NFL Power Rankings: Predicting every team's worst-case scenario in 2024

22. Chicago Bears: 5 or 6 wins, Caleb Williams has Bryce Young-like year

The idea of Caleb Williams having a Bryce Young-like year? We don’t even need to speak like that, do we Bears fans? It’s not going to happen, right? Right?

But what if it does…?

The Chicago Bears seem to be in a really favorable spot. Justin Fields crawled so Caleb Williams could fly. The Bears went through some of the “dog days” of rebuilding over the last three seasons, and it’s time for this team to take the next step and progress. But there’s always a possibility that Caleb Williams struggles as a rookie.

Nobody can predict what the working relationship between he and Shane Waldron (offensive coordinator) is going to be like. No one can predict exactly how he’s going to respond to facing NFL defenses for 18 weeks. No one can predict exactly how this season will go, we can only hope that it doesn’t go as poorly as what we saw from Bryce Young and the Panthers last season.

21. Indianapolis Colts: 5 or 6 wins, Anthony Richardson misses 8+ games

If Anthony Richardson stays healthy, I feel pretty confident in saying that this upcoming season will be a relative success overall for the Indianapolis Colts. Unfortunately, we have no way of predicting what will actually happen. Richardson is obviously one of the most dynamic quarterbacks in the league. He’s an absolute unicorn physically and he’s got a tremendous coach in Shane Steichen helping guide him.

The biggest potential failure for the Indianapolis Colts this season is that we would see Joe Flacco playing more than half of the season. As fascinating as it was to see Flacco win the NFL Comeback Player of the Year award last year, nobody wants to see him doing anything but standing on the sideline this season. If the Colts are forced to play Flacco, it’s the worst-case scenario for this team in 2024.