Quick Slant: Black Friday - Us vs. Them
Mat Irby’s Quick Slant
This city began with an idea meeting ambition; that hit, and the Entrepreneur—one of ours—brought this community along to ride the coattails of their genius and ingenuity. Smokestacks rose over brick, filling cold skies with billows of ceaseless productivity. It meant money; at a time when a single paycheck from a manufacturer could support a family of four in the rowhouses, bungalows, or greystones, it meant security—borderline affluence.
Then came deindustrialization. Highways leveled homes through eminent domain, factories closed, capital migrated, populations thinned and transformed, and church bells that once rang with praise began to plead for provision. Crime became an answer to hunger. Then, riots, unrest, white flight, abandonment.
The city became a study in absence. Police couldn’t keep up with crime, which in turn fostered more distrust in police. The unions wielded the power of empty fists as the Entrepreneur took manufacturing first to the Sun Belt, then to Hong Kong, Indonesia, and India. The grid couldn’t handle brutal winters, so some neighborhoods were sacrificed to the cold. Soon, urban ghost towns—Hamsterdams—were left as broken glass in vacant lots, to run themselves.
But hope returned in unlikely forms: the artist. The poet. The musician. The Brewmeister. The immigrant. The Kumbaya squish. The hipster. Led by contrarianism, economics, and altruism—phony as it may have felt—they led the way.
They reclaimed pockets long left for destruction, taming cold and forsaken buildings beneath boarded-up windows and graffiti crew tags. The smells of donuts and coffee replaced those of urine and waste; the sounds of buskers and whirring E-bikes replaced snarling guard dogs bristling on chain-link. The Entrepreneur returned with loft apartments and trendy microbreweries. Eventually, sanitized revisions papered over the bones of old neighborhoods like three-piece suits forced upon wolves.
The city did what it had to do, and it survived. But the people remembered. Its culture poked through like weeds in the sidewalk. The character of the town and its population held up, rising tougher than ever: fragmented, resourceful, persistent, adaptive, gritty, and transformed.
The Rust Belt is littered with dozens of stories like those of Chicago and Philadelphia, rich throughout the early 20th-century Industrial Revolution, later brought to their knees in the volatile ’60s. Each has a survivor’s tale, but all yield the same byproduct: an “us vs. them” mentality, born from the same hard work, money-doesn’t-grow-on-trees, pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps ethos from Rocky to house clubs on the South Side. In so many ways, Chicago and Philadelphia are perfect analogs.
Beyond their rivers, their music seeded in strife, their frigid air—well past local chapter numbers and VFWs, their flannels and sandwiches, and their I-can-say-it-but-you-can’t self-deprecation—there is a city’s long connection with football, and a fan base’s enduring sense of identity through their team.
Together, the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles rose as underdogs to forge early empires; together, they fell to depths with almost no mercy—a string of endless disappointments so dense the community almost preferred not to win because it wouldn’t know what to do with itself if it was forced to stop bitching about losing.
But a funny thing happened in Philly: they won it all. Then, a few years later, they won it again—the sensation of their ship coming in so foreign that they took to the streets to overturn cars and brick windows anyway. And now, for the first time in ages, Chicago is on the cusp of its own breakthrough.
Gentrified emotions, never diluting survivors’ hearts just beneath, bonded together by these white lines on turf.
Bears
Implied Team Total: 18.75
Their 8-3 records are equal, indicating the Eagles and Bears are evenly matched. As we dig deeper, they may not be; this will be a consistent theme throughout this article, as my research has led me to the deduction that the Eagles are likely still fringe Super Bowl contenders, albeit in need of some philosophical tweaks. The Bears, while respectable, seem like the biggest overachievers in the NFL this year.
We see this in the betting market, where Philadelphia is a 7-point favorite. We see it also in Pythagorean expected wins, where the Bears are 3.9 wins above expectation—most in the league.
The Bears are above average in offensive EPA, and about average in defensive EPA. They are very close to our favorite team archetype in fantasy—a good offense and a bad defense, although they are so near the margins that this pattern barely cuts through.
The Bears rank ninth in offensive EPA per play and 13th in offensive success rate. They rank 11th in offensive EPA per dropback and 19th in offensive success rate on dropbacks.
The Bears are run by first-year HC Ben Johnson, who came over from Detroit with an impeccable reputation as one of the premier offensive minds. There was undoubtedly one outcome many had in mind: the Bears' offense becoming as potent as Detroit has been, which has not come to pass. However, the Bears have improved.
The Bears operate relatively quickly at the line (26.4 seconds to snap, T-8th). They pass on 55% of their plays (T-23rd). The Bears rarely trail by a significant deficit, so they can impose their will when they want to. Their pass rate over expected (PROE) is -0.67% (22nd). They have run 67 plays per 60 minutes (T-4th). This is a suitable environment for fantasy production.
Caleb Williams has had 407 dropbacks (11th), converting them into 360 passing attempts (9th). He is a plus-rusher, with 56-293-3 on the ground—all of which rank between sixth and eighth among all QBs. With a good rushing platform, Williams maintains decent floor and ceiling for fantasy. He’s been a QB1 six times out of 11 and has only had one week where he’s really tanked fantasy lineups. He has been second among QBs in fantasy scoring since Week 9, trailing only Josh Allen.
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As a real-life QB, the jury is still out on whether Williams, considered one of the best QB prospects since Andrew Luck, could become elite. As a passer, he has been below average in success rate and around average in dropback EPA.
The Eagles have allowed the 17th-most fantasy points to opposing QBs in their last five games. They have given up more expected points (EP) than fantasy points over expected (FPOE), indicating that teams have been prone to pass on them but have been unsuccessful at making the most of that.
The Eagles have led by seven or more points on 56 offensive plays per 60 in their last five games, so opponents have been chasing, which probably explains the discrepancy. Teams have been throwing at Philadelphia to try to catch up, and Philadelphia has been expecting its opponents to throw.
The Bears have only two players with a target share per game of better than 15% in their last five games: WRs Rome Odunze (21.3%) and D.J. Moore (15.2%). Neither of these shares is elite, but when coupled with high pass volume, we can work with this—especially Odunze’s 21.3%.
Odunze looked like the archetypal second-year breakout WR up to the bye. Since then, he’s had two performances just inside the top 12 and five smoking craters. What seems especially odd is that so much of this mostly unfavorable run corresponds with some of Williams’ best ball.
Moore’s 15% share yields lower expectations, even with top-notch passing volume. Though each of his only two WR1 weeks has come in the last four weeks, he’s also hit rock bottom in the other two games. And outside of these two performances, Moore has been practically unimportant for fantasy.
And don’t look now, but rookie second-round WR Luther Burden is earning a larger workload as the season goes along. Burden is a challenging play outside of deeper leagues, but this kind of ramp-up begs to be rostered, as we see highly drafted rookie WRs break out late nearly every season.
The Eagles are neutral against WRs in their last five games, surrendering the 16th-most fantasy points to opposing WRs. Mirroring Williams’ pattern, these points are constructed of EP over FPOE.
Burden was a second-round pick. In the first round, the Bears selected TE Colston Loveland. Loveland has been ramping up much as Burden has; the main difference is that Loveland is on the field far more often. In the Bears’ last five games, Burden’s snap share is 41% compared to Loveland’s 73%.
The Eagles have been better against TEs in their last five games; missing injured Tucker Kraft and Sam LaPorta was helpful, but the sample still contains T.J. Hockenson, Theo Johnson, and Jake Ferguson.
The Eagles rank eighth in EPA per play allowed and 13th in defensive success rate. They rank 14th in EPA per dropback allowed and ninth in defensive success rate on rushes.
Philadelphia runs zone coverage at 68.1% (21st). They use single-high at 50.2% (T-18th). They use Cover 3 at 27.7% and Cover 1 at 21.8%. Their preferred two-high look is Cover 6 (21.8%), which they run more than any other team. The Eagles are not prone to blitz at 21.2%.
Fantasy Points’ coverage matchup tool assigns a zero-based matchup grade to each pass-catcher based on their opponent’s use of specific types and rates of coverage and how that pass-catcher performs against them. Positive numbers indicate a favorable matchup and negative numbers indicate an unfavorable one.
The types and rates of coverage the Eagles use favor Loveland, who wins a lot through the middle corridor of the field, between the hashes, particularly underneath. His splits in his work inside and outside the hashes are stark.
According to the tool, Odunze (+2.9%) and Moore (+9.7%) also have favorable matchups. Burden, who has recently usurped WR Olamide Zaccheaus for playing time, doesn’t have enough routes to qualify for the tool.
PFF’s matchup tool is player-based, pitting the PFF ratings of individual players against each other for an expected number of plays based on historical tendencies and rating on a scale from great to poor.
Based on personnel, the Eagles' advantage is decided; the Bears don’t have any favorable matchups, and Williams himself has a poor assignment.
Chicago is excellent in pass protection, allowing only -0.54% pressure rate over expected (PrROE, 4th). The Eagles generate 9.74% PrROE defensively (9th). When added, this makes for a neutral matchup when the Bears are on offense.
In run blocking, the advantage goes to Chicago. The Bears generate 2.41 adjusted yards before contact per attempt (Adj. YBC/Att, 6th), while the Eagles allow 2.81 Adj. YBC/Att (31st). The delta between them gives the Bears the fourth-most advantageous matchup of the week.
The Bears rank eighth in offensive EPA per rush and fifth in offensive success rate on rushes.
Early on, the backfield was RB D’Andre Swift’s, but there has been a very decided shift towards more of a 50/50 split between Swift and rookie RB Kyle Monangai in the last five games.
As it is, neither earns enough yardage on the ground to make much of a dent. Swift missed Week 9 with a minor injury. That week, Monangai consolidated the work. Since then, Monangai has five green zone touches to Swift’s three, and Swift has six receptions to Monangai’s one; so, high-value touches are being chopped up with an edge toward Swift.
As a result, we’ve seen an increase in fantasy productivity from Monangai, who was a massive hit with the consolidated backfield against the worst run defense in the league in Week 9, but has since tapered into a TD-dependent RB2/flex role.
As Monangai’s role grows, a more significant effect is the detriment it has had on Swift; since Monangai earned the coaching staff’s trust in Week 9 while Swift was out, Swift has been an RB2 once in Week 10 and barely playable in each of the last two weeks.
The Eagles rank third in EPA per rush allowed and 23rd in defensive success rate on rushes. The disparity between the two indicates that the Eagles enable their opponents to be consistently successful on rushing plays but clamp down on big plays.
Fantasy RBs have ranked 23rd against Philadelphia in their last five games. There has been an inverse pattern: scoring efficiency has been higher, and scoring on quality opportunities lower by opposing RBs.
Again, the Eagles have played 56 offensive plays per 60 minutes while holding a lead of seven or more in their last five games, so opponents have been chasing and, as a consequence, throwing more than running. This has reduced rushing attempts and lightened boxes.
If a team can actually stay with Philadelphia, their RBs may have better luck scoring fantasy points. That’s not out of the question here, but a lot of it will depend on how the game script goes. And that’s going to hinge significantly on what happens when the Eagles have the ball.