CHICAGO (vs. Denver):
When teams begin filling head coaching vacancies in the offseason, Bears coordinator Adam Gase will be on everyone’s short list. He’s overseeing a career resurgence by Jay Cutler, and he was the coordinator in Denver while Peyton Manning was playing some of the best ball of his career. This game is surely personal for Gase (passed over for the Denver head coaching job), John Fox (fired last offseason) and Cutler himself, who began his career with the Broncos. It’s not a great matchup, with Denver having arguably the league’s best defense, but neither was last week’s in St. Louis. Chicago offense performed quite well in that game and should have some quality options again. ... Jay Cutler is playing about as well as he ever has, on pace to approach or surpass career highs in yards and touchdowns, and career lows in interceptions. It’s particularly impressive considering the talent around him, which might be as thin as he’s ever worked with (especially when you consider the missed time by stars Alshon Jeffery and now Matt Forte). He’s looking more like the quarterback who excelled with these Broncos early in his career (and even then he threw 37 interceptions and fumbled 24 times in 37 games; this year he’s at 5 and 4 in eight contests). This is his first time facing Denver; he missed the 2011 contest. Very tough matchup, with Denver No. 1 in pass defense. The Broncos lead the league with 32 sacks and have 9 interceptions. They fared poorly against Kansas City last week, but ...

This report is taken from today's Week 11 edition of Fantasy Index Weekly. The newsletter includes our player rankings and 18 pages of camp reports, plus stat projections and custom rankings for the games being played this weekend.

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... most of that was 5 interceptions giving Kansas City a short field time and again -- and even then this defense surrendered more than twice as many field goals (5) as touchdowns (2). Cutler has faced a pair of top-10 pass defenses in the last three weeks, the Rams and Vikings. He averaged 235 passing yards in those games and had 5 TDs (4 passing, 1 rushing). Note that 2 long touchdowns against the Rams were nothing special on his part; short throws where his receivers used a couple of moves and some missed tackles to go the distance. Regardless, he’s done well enough in games against similar defenses to think he’ll be OK here -- somewhere close to his usual yardage and a decent chance of getting up to 2 TDs. He’s thrown 12 in his seven full games, the Broncos have allowed 8, so a combined 20 in 16 games. He averages about 15 rushing yards per game, with 1 TD on the ground. The matchup is too unfavorable to rank Cutler too highly, but we’re not hitting him with a Do Not Start tag, either. ... Matt Forte was expected to be out 2-4 weeks with a sprained MCL. He’s missed the last two games, so a return is possible, but we’re guessing he’ll miss one more week, giving Jeremy Langford another start. If on Friday it appears Forte will return, we’ll go in and re-work the board. Langford has been excellent the last two weeks, averaging 162 total yards and scoring 3 TDs. One of those was really a soft San Diego run defense, and last week’s game was helped by a perfectly called screen pass that he took 83 yards without being touched. Whatever; he’s a talented youngster with fresh legs, and he’s playing well. Denver’s also pretty strong against the run (7th); much better than what Langford has seen thus far. But they’ve allowed nearly as many touchdowns rushing (7) as passing (8), plus half of the passing scores against this defense (4 of 8) have been thrown to running backs. Langford should see the bulk of the snaps, although note that KaDeem Carey is also playing; 7 and 14 carries the last two weeks, for a total of 84 yards (4.0). Carey lost a late fumble against the Rams; we’ll see if that affects his workload at all here. Regardless, Langford will be the main back, and his involvement as a receiver makes the tough matchup less worrisome. Most of his 109 receiving yards against St. Louis came on that lengthy screen pass, but he caught 6 other passes in that game. Carey, in contrast, wasn’t targeted at all. ... Alshon Jeffery had a quiet game against St. Louis. That was partially due to game flow: a couple of short throws to other targets turned into long touchdowns. But Jeffery also had a groin injury that cut into his playing time. They spelled him more than usual. Denver has Aqib Talib (back from last week’s suspension) and has allowed only 1 TD to a wide receiver, so it’s hard to get too excited about Jeffery, Scoring aside, though, it hasn’t been a killer matchup for opposing No. 1s.

Half of those players went over 77 receiving yards, and five caught at least 5 passes. Not an ideal matchup, but not an impossible one, either. ... Eddie Royal is yet another current Bear who used to play for the Broncos, but there’s no indication he’ll be available; he’s been out with a knee injury. Marquess Wilson would fill in, but neither player has done much with those snaps the last three games. And again, just 1 TD by a wideout against this defense all season. ... Martellus Bennett is the top tight end, although it looks like Chicago might have a 1A in Zach Miller. They both seemed to be out there pretty much full-time against St. Louis, but Bennett turned his 3 catches into just 18 yards, while Miller turned his 5 into 107 and 2 TDs. It won’t happen every week that a couple of blown tackles produce a long touchdown, but since Miller also scored the game-winning touchdown against San Diego the previous week, he’s unlikely to disappear from the offense. The Broncos have allowed more TDs to tight ends (3) than wideouts (1), though it’s still a pretty modest number. With each player having scored 3 TDs on the season, and all of Miller’s coming in the past two weeks, Bennett is no more than the nominal favorite to catch one. ... Robbie Gould averages 8.3 kicking points per game, with double digits in five of nine. Denver is allowing fewer than 7 kicking points per game, though, so it’s not an ideal situation for him. ... The Bears Defense gets to face a first-time starting quarterback, although the way Peyton Manning was sending up lollipops last week, it probably wishes it were getting the veteran. Brock Osweiler took 3 sacks and threw an interception in less than a half of work against Kansas City, although he entered the game with a huge deficit and had to throw it; this week the Broncos should be able to work the run a little more. Chicago has only 15 sacks and 5 interceptions all season, so it’s not the ideal choice for a one-week fill-in.