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Every fantasy league has a manager who reaches for the local team. It happened again in Chicago-area drafts this month, when DJ Moore’s name kept coming up even though the Bears traded him to Buffalo back in March for a second-round pick. Moore is Josh Allen’s problem now, not Chicago’s, and yet plenty of managers still had him ranked like he was still running routes at Soldier Field. That is the entire hometown-bias problem in one transaction: loyalty to the jersey outlasting the actual roster move by six months.
The Reach Chicago Keeps Making
It is not just Moore’s ghost on the board. After Sunday’s 59-37 win over Carolina, Caleb Williams’ third-season leap became the story of Week 1 across the league. He threw for 269 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 65 more yards and two scores, helping Chicago to the highest-scoring season opener in NFL history, a result confirmed by ESPN’s own box score. Numbers like that make it tempting to load up on every name near him, Rome Odunze, the tight end room, even depth pieces, just because they wear the same colors.
What a Cheatsheet Actually Fixes
Before that gets sorted out, a manager needs value that has nothing to do with which stadium a player calls home. That is the gap a fantasy football cheatsheet from RotoWire exists to fill. It ranks players by projected production against the rest of the league at their position, tier by tier, so a Bears fan sees a name like Cole Kmet measured against every tight end in the NFL, not just against the guy lining up next to him in Chicago’s own formation.
The Tight End Room Proves the Point
That distinction matters more this season than usual, because Chicago is genuinely splitting work at the position. Kmet enters his seventh year still listed as a co-starter, and CBS Sports has tracked Colston Loveland sitting alongside him on the Bears’ unofficial depth chart heading into the season, both taking real snaps in the same offense. A manager working off feel alone hears “both Bears tight ends are good” and reaches for whichever name sounds more familiar. A manager working off tiers sees two players sharing a route tree and a red zone package, and understands that shared production is not the same as two full workloads. Touches are finite even on a 59-point offense, and a cheatsheet does not care whose name is more familiar at the bar.
Building One That Strips Out the Bias
The fix is not complicated, it just takes discipline most managers skip in August. Pull tiers by projected points, not by name recognition. Group players into bands where the gap between the top and bottom is genuinely small, and treat everyone inside that band as interchangeable regardless of the logo on their helmet. When a Bears name sits in a tier next to three players from teams a fan has barely watched all season, that tier, not the jersey, should decide the pick.
It also means being honest about moves that already happened. Moore’s trade to Buffalo is the cleanest example on this roster. The name still triggers a reflex in Chicago drafters even though the fantasy case for him now runs through Josh Allen’s arm, not Chicago’s offense. A tier-based sheet does not know or care about hometown sentiment. It moves the player to wherever the numbers put him, which is exactly the correction this draft class needs most, whether that means ranking a Bears skill player a round later than instinct says or bumping one up because the tiers, not the crowd noise, back it.
The Payoff Comes Later, Not on Draft Night
None of this shows up in a highlight reel on a Saturday afternoon in August. It shows up in November, when the manager who drafted by value instead of loyalty still has a roster that makes sense after an early-season favorite cools off or gets hurt, or a hometown name everyone assumed was a lock turns out to be sharing touches. For anyone still finalizing a board before their league locks, our own look at Caleb Williams heading into his third season is a good reminder of just how much has actually changed on this roster since last spring, Moore’s exit included. The Bears’ offense is legitimately good right now. That is exactly why this is the year Chicago’s fantasy managers can least afford to draft with their hearts instead of a real cheatsheet.