Projected Throwing Yards for Each NFC North Quarterback in 2026

In 2025, Caleb Williams emerged as a genuine superstar and the savior that Chicago has been crying out for. He threw for 3,942 yards that regular season, shattering Erik Kramer’s franchise record set in 1995. He added 388 rushing yards and three touchdowns on the ground. He was, for long stretches of 2025, exactly what the Bears drafted him to be. But it was his exploits in the playoffs that truly set the Second City alight.

First, he masterminded the greatest comeback in Wild Card round history when he managed to orchestrate 25 points in the fourth quarter to somehow knock off the Green Bay Packers in a miraculous 31-27 win. He then somehow managed to keep his side alive in the Divisional Round against the much-fancied Los Angeles Rams, sprinting back 30 yards on fourth down before delivering a perfectly placed ball to Cole Kmet in the corner of the end zone to force overtime.

But for all his brilliance, he was also, at other moments, a 22-year-old quarterback completing 58.1 percent of his passes, posting a league-low 64.6 on-target percentage, watching 28 dropped passes cost him 404 yards he’ll never get back — and then throwing four touchdowns against five interceptions across two postseason games that ended in that clash against the Rams with the Kamren Curl pick and a drive that never came.

That’s the full picture of Caleb Williams in 2025. Magnificent, maddening, unforgettable — sometimes within the same series of downs. But what do the bookies expect of him and the rest of his NFC North starting quarterback cohorts in 2026? Here are the projected throwing yards for each of them.

Caleb Williams | Chicago Bears | Over/Under 3,600.5 Passing Yards

Online betting sites have proceeded with caution when it comes to Williams. Websites offering sports betting in Canada have set the line at 3600.5, with either side priced at odds of -115. But truth be told, taking the over is the only option.

Last year, he threw for 3,942 yards in a system he’s still learning; in year three, with a full offseason of Johnson’s mechanical emphasis and a roster that’s graduated from project to contender, the natural trajectory points upward. Williams said it himself this spring: “We don’t back down from no challenge.”

But this isn’t just year three in Ben Johnson’s system, with the familiar narrative about quarterbacks making their leap. This is the contract year — the season where Josh Allen’s three-year, $330 million deal hangs in the background of every throw, every decision, every overthrown deep ball that will get dissected in real time on social media by four million Chicagoans with strong opinions. The entire city is deciding this year whether Williams is the real thing or the very convincing version of it.

He’s earned the right to make his case. The franchise record, the comeback, the dual-threat dimension that no Bears quarterback has brought since — well, ever — these aren’t small things. But Johnson has been explicitly public about prioritizing mechanical improvement this offseason, which is the polite way of saying the 64.6 on-target percentage isn’t going to cut it at the next level of this organization’s ambitions, and Williams knows it.

Caleb Williams is now the face of the Madden franchise. https://t.co/g2MnqkK7sZ

— Ozoon (@Ozoon_CA) June 3, 2026

Jared Goff | Detroit Lions | Over/Under 4,100.5 Passing Yards

It’s been five years since Jared Goff was traded out of Los Angeles in a blockbuster deal constructed around someone else’s arrival — Matthew Stafford going west, Goff heading to Detroit, the entire transaction designed to facilitate a Rams Super Bowl run with a different quarterback. And then, quietly, Goff became more productive than the man who replaced him.

Four consecutive seasons above 4,000 passing yards. A 2024 campaign that finished second in the NFL in completion percentage, passing yards, and passer rating, good for an MVP finalist nod. A 2025 season where he completed 68 percent of his passes for 4,564 yards — 34 touchdowns, eight interceptions — while absorbing a career-high 38 sacks and watching his offensive coordinator get stripped of play-calling duties mid-season before departing entirely.

The Lions finished 9-8 and missed the playoffs, which felt like swallowing glass given the talent on that roster. Since then, Detroit hired former Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing to replace John Morton, with Goff himself calling it a “home run hire.”

The 4,100.5 line is the most demanding in the entire league, and it’s correctly calibrated — Goff has cleared 4,000 yards in four straight seasons with weapons like Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Sam LaPorta at his disposal. From a Chicago perspective, the uncomfortable truth is he’ll likely clear it again.

Jordan Love | Green Bay Packers | Over/Under 3,525.5 Passing Yards

Every year, as a starter, Jordan Love’s raw yardage totals decline, and his passer rating improves. Is he being systematically strangled by a conservative scheme, or is he being deliberately underexposed by a coaching staff that trusts the run game and the defense more than the market does?

In 2023, Love threw for 4,132 yards and 32 touchdowns in a breakout season, promptly penning a then-league-high $220m extension shortly thereafter. In 2025, however, he threw for just 3,381 yards, while his PFF grade increased to 88.5 and ranked fifth among qualified quarterbacks. The Packers reached the playoffs for the third straight year. His coach’s assessment after the Wild Card loss to Chicago was unequivocal: “I thought he played his ass off.”

Green Bay’s collapse last season wasn’t Love’s fault. If anything, it was Lady Luck’s. Micah Parsons, acquired from Dallas in a 2025 blockbuster, tore his ACL late in the season, and the Packers lost every game they played without him.

The blunt league assessment: Love has to put up MVP-caliber numbers until the defense reassembles itself. Tucker Kraft returning from an ACL injury and simplified check-down options give genuine optimism for improvement. Whether Matt LaFleur’s scheme actually lets him loose is the question that makes the 3,525.5 line genuinely interesting.

Kyler Murray | Minnesota Vikings | Over/Under 2,824.5 Passing Yards

Kyler Murray is a former No. 1 overall pick, 28 years old, and the dumpster fire that is the Arizona Cardinals still allowed him to leave for a monstrous cap hit. The divorce was an ugly one, with the Cardinals finally giving up after yet another injury-hit campaign in which the former Heisman winner played just five times and didn’t even clear a thousand yards. Now, however, their loss is Minnesota’s gain, who have snapped him up on a league-minimum deal to compete for a starting berth with JJ McCarthy.

Now he’s in Kevin O’Connell’s QB-friendly scheme with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison on the outside, and the early OTA reports have him with the inside track over McCarthy, with league sources suggesting the competition appeared nearly resolved as early as the first week of June. If healthy and starting, 3,000 yards feels more realistic than 2,800. But “if healthy” is doing an enormous amount of work in every sentence written about Kyler Murray.

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