Four Verts: Bears head to Lambeau with house money, Lions need to take a breather, and here's the best worst team of 2025

December is upon us, and the Four Verts column is hitting on one really good team, two preseason contenders who’ve fallen on hard times but still may have hope, and the best bad team of the year. Off we go!

Bears are playing with house money right now

Year 1 of the Ben Johnson experiment in Chicago is already a resounding success. Even though the Bears aren’t a dominant team this year, they’ve managed to do just enough on the field to keep winning and now have the No. 1 seed in the NFC going into December. Whether they hold onto it or not will be fun to track, but this team has made such a big leap from last year that it’s hard not to get too excited about the long-term future.

They appear to have found their quarterback in Caleb Williams, who sets a high floor with room to improve into a superstar. Johnson has established a clear identity of what this offense wants to be. And now it’s time to see if they can finish the deal in what should be a challenging close to the regular season.

Since starting the season 0-2, the Bears are 9-1 and have put up top-10 offensive numbers during that time. They rank eighth in yards per drive (34.6), 10th in points per drive (2.41), ninth in expected points added per play (0.06), first in rushing success rate (48%), and fourth in explosive play rate (12.7%). The damn Chicago Bears! You don’t need a stat rundown to know this is a massive improvement over what was happening with Matt Eberflus and the staff that was in town last year. Just look at the difference in their Thanksgiving weekend games! A year after having the worst time management lapse of the season against the Lions, the Bears ran for nearly 281 yards in a statement win over the Eagles.

Like most incomplete teams with great records, the Bears have won a ton of one-score games this year, including four straight prior to beating the Eagles by two scores last week. They still have moments of inconsistency in the passing game between Williams and his group of pass catchers, who are still getting acclimated to the demands of this offense, but there is so much talent here that is already shining thought that it’s hard not to see the Bears taking another leap next year if everyone stays healthy. Johnson’s plan to revitalize the run game is already working, and Williams has been fantastic at avoiding negative plays, which was a source of frustration last season.

Even when it looks ugly, remember this: In theory, this is just the floor of what this group can do on offense. They still have growing, seemingly dependable talent that’s starting to prove themselves with a coach who knows what he’s doing. Chicago’s defense might create a problem that’s too hard to overcome for this offense in the playoffs, but the fact that they’re even there should provide major proof of concept that after all this time, the Bears finally have the potential for sustained, good offensive play.

Johnson’s Bears will get their first taste of their longstanding rivalry against the Packers at Lambeau Field this weekend in what should be an explosive showdown between Jordan Love and Williams — and also the Bears’ toughest challenge of the season to date. Based on how they’ve performed recently, they absolutely have a chance, but in general it’s just a great measuring stick against a true contender at this point in the season. Big boy time.

The Bears are fun. Embrace 2025.

Lions and Frank Ragnow both need a breather

Brain drain, injuries, new faces in key places. These are some of the things that test every NFL team that goes on a run for a few years. Those who can survive the constant forces of NFL decay become dynasties like the Patriots or Chiefs, but most stints of extended success are just that. Stints. It’s the natural ebb and flow of the league, and now Dan Campbell and his star-studded Detroit Lions find themselves at this crossroad.

At 7-5, nothing is over for them and the future of the franchise certainly is not settled, but the weight of meeting an obscenely high standard that’s been set feels like it might be weighing on the team a bit in recent weeks. They’ve had sloppy miscues, inconsistent defensive performances and a nixed potential reunion with a franchise legend that turned into one of the most baffling stories of the season — and hopefully becomes a moment for them to catch their breath amid what feels like an avalanche of problems.

Longtime center Frank Ragnow, who was an elite player at his peak and retired at age 29 due to a litany of injuries including a FRACTURED THROAT, was reportedly set to re-join the Lions a few weeks ago to try to provide any sort of stability on the interior of their offensive line. Youth and a slew of injuries (Tate Ratledge and Penei Sewell are the only offensive linemen to play over 90% of the snaps this year) have left the Lions in a space where their once-dominant line has become an area of weakness against the better defensive fronts in the league. Eight offensive linemen have played at least 90 snaps for the Lions this year, which shows the lack of continuity along the unit that has defined this recent run of success.

Wanting stability is never bad, but entertaining the idea of just throwing Ragnow back in at center, even with a short acclimation period, seemed like a rough plan given the timing of the transaction. Plenty of veterans will skip training camp as their career hits the back nine, but there’s a difference between taking it easy-ish in August and showing up for the final month of the season after being a literal retired player. This guy was on hunting trips in the past few weeks! There’s desperate and then there’s this. A truly wild idea from both parties given the nature of his extremely recent retirement.

Then, we found out that Ragnow apparently is a superhero. Ragnow’s physical with the team showed a Grade 3 hamstring strain that immediately ended the idea of a comeback this year. Now, most people hear “strain” and think of something that can be nursed back to health without much of an invasive procedure. Not here! This means his hamstring was completely torn! It’s as severe a hamstring issue as one can have while still having a hamstring. Ragnow himself, according to the team, alerted them he had a “hamstring issue,” but that is putting it extremely lightly.

SO many questions here, but first: how did he feel well enough to play? Walking around with a completely torn hamstring is nuts. Being active on it is crazier. Playing in an NFL GAME FOR A TEAM WITH SUPER BOWL ASPIRATIONS AFTER BEING RETIRED FOR FIVE MONTHS is borderline indescribable. Ragnow’s pain tolerance is something I can’t even comprehend, and I suffer from chronic pain myself!

Eventually, this deal getting nixed is a good thing for both parties because, wow, did they both need to breathe and think this over. Ragnow can stop running around like Goku at the end of a Dragon Ball Z arc and the Lions can realize that this rut in which they find themselves doesn’t need such drastic measures. It hurts to feel like a year is wasted, but nobody is getting fired and they can improve this situation after the season. Just breathe. Maybe things will get better over the next month. Maybe they don’t.

But goodness gracious, that was quietly one of the more ridiculous stories of the year. Get healthy soon, Frank. And please, when you’re ready, we need to know more about walking around on a torn hamstring without knowing it.

Chiefs are officially fighting for their season … but they’re still good!

This probably seems a bit ridiculous at this point as the Chiefs continue to suffer gut-wrenching defeats this season that have them at about a coin-flip’s chance of making it to the postseason. All of their close-game luck from a season ago appears to have dissipated and Kansas City sits at 6-6 as the final month of the regular season kicks off this week. The practical reality of the Chiefs’ situation makes it clear that they need to buck the trend and start winning games now before it’s too late … but the overall profile of this team still looks pretty good! If they can just find a way to the wild-card round, they’ll still be one of the toughest outs in the playoffs.

The Chiefs are having the inverse of the season that they had last year. Last season, they won just about all of their close games and really struggled offensively to close the regular season before getting absolutely smacked in the Super Bowl by the Eagles. They were a shell of themselves offensively and the lack of playmaking around Mahomes had become too much to overcome against a defense as talented as Philadelphia’s. This year, they’re losing their close games (1-6 in games decided by a possession), but the offense is really playing well this season and has quietly been among the elite units despite the losses piling up.

This is where the case for optimism comes in. Since their Week 4 blowout win over the Ravens, their first of a spree of 30-point games after an 0-2 start, the Chiefs’ offense has largely been back. Over the last 10 weeks of football, the Chiefs rank first in points per drive (2.82), first in yards per drive (40.8), first in expected points added per play (0.15) and second in success rate (46.9%) according to TruMedia. Mahomes (shockingly!) has been playing at an MVP level this season, ranking fourth in expected points added per dropback (0.18), leading the league in scramble yards (346), and ranking ninth in dropback success rate (48.7%). The supporting cast around him is still a bit hit or miss as they’ve dealt with injuries and youth, but they’re certainly better than last year and Mahomes has repeatedly shown he doesn’t need a whole lot to produce an elite offense.

Where the Chiefs have fallen off is on defense, especially over their 1-3 skid in their last four games — including an incredibly rare post-bye week loss for Andy Reid in Week 11 against the Broncos. Since Week 9, when they lost to the Bills and began this slump, the Chiefs have had one of the worst defenses in the league. A four-game sample isn’t the end-all, be-all, but they dropped from a top-10 defense to a swiss cheese unit over the past five weeks. Their 2.46 points allowed per drive in that sample is good for 29th in the league, and they rank dead last in third down conversion rate at a staggering 50%. Even with the offense playing lights out, it’s hard to win with a defense that can’t get off the field consistently.

To be fair, the Chiefs have played the Bills, Broncos, Colts and Cowboys in that span, who all boast strong offenses. But the expectation is Super Bowl in Kansas City and right now the defense isn’t holding up their end of the bargain. These are the caliber of teams the Chiefs will be facing if they do make it to the playoffs — and those games will be on the road, barring an unforeseen miracle in the final month of the season.

The Chiefs are legitimately in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in the Mahomes era, but damn it, that guy under center is still giving them a shot in every single one of these games. It ain’t over until it’s over.

Cardinals are the best bad team of the year

At 3-9, the Cardinals are adding yet another uneventful season onto their long, 127-year history of uneventful seasons. Jonathan Gannon may find himself out of a job this January, the future of Kyler Murray with the franchise is up in the air, and they just haven’t been able to find stable footing over the course of the season. However, there is a sliver of good news this year for Arizona — they’re probably the best of the worst this year! That’s something!

The Cardinals have been disastrously (or hilariously, depending on your viewpoint) unlucky this year. Despite having just three wins to their name, the Cardinals have been competitive just about every single week. They’ve already been eliminated from the playoffs, but their -38 point differential is only 21st in the league, and two games against Seattle and San Francisco added -41 to that deficit. So in the Cardinals’ other 10 games, in which they are still 3-7, they actually have a positive point differential of +3.

It’s not much, but it’s something to cling to as the Cardinals enter what’s supposed to be a pivotal offseason for the franchise. The one-score games are essentially coin flips and the Cardinals just can’t seem to get the 50/50 in their favor this year, perhaps most notably with their egregious loss to the Titans earlier this season that featured a handful of plays that would be near impossible to recreate. In fact, all seven of their one-score losses have been decided by fewer than four points, and they have two separate one-point losses this season.

Just insanely bad luck. Still, they’ve performed decently well enough with Jacoby Brissett under center to make things very difficult once the season is over. Since Brissett took over in Week 6, the Cardinals have the fewest number of drives without a first down (18%) and they rank fifth in offensive success rate. However, turnovers have kept their scoring down and they’re only 15th in points per drive. The Cardinals defense has been one of the worst units in the league during that stretch, ranking 28th in points per drive (2.45), but they’re getting just enough turnovers to keep these games close.

Well, that’s it. Just wanted to nod over at Arizona and let them know there are dozens of us meagerly looking at another “bleh” season for the team.