Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson already told the world that he wanted to “have the highest-scoring offense ever,” and then his club went out and put 59 points and 552 yards on the Carolina Panthers on Opening Day to back his words up. But that wasn\u2019t the part that should really set alarms off around the league. This part is: The Bears head coach wasn\u2019t satisfied. He wanted more. He thought his offense could have done better. And he\u2019s probably right. Because despite all the talk about the superteam supposedly assembled in Los Angeles, the Bears have the offense that has quietly been the talk of the NFL all summer long within league circles. They look ready to explode in Year 2 under Johnson, who many acknowledge as the new best playcaller in football and the man with the best offensive system in the NFL. And he has a quarterback in Caleb Williams, who looks primed to make a run at league MVP. And there\u2019s also one other thing that makes the Bears a legitimate Super Bowl contender: Johnson is arrogant and never satisfied \u2014 even more so than usual for an NFL coach. It\u2019s not just that he declared “there was still a number of things out there that I didn\u2019t love” about his offense after the Bears\u2019 59-37 win in Carolina on Sunday. It\u2019s that he had his foot on the gas from the beginning of the game and never let up. The Bears scored touchdowns on their last four possessions, turning the game into a blowout. He even went for it on fourth-and-1 from his own 21-yard line before the second quarter was five minutes old. That was a bad decision \u2014 the Bears didn\u2019t get it, and the Panthers turned the faux pas into a game-tying touchdown \u2014 but it proved his aggression is limitless. Johnson thinks this Bears offense can do anything. Because it can. Just think of what Chicago did last year when Johnson, after three years running the dynamic offense in Detroit, took over an anemic offensive team with a struggling young quarterback and turned it all into a top-10 team. He did it with a complex and creative offensive system that Williams, at times, seemed like he struggled to learn. Now the third-year quarterback knows what he\u2019s doing, and look at the results. Williams was 21 of 29 passing for 269 yards and two touchdowns versus the Panthers, while running 10 times for 65 yards and two scores. He was a dynamic and dangerous passer outside the pocket and couldn\u2019t be contained on the run. And he wasn\u2019t even the real story of the game. Even Johnson said that was his running back duo. D\u2019Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai combined for four touchdowns and 224 rushing yards \u2014 announcing their presence as perhaps the best 1-2 punch in the game. Yeah, the Bears’ defense let Panthers quarterback Bryce Young go off for 361 yards, and it’ll need to get a lot more pressure when facing the better QBs in the league. But this Bears offense that averaged 26 points and 370 yards per game last season might just be unstoppable in 2026. If Williams can improve his completion percentage (it was a disappointing 58.1% last season), he might be the most dangerous dual-threat quarterback outside of Baltimore and Buffalo. He\u2019ll be in the MVP race right until the end. As for Johnson\u2019s stated goal, the 2013 Denver Broncos made NFL history when they averaged 37.9 points per game on their way to Super Bowl XLVII. To beat them, the Bears need to average 36.6 points the rest of the way. That doesn\u2019t seem impossible after the Bears scored more points than they ever had in an opener, and the fourth-most points they\u2019ve ever scored in a game overall. And this is probably only the beginning. Because Johnson is the kind of coach who isn\u2019t likely to stop until he gets it all. And with this team, he just might. The Bengals Might Have Enough Defense To Dominate A healthy Joe Burrow is enough to make the Cincinnati Bengals a contender this season, but a defensive revival is what will put them over the top. And for one week, at least, it looked like their offseason overhaul worked. The Bengals forced fumbles on three straight drives in the first half to set the tone \u2014 and then another in the fourth quarter \u2014 on their way to a 33-27 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They returned one fumble for a touchdown and battered Bucs QB Baker Mayfield with constant pressure and four sacks. They\u2019ve got a formidable front with newcomers Dexter Lawrence and Jonathan Allen in the middle and Boye Mafe off the edge, and that might be just enough. They\u2019re going to score a ton of points with Burrow and all his offensive weapons. All they need to do is play decent defense and be able to get after opposing quarterbacks late in the game. Last year they couldn\u2019t. As a result, they had one of the worst defenses in football. This season it looks like that defense, and thus the Bengals, might be for real. Derrick Henry Is Coming For The Crown There is still a long way to go for Derrick Henry to become the NFL\u2019s all-time leading rusher. After Sunday’s Week 1 outburst, he remains 5,193 yards behind Emmitt Smith (18,355), which means at least four more really productive seasons. In other words, he\u2019ll still have to be a 1,300-yard back at 35 years old. But doubting the 6-3, 252-pound Henry might be as pointless and painful as trying to tackle him, because he remains a freak of a man who defies any conventional wisdom. He’s topped 1,500 rushing yards in five of the past seven seasons \u2014 those five seasons are tied with Barry Sanders for the NFL record \u2014 and looks ready to do it again after plowing his way for 144 yards and three touchdowns in the Ravens\u2019 41-23 win over the Colts. The three scores put Henry in third place all time in rushing touchdowns (125). And he’s now up to 13,162 rushing yards (and an insane 29,879 yards when you add his glorious high school and college careers, too). That\u2019s 16.9 miles \u2014 more than the length of Manhattan. Imagine doing that while taking hits every few yards over more than 17 years. And yet, when he runs, he always seems to deliver far more punishment than he absorbs. Injuries at his age, especially for running backs, are always a concern. But he\u2019s only missed 12 games in his career, and more than one game in a season just once \u2014 in 2021, when he broke his foot. The man is a marvel, which is why it\u2019s a good bet that King Henry becomes the Rushing King sometime in 2029 or 2030. Aaron Rodgers\u2019 Act And His Play Are Really Getting Old Mike McCarthy has a ton of faith in his past and current quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, but their reunion debut had to be a bit concerning. The Steelers beat the Falcons 20-13, but they needed a pick-six by edge rusher T.J. Watt to do it because the offense stalled under Rodgers, who was just 24 of 40 (60%) for 221 yards and a touchdown. The 42-year-old showed all the same issues he had last year. Almost all his throws were short. His deep throws were wobbly or held up in the air way too long. His mobility is gone \u2014 a fact McCarthy seems to know, since Rodgers\u2019 only “runs” were three kneels in victory formation at the end of the game. Rodgers spent the weeks before the opener on a media rampage, going from podcast to podcast spouting his conspiracy theories, settling scores with old girlfriends and declaring himself the victim of media witch hunts. But if he wants to drag this Steelers team to the playoffs in his final season, surely there are better ways to spend his time. Because on Sunday, the Steelers won in spite of him. I believe he can still play, but this offense he\u2019s directing needs a lot more work. And in an improved division, with the Ravens and even the Bengals possibly emerging as Super Bowl contenders, the Steelers won\u2019t survive if Rodgers keeps looking like a mediocre quarterback more interested in holding a grudge off the field than excelling on it. Time To Panic In Los Angeles? Well \u2026 Was anyone really dumb enough to buy into the Los Angeles Rams and do something crazy like \u2026 I don\u2019t know, put them atop their NFL Power Rankings? Yeah, OK, we all make mistakes. But a long career has taught me never to read too much into the first game of the season \u2014 especially when it comes on a Friday morning in Australia, and the Rams made the questionable decision to fly 16 hours and land in Melbourne just 27 hours before kickoff. And considering Kyle Shanahan historically has Sean McVay\u2019s number (12-7 in head-to-head matchups), maybe the 49ers’ blowout over the Rams was an anomaly, not a warning sign. The loss of Myles Garrett for a month, though, is much more concerning. The arrival of the reigning Defensive Player of the Year was expected to transform L.A.’s defense. There was going to be no way to block him, Byron Young and the returning Aaron Donald. The pressure on opposing offenses figured to be immense. But surviving without Garrett may not be so easy in the loaded NFC West as the Rams wait for Donald to round into form, especially if their offense has any lingering jet lag in the coming weeks. Good thing for them, they get a relatively soft landing against the Giants back in L.A. next Monday night. They should be angry and rested. But keep the panic button handy, just in case. Final Thoughts From Sunday \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson already told the world that he wanted to “have the highest-scoring offense ever,” and then his club went out and put 59 points and 552 yards on the Carolina Panthers on Opening Day to back his words up. But that wasn\u2019t the part that should really set alarms off around<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33564"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlinebettingnewyork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}