It feels like a lifetime ago that Caleb Williams couldn’t hit a throwing net at the Chicago Bears training camp, as the team became the focus of pessimism and derision. These days, coverage of the Bears offense is uncharacteristically not-bleak. It’s full of sunshine and hopefulness.Many fans of the team are simply unequipped to process the current vibes. If you are a Gen Z follower of the Bears, you have never experienced camp reports like this:
One of Caleb Williams’ better practices. Well over 70% today. Only 4 incompletions all day in 7on7/team and two were tipped at the line. The other was a high throw on a free play (offsides). Luther Burden and Rome Odunze both looking great. #Bears
— Adam Hoge (@AdamHoge) July 30, 2026Astonishing stuff. It’s the variety of summer fluff that surrounds most other franchises, but rarely this one. (For now, let’s ignore that when Chicago’s offense is cooking, Chicago’s defense is being exploited.)Delightfully, Ben Johnson has been given the gift of outright disrespect by another head coach, and he’s wringing every drop of motivation out of it. Every key weapon for the Bears is thriving. Williams is now a member of the best-shape-of-his-life club, having dropped 10-15 pounds during the offseason. Tight end Colston Loveland cannot be contained in camp, nor can WR Luther Burden. Lead back D’Andre Swift is coming off an under-hyped career year and looking no less effective.And then we have the most obvious bounce-back candidate in fantasy, Rome Odunze. We don’t typically find many fantasy bargains attached to teams as buzzy as Chicago, but Odunze is a pretty clear exception. He’s been selected well after Loveland (TE3) and Burden (WR21) in early NFFC drafts, sliding to the back end of the fifth round (ADP 59.38; WR28). He missed the final five games of the regular season last year (and struggled in the preceding five) while dealing with a stress fracture in his foot. Odunze returned in the playoffs, though not impressively. He caught only four passes on a dozen targets and had a brutal goal-line drop in the overtime loss to the Rams.Let’s just please remember that the pre-injury version of Odunze last season was a monster, an absolute difference-maker. Odunze was simultaneously too smooth and too physical for most corners. After the season’s first eight weeks, he was a breakout star on pace for 1,149 yards and 12 touchdowns. He was an unsolvable problem.
