two to get to a 60 burger?

"Like the Matrix, my brain was attached to everyone else in the room," Rich said. They all held their collective breath waiting to see whether the placekicker would run out.

That is the whole argument. The mere fact that it crossed everybody's mind is the evidence. Rich has been saying all day that to win anything, in college or the pros, your coach has to be a little bit crazy in a good way, and Johnson qualifies. He also went for it on fourth down early in that game from around his own 25.

The final was 59 points, and Rich would not call the record take an overreaction. He did note the asterisk hanging over it. Chicago may have to score like that every week given how the defense played, which is the shutouts half of the blowouts and shutouts promise. Blowouts they have. Shutouts, not so much. Carolina, which added Devin Lloyd and Jaylen Phillips to its front seven, still put up enough that it briefly looked like whoever had the ball last would win, the way Buffalo and Houston played it.

The numbers underneath are absurd. DeAndre Swift had 124 yards and three rushing touchdowns, the first Bears player with that line since Rashaan Salaam in 1995. Williams added multiple rushing touchdowns for the first time in his career. The last Chicago duo with two or more rushing scores in the same game was Neal Anderson and Jim McMahon, in the 1988 opener.

Chris had two footnotes. Colston Loveland, drafted as a third tight end in roughly every fantasy league, finished with zero catches. And afterward, Caleb Williams reportedly told Dave Canales that Carolina has a great defense.

Next take, back to Thursday, or Friday, depending on who is counting. "The 49ers are the team to beat in the NFC."

Rich held that one in abeyance, and not because he doubts San Francisco. Seattle is still in that division. The Bears just gave up almost 40. It is September, and crowning anybody now is premature, even with Steve Young on record calling you stupid for overlooking the Niners.

Los Angeles came up here too. Sam Darnold is out at least a month, or two weeks per Ian Rapoport. Matthew Stafford looked washed, which sent Rich on a defense of the man. Stafford flew to Australia, an 18 hour international flight across the date line, at damn near 40 years old, leaving a wife and four kids, to go play quarterback against Fred Warner and get chased by Nick Bosa.

"I'm one day into waking up for Game Day Morning in the middle of the morning," Rich said. "I feel washed."

The halftime read was Minnesota. "Carson Wentz led an epic Vikings comeback and he should be the Vikings QB1 moving forward."

Kyler Murray left the game in concussion protocol after throwing an interception on his first pass, a chuck and duck that Rich could not explain. Chris wants the job handed over.

Rich does not disagree with the sentiment and does not believe it will happen. Minnesota still has a first overall pick early in his career on an inexpensive contract, and that is a real opportunity to find out what is there. Sacrificing that on the altar of a former second overall pick who has been kicking around, including a stretch in Indianapolis that ended with the late Jim Irsay simply not wanting to see him anymore, is a bigger decision than one comeback justifies.

He did map the path, though. If Wentz wins in Chicago and Minnesota is 2-0 heading to Tampa, you start him again. If it falters, Murray goes back in and you say he was not ready anyway.

"Stranger magic carpet rides have been woven before," Rich said. And as Justin Jefferson knows, whatever he wants, that is the quarterback.

Then a division-wide verdict. "Nobody in the NFC South will finish over .500 this year."

Overreaction, Rich said. The South went 0-4 and still scored over 100 points combined. The Saints' fourth quarter in Detroit was real, with Tyler Shough winging it and Chris Olave and Devaughn Vele catching everything, a pairing Rich immediately filed as a crime fighting duo, two more sons of Cagney and Lacey. Chase Young was blowing up Jared Goff. Rich is willing to put a marker on New Orleans.

The Rams take was next, and it was the boldest of the day. "The Rams dream team is going to end up just like the 2011 Eagles version. That is, missed playoffs."

Rich called it ridiculous, and then argued with the premise rather than the history. Those Eagles started 1-4, sat at 3-6 and 4-8, and finished 8-8. This roster is too talented for that. The running backs, receivers and tight ends are good enough, and the back end of the defense is vastly improved. The pass rush, minus Verse and Garrett and possibly Aaron Donald, needs to be better, which is its own problem given that Los Angeles lacked both Garrett and Donald last year and still nearly reached the Super Bowl.

What he cannot forgive is the travel plan.

"The idea of going to Australia last minute and saying we're just going to keep our mental clocks where they are, despite an 18 hour international date line crossing trip, just boggles the mind."

He gave the last word to an unexpected source. John McEnroe, on Friday's show to preview a US Open men's semifinal between Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, volunteered that he has been to Australia 40 times and has no idea what the Rams were thinking.

The schedule does not help. The Giants next, the only home date of the next three, then Denver and Philadelphia on the road, then Buffalo and Arizona at home, and Arizona looks awfully comfortable in SoFi Stadium.

Raiders next. "They are not going to finish in fourth place in the AFC West."

Rich called that one an overreaction, on two grounds. They played Miami, a team that started multiple rookies and about which nobody knows anything yet. And it was the Raiders' second straight season opening win, a distinction Rich enjoyed pointing out given that Pete Carroll is not the coach anymore.

The Ashton Jeanty case is still fun. That was his second career game with 100 rushing yards and two receiving touchdowns. The Raiders as a franchise have two such games, and Jeanty has both of them. Marcus Allen never did it. He is the third player since 1950 with multiple such games, joining Brian Westbrook and Christian McCaffrey, and he has done it in a season plus one game. If Klint Kubiak turns him into the next McCaffrey, Rich said, he is the hire of the hires.

They did all of that without Brock Bowers, with Kirk Cousins winging it around, and with Max Crosby nearly launching Malik Willis out of the stadium.

The hot seat take came next, and it got the sharpest response of the day. "Jim Harbaugh and Matt LaFleur are already on the hot seat."

"Get out of here with that nonsense."

Rich does not dispute that both performances were flabbergasting, one at SoFi and one in Minnesota by Green Bay. He heard all offseason about a Chargers offense that would finally be turned loose, and then watched Justin Herbert run for his life again behind two tackles. Trent Green called it a timing offense on the broadcast. The timing was off.

Chris wanted the Chargers schedule on screen and argued they could start 0-8 playing like that.

Rich's counter is that a six win season is a disappointment, not a firing, and that nobody is dismissing Jim Harbaugh to go find out who else is available. The person carrying real risk is Mike McDaniel, not because the Chargers would move on from him, but because this is his pathway back to a head coaching job.

LaFleur's fourth quarter did earn scrutiny. He went for it on fourth down, then kicked a field goal, then took the points off the board because of an offsides, then went for it on fourth and short and watched it backfire, all while leading by eight. Chris had made the same complaint about Brian Schottenheimer declining fourth and inches to open the Dallas season, opting to hard count instead.

Last one, and Chris saved a good one. "The Bengals defense is a better unit than their offense."

Also an overreaction, and Rich made the argument with some delight. For years the entire discourse has been asking somebody, anybody, to get Joe Burrow a defense so he does not have to do it alone. Cincinnati finally made moves that look correct, and in the first game of the season that defense forced four turnovers and won the game outright.

"And you're now saying this is a sign of a problem for the Bengals."

Had the Bengals been blown out, the conversation would be Zac Taylor's hot seat and whether Burrow wants out because none of it is his fault. Instead the defense delivered, and the take is that the offense is the problem.

It was not a clean day for that offense. Ja'Marr Chase finished with 12 yards, which Rich diagnosed as partly a fantasy football grievance. Burrow did not look good. But the play that sealed it was a Burrow dart to Tee Higgins for a first down that only Higgins could have caught, and he made an all world grab. Chase Brown looked as fast and as hard to bring down as ever. Perine moved the chains.

"Get out of here, man," Rich said, mostly in admiration. "Sometimes I marvel at the way your brain works."

One week in the books.