Three. That is how many games the Chicago Bears have run for 250-plus yards in since the start of the 2025 season. The rest of the NFL, all 31 other teams put together, has four. One team is sitting on nearly half the league’s total by itself, and that lopsidedness is the whole reason the stat stops your thumb mid-scroll.
I did precisely that when this post crossed my feed on X over the weekend.
Since the start of last season, the #Bears have 3 games with 250+ rushing yards.
— NFL Stats (@NFL_Stats) September 20, 2026
The rest of the NFL only has 4 combined. pic.twitter.com/9P52miOZTW
simple question: do the stats lie?
Well, not this one. The number is real. It’s also carefully framed, and the framing is the part worth seeing, because the same move sits behind half the stats anyone will ever throw at you about a team.
What the number is actually counting
Rushing means running the ball forward, not throwing it. A rushing yard is a yard a team gains on the ground, and 250 of them in a single game is a lot.
The modern NFL is a passing league. Most teams are built to throw first and run mainly to kill the clock late in a game they are already winning. A 250-yard day on the ground means a team either has a genuinely dominant offensive line and running back, or spent the afternoon steamrolling a helpless opponent, or both. Plenty of teams go a whole season without one.
So the Bears having three while everyone else combined manages four is a genuine outlier. That part isn’t a trick.
Why the stats framing lands so hard
The line doing the heavy lifting is “the rest of the NFL only has four combined.”
Said flat, “the Bears have had three big rushing games since last season” is a shrug. Reframed as three against four-across-everyone-else, the identical fact becomes a scarcity story. Your brain does the maths, sees one team holding nearly half a league-wide total, and reads dominance. It’s the same move a good headline makes, and it works.
The two dials every stat like this is set on
Here is the part nobody points out. A stat like this has two dials, and whoever writes it chooses where both are set.
The first is the window: “since the start of last season.” Not this season, not the last five years, not since 2020. A specific start date, picked.
The second is the threshold: 250 rushing yards. Not 200, not 300. A specific line, picked.
Nudge either one and the picture moves. Drop the line to 200 yards and other teams walk back into the count. Widen the window and the gap can shrink. This isn’t the tweet lying, it’s just how a stat like this is made: choose the window and the line that make your team look most singular, then let the number speak for itself.
Knowing the dials are there is the difference between being impressed and being informed.
The stat itself is still true, though
Don’t take my over-analysis as cynicism. The dials being adjustable doesn’t make the Bears’ running game fake.
They finished the 2025 season third in the league for rushing yards per game, with two backs, D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai, both clearing 750 yards on the ground. Under head coach Ben Johnson, this is a team with a real identity: win by running the ball straight down people’s throats, in a league built around the pass. The stat is dressed up, but the thing underneath it is real.
So, do NFL stats lie?
No, as long as you understand that a good stat like this is doing two things at once: telling you something true, and choosing the frame that makes it land hardest. Both can be true together.
The Bears really are running the ball better than anyone right now, and the person who wrote that stat really did pick the window and the line that said so most loudly.
Seeing both at the same time is the whole skill, and it’s the same one behind reading a tidy power ranking without swallowing it whole.
Leave a Reply