Bear down, nerd up: Chicago Bears stat breakdown and useless info, Week 2

The Bears nearly accomplished something miraculous this week by almost blowing a 17-point lead one week after erasing a 17-point deficit.

No matter, the Bears won and are 2-0.

Of the 11 teams in the NFL that are 2-0, only the Tennessee Titans have a smaller point differential (plus five) than the Bears (plus eight).

Welcome to the Week 2 edition of Bear Down, Nerd Up, where we take a look at the weird, wacky and obscure stats that defined this week for the Chicago Bears. If you missed the inaugural edition last week, you can find it here.

Unbeaten: That's right, the Bears are 2-0. You can't take that away from them.

So what does that mean moving forward? Since the NFL playoffs expanded to 10 teams in 1978, the Bears have started the season 2-0 on 14 previous occasions. Of those, they made the playoffs 10 of 14 times.

Fans have to like those odds, especially with an extra wild card team expanding the playoffs to 14 for the first time in 2020. A 9-7 season, or even 8-8, might be all it takes to reach the postseason.

The Bears’ most recent 2-0 start was in 2013 (started 3-0). That was also the last time the team went from 2-0 to missing the postseason. The 2013 Bears finished 8-8, quickly sending the Marc Trestman era into chaos.

Since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams in 1990, the Bears have started off 2-0 six times, making the postseason in four of those seasons. Those 2-0 starts include:

2013: 8-8, missed playoffs
2010: 11-5, lost in NFC championship
2006: 13-3, lost in Super Bowl
2002: 4-12, missed playoffs
1991: 11-5, lost in Wild Card round
1990: 11-5 lost in Divisional round

Home-field advantage?: It was an eerie scene Sunday with no fans at Soldier Field. Touchdown celebrations were met with silence. Any crowd noise heard on the television broadcast was artificial. At the stadium, it was mostly quiet – far quieter than Soldier Field has ever been for a Bears game.

Not since Dec. 7, 1997, have the Bears had fewer than 40,000 fans at a home game, according to the team’s official attendance numbers. On that day, 39,784 fans paid to watch the Bears beat the Buffalo Bills, 20-3.

Official attendance numbers typically count total tickets sold, not actual attendance, so it’s not a perfect meter. But it’s all we have to work with.

These are the Bears’ least-attended home games since moving to Soldier Field in 1971, according to the team’s official numbers:

Sunday – zero (17-13 win over New York Giants)
Dec. 16, 1973 – 29,157 (21-0 loss to Green Bay)
Dec. 10, 1978 – 34,306 (14-0 win over Green Bay)
Dec. 18, 1983 – 35,807 (23-21 win over Green Bay)
Dec. 5, 1982 – 36,973 (26-13 win over New England)

By the end of this season, that leaderboard will be dominated by 2020 Bears home games, unless anything changes soon between the Bears and Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Not surprisingly, the Bears’ least attended home games tend to be in December during years when the team isn’t any good. By the official tally, even the Bears’ 2002 home games in Champaign, Illinois, sold at least 54,000 tickets each.

Fun fact, during the 1987 players' strike, the Bears played at Philadelphia in a game where both teams used replacement players. Total attendance on Oct. 4, 1987 at Philly was a rousing 4,074.

One headline from the game read: "Bears Crush Eagles With Ex-Bartender." Future New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton was a backup QB for the Bears that day.

Making himself comfortable: Rookie cornerback Jaylon Johnson had five passes defended in his first two games with the Bears. That is the second most by a rookie defender in his first two games since the NFL began tracking passes defended in 1999.

In 2015, Kansas City Chiefs rookie Marcus Peters had seven passes defended through his first two games.

Snap decision: Darnell Mooney isn't going anywhere. The rookie was second among Bears receivers with 39 offensive snaps, behind only Allen Robinson's 53. Mooney was ahead of Javon Wims (29) and Anthony Miller (26).

Miller, who many regard as the No. 2 receiving option, was fourth in snaps.

“When you have Wims and Anthony Miller, and Wims has a few more snaps than Anthony, that’s not by necessity,” head coach Matt Nagy said Monday. “Some of that is just dictated by what you’re in, personnel-wise. You can see the last couple games we’ve been a little bit more of … 12 personnel [two tight ends, two receivers] and 13 personnel [three tight ends, one receiver], so there’s less wide receivers at times. I think we’re pretty close as to where we want it to be.”

Miller’s 26 snaps Sunday was actually about the same as he had in Week 1 (27). Mooney picked up a lot more snaps because Ted Ginn Jr. was a healthy scratch against New York. Ginn had been on the field for 28 snaps against the Lions.

Pass rush: Robert Quinn, coming off an ankle injury, returned to the field with a bang. He wound up playing only 25 snaps, as he gets back into game shape.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Quinn pressured the quarterback on 21.1% of his pass rushes. That number was right in line with linebacker Khalil Mack (21.9% pressure rate), who had seven QB pressures on 54 snaps Sunday.

According to Next Gen Stats, the Bears pass rush was much more effective against the Giants than it was against the Lions a week earlier. That could be because the Giants offensive line is struggling, or a factor of Quinn joining the mix, or the Bears simply played better. It’s probably a combination of the three.

Take, for example, defensive tackle Akiem Hicks. On average, he was 1.3 yards closer to Daniel Jones at the moment Jones released a pass, than he was Matthew Stafford a week earlier. Hicks was an average of 3.5 yards from Jones on Sunday. Mack was an outstanding 2.97 yards, leading the Bears for a second straight week in this metric. League average is 4.51 yards.