Thursday Fantasy Preview, Week 14: Bears, down

In 2013, the Chicago Bears ranked second in the NFL in scoring, averaging 27.8 points per game. This year, in the same system with the same head coach and the same skill players and many of the same faces on the O-line, Chicago has averaged just 21.1 points per game. The team has not yet topped 28 points in any week. The Bears currently rank No.18 in the NFL in yards per play (5.3).

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Chicago's starting offense is the second-most expensive unit in the league, so its performance to date has to be considered a colossal disappointment. (For comparison's sake, the cap total for Denver's starting offense is roughly $6 million lower than Chicago's.) The team's defense has been hilariously bad as well, so it's not as if only one phase is a problem. But in a salary cap league, you just can't whiff so miserably on your biggest investments. The Bears have fielded a not-quite-league-average offense at a staggering price.

Thus, the cries for change — like this one and this one. Assigning blame for this disaster has become a great civic undertaking, sparing no one. Chicago's roster is old, expensive, undisciplined and mistake-prone; the team's coaches generally appear over-matched and shell-shocked.

Really, it's just a big steaming mess in an unforgiving division.

And yet somehow, the Bears have been perfectly OK for fantasy purposes. It's a numbingly predictable and top-heavy offense, funneling nearly all stats to a small group of players. Chicago has totaled 4,265 scrimmage yards and 30 touchdowns through 12 games; four guys have accounted for 3,762 of the yards and 28 of the TDs. As of this writing, Jay Cutler is the ninth highest-scoring fantasy quarterback in standard leagues for 2014. Matt Forte is a top-five back and Martellus Bennett is the No. 6 tight end; Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery both rank as top-20 receivers. (Alshon will play this week, despite the hamstring issue.) No one else on the Bears' roster belongs in the fantasy conversation. There are no fliers worth taking here.

Chicago's defense has been set ablaze by elite quarterbacks this season, and shredded by various others. For the year, the Bears are allowing the second-most fantasy points to opposing QBs, the most to tight ends and the eighth-most to wide receivers. Injuries are a small part of the story for this lousy defense — Briggs, Tillman, Houston, et al — but really, the overall talent level is low and the average age is high. Game-changing defensive breakdowns have become routine.

[Week 14 rankings: Quarterback | Running Back | Receiver | Tight End | Kicker | DST]

If the Dallas Cowboys are any sort of serious contender to made a deep postseason run, then they should maul the Bears on Thursday night. Because that's what good teams do. Tony Romo is a clear top-10 fantasy starter this week, despite the fact that he's coming off a zero-TD, 199-yard performance vs. Philly. Dez Bryant should feast this week, per his usual, as should DeMarco Murray. (In fact, I'd give DeMarco a decent chance to top 200 scrimmage yards.) Jason Witten is a respectable play, facing a defense that's allowed 10 touchdowns to the tight end position. Witten is having a moderately disappointing fantasy season, but he does have three spikes in his last five games. Terrance Williams is on the board for me this week, too, despite his string of five consecutive games without a touchdown reception. He's now playing with a broken finger on his left hand, a small worry, but he rarely comes off the field (46 snaps last week, 49 in Week 12). Williams remains a red-zone threat, and he'll enjoy a significant size advantage over Chicago's smallish corners. I'm flexing him in a 14-teamer.

When the Bears and Cowboys met last season at Soldier Field, the result was a laughably one-sided game, a 45-28 win for Chicago. The Dallas defense offered little resistance in the bitter cold. This time around, conditions should be almost as mild and nonthreatening as the home team. So I'm thinking we'll see a somewhat different outcome.