Jim Dabrowski

I’ll start by saying I don’t think Justin Fields will ever be a top-tier quarterback. I think he lacks the anticipation and instincts necessary to be in that top tier. He’ll forever be in Sando’s second-tier of quarterbacks—someone you can win “with", but not very often win "because of”. 

That said, I find myself wondering, what some other coaches could do if they had Fields on their team? What would he look like with McVay in LA, Shanahan in SF, Sirianni in Philly or even with LaFleur in Green Bay? Those coaches have shown they can get the most out of whoever they have quarterbacking for them. I know the conventional wisdom is Fields should or will go to Atlanta, but I still wonder just how great he’d be if he was on any of those other teams? If, like me, you think that would be pretty amazing to see, you really have to wonder about the coaching staff currently employed by the Chicago Bears. 

JIm

Been wanting to write this post for a while, finally getting around to it. Let's review what I thought would happen with the Bears in 2022 and how I think 2023 will play out.

Past Season Predictions

I predicted the Bears would go 8-9 or 9-8 and that 2-3 of their wins would be due to Justin Fields putting the team on his back and willing them to a win. Boy was I wrong on that. They started the season 3-4 and I thought there was no way they weren't going to win at least a few more. And while Fields didn't quite single-handedly win games for them, it sure looked like it was trending in the right direction there for a bit.

Enough of the past, on to the future.

Free Agency

Everyone I hear talks about just how much money the Bears have to spend this off season and they're predicting some sort of wild spending spree. It's not gonna happen. Poles even said he is going to continue to be judicious and build a team meant for sustained success. Therefore, much to the dismay of many fans, I think we'll see the Bears sign a couple of bigger name free agents, but not do anything wild. I think the Bears are going to re-sign more of their own players than people expect, again much to the dismay of the fan base. I think Poles is going to spend much more closer to what he needs to get him below the cap minimum and will save much of that money for 2024 and beyond. If Fields is who we all seem to think he is, a lot of that will be spent on him in the not too distant future and Poles has to plan for that.

Draft Day

Like pretty much every other Bears fan, I don't see them trading Fields and I do see them trading down at least once (sell that #1 pick to the highest bidder) and likely multiple times. I think Poles is a draft-and-develop sort of GM—fits with his plans to build for continued success—and values having more draft picks over higher ones. This should make a lot of Bears fans happy - until he doesn't draft either Andersen or Carter at which time they'll go bat-shit crazy.

2023 Season

And now time for my way-too-early 2023 season prediction. I expect the Bears to be improved, but anyone thinking they're a playoff team or super bowl contender is fooling themselves. If they make the playoffs it will be one of those back-door entries where some fluke thing happens and they end up the last playoff team but are completely over-matched in their first game. The same sort of thing that happened in 2020 where they finished 8-8 and got in only because the NFL added an extra playoff team that year. I think we'll see an improved team. We'll be excited by what Justin Fields brings to the field and we'll see that if they continue to add more talent on both sides of the ball, the team is on an upward trajectory and that good things are ahead for them.

I think the future is bright for the Bears.

JIm

The Bears finally had their bye week and have four games remaining on their schedule. The things I’m most interested in seeing are the changes they make to their offense, if any.

After the loss to the Commanders in week 6, they had a “mini-bye”. During that time they made some changes to they way the offense operates and started a streak of scoring 30+ points per game. Now that they had their real bye week I’m wondering what additional changes they might come up with and how different they’ll look offensively.
What I’d like to see, and am hoping I’ll see, is an offense that takes more risks and puts the game into Fields hands a bit more than his legs. I know, their receivers can’t catch and their line can’t pass block long enough for plays to develop down field. But I hope to be surprised. I hope to see some wrinkles that allow Fields to throw more. More timing throws, more tight windows. That sort of thing.

I’m hoping to see the Bears look even better on offense than they did coming out of their mini-bye leaving fans and the league saying, “Holy crap! If they can do that with so little talent, what are they gonna do next season?” That would make me a very happy Bears fan.

I’m guessing (hoping) we see just that and that the Bears end up winning 3 of their final 4 games. This will, of course, cause them to drop out of the top three in the draft and end up picking somewhere in the 6-9 range leaving fans furious. But that’s OK. I’ll take that along with the feeling they really are a franchise on their way up and should be contending for a Super Bowl in the next few years.

JIm

Rebuilding

All I keep hearing about is how bad the current Bears roster is. No building blocks for the future, need total rebuild on both sides of the line, no receivers, etc. etc. If this roster is as bad as everyone is saying, there is no way next year will be much better than this one. Even with a gazillion dollars in cap space there are only so many players Poles can acquire in the off season. That's a bit disappointing.

Bears Ownership

When does Virginia McCaskey get some blame for the current state of the Bears. When a team is bad, year after year despite changes in players, coaches, GMs, etc. the only one left to blame is the ownership. Sure you can blame Michael and now George the previous and current Chairmen of the team, but she put them in those positions and throughout both their tenures (most of my life), the Bears have pretty much sucked. The Bears need new ownership.

Should Justin Fields Play vs the Packers

I don't care. The only reason to watch the Bears play any more games this season is to watch what Fields can do. For that reason alone, I want to see him play. Without him, it's going to be dreadful and I'll probably do something I almost never do: shut the game off before it's done because you know Rodgers will be screaming he owns the Bears multiple times, flipping off fans, mooning them, whatever. So play him, don't play him, do whatever you think best Matt and I'll watch for however long I can stand it.

Next Season

Guess that's it. As is becoming pretty usual for a fan of this team in December, it's time to start looking forward to the draft and next season. "Wait til next year!" our perennial cry. Also, as usual, it promises to be interesting. Justin Fields sure looks to be "the guy" the Bears have draft picks and cap money to spend. Will be interesting to watch.

JIm

OTA's, mini-camps, rookie camps, etc. are all over, the Bears are in hibernation for a brief period and the real training camp is about to begin next week. Therefore it's time for me to talk about their off season and make my predictions for the 2022 season.

As everyone knows, the Bears fired their head coach and GM at the end of last season and replaced them with GM Ryan Poles and new Head Coach Matt Eberflus (Ryan and Matt? Again?) I'm not going to rehash all the discussion around who they hired and why or whether they are good choices. They're here and we have to wait and see how they perform.

In my opinion, Ryan Poles' primary goal this season is to see whether Justin Fields is going to be the franchise quarterback all of Chicagoland hopes he is. Like it or not, we just don't know yet. In college, he demonstrated lots of talent but his first year in the NFL was not very encouraging. Flashes of really good play combined with a lot of rookie mistakes. We can argue all day about whose fault all that was, but at the end of the day, he didn't perform all that well and we don't really know what he'll do in the future. Therefore that is Job #1 for Poles.

During the draft, Poles spent his first two picks on the defensive side of the ball leaving many fans confused and angry but I can respect the plan. With those additions and a defense-minded head coach, the Bears defense this season should be good. Not great, not the best in the league, but better than average. I think they'll certainly be in the top half of the league and may even squeak into the top 10. The defense will be good enough to keep the Bears in just about every game this season. This means that on the offensive side of the ball, winning or losing will be determined by how well Justin Fields and the rest of the offense execute. If Poles let the defense slide and focused solely on the offensive side of the ball like many fans wanted them to, they'd wind up being down 20+ points by half-time causing them to have to regularly abandon whatever offensive game plan they had. Not a good way to evaluate how Fields can play. So I like what Poles did on defense.

On the offensive side of the ball, many people wanted him to shore up the line and provide Fields with high-caliber wide receivers—and he didn't. I admit to my own concerns about the lack of overall talent on the offensive side, but disagree with the people who claim it will therefore be impossible to determine if Fields is truly a franchise QB. Regardless of how the line protects or enables the running game, regardless of whether the receivers can get open and catch the ball when thrown, we'll still be able to see whether Fields has what it takes to be a starting NFL quarterback. Does he make the right reads at the line of scrimmage and adjust the play calls accordingly? How does he react when plays break down? Does he know when to live to fight another day and throw the ball away or does he try too hard to make things happen and end up making things worse? Regardless of the team's record or his stats, by the end of the season if we're saying, "Man, if we had some better talent on this team, we'd be cruising to the playoffs and be legit Super Bowl contenders." we'll all know the future for the Bears is bright. If not, then we know we're back to looking for the QB of the future.

And now on to my prediction for the 2022 season. I'm firmly in the camp of believing Fields is a franchise QB and am looking forward to watching them this season. I predict they'll win 8 or 9 games with 2 or 3 of them due solely to Fields putting the team on his back and willing them to a win. By the end of the season we'll know he's the guy and 2023 and beyond will be looking bright for the Chicago Bears and their fans.

Go Bears!

JIm

I've been bothered by my Jekyll setup for my blog posting. I post so infrequently I found I'd forget how to post things, what the commands were, committing to git, etc. Too much friction for me and so whenever I thought of a post I'd like to do, I'd usually just say, "ugh" and not bother. What can I say, I'm lazy.

On my recent trip to Hawaii, I started to use my micro.blog site and I really liked it but I still wanted an easier way to do longer posts. So I decided to finally pull the trigger and move my site over to Wordpress. Today being a holiday here in the US (Memorial Day), I decided to spend the day doing just that.

AND IT WORKED! (well, mostly)

I got my whole site ported over, imported all my old posts, had some issues with the RSS feed, but I think that's working now (we'll see after I post this). Still don't have all the images updated. I think that's going to be a bigger project, but overall I'm happy now with what I have. We'll see if I actually write more here or not.

While importing all my old posts, I re-read my latest one and hoo boy! Was I wrong in there! In that post I said:

I think this much is clear: neither Nagy nor Pace are going to be fired after the 2021 season regardless of how it turns out. 

me :o

Oh well. As pretty much anyone who reads this knows, they were indeed fired and I have to say, I'm kinda happy with what the new guys are doing there. Still have some questions/concerns in my mind, but we'll see. Perhaps I'll post something longer and more thoughtful about the state of the Bears now that I have a nifty new Wordpress site up and running.

That's it. Take care. See you all around.

JIm

Here we are heading into the start of the 2021 football season and somewhat uncharacteristically, I’m not all that optimistic for my Bears and not really excited to watch them this season. Oh sure, I’ll watch every game I can, but overall I’m pretty “meh” about the whole thing.

Like I wrote last time, the Bears have consistently said they will play Justin Fields when he’s “ready” but none of us outside the organization knew what their definition of “ready” was. I think now we know. They think Fields needs to sit as the backup for some amount of regular season games before he can really be a starter. As a result, I don’t have much optimism for success this season—I think it’s going to be roughly the same as the last two.

I think this much is clear: neither Nagy nor Pace are going to be fired after the 2021 season regardless of how it turns out. They have a new quarterback and the organization trusts them to develop and play him when he’s ready. One thing I thought right after they drafted Fields and heard echoed in the Blogosphere and Twitterverse was that, for the Bears, 2021 doesn’t matter. They aren’t playing for anything in 2021, they’re aiming for 2022 and beyond. They have this year to develop Fields, get some new guys on the team, shed some old guys, etc. I lost sight of that during training camp and pre-season with the excitement building around Fields but I think we see now, they aren’t playing for 2021. They’ll never admit that, but that doesn’t make it untrue. 2021 is a bridge year. They aren’t going to tank, but they aren’t exactly going to be in the mix for any sort of playoff appearance. They’re going to be a middle-of-the-road team, with some hope for the future. Like the last two years, they’re going to stumble their way to roughly a 8-9 season but show promise for the future.

The Offense

The offense this year will be OK. The offensive line play will be OK to poor overall leading to a stumbling, inconsistent offense. Behind them, too often Montgomery will continue to have to evade defenders in the backfield and as we saw in previous seasons, when that happens, the run game isn’t effective. Andy Dalton will continue to be what he has been – a middle of the pack quarterback who will make some plays, but who you can’t rely on to win games for you. The result, an offense that’s better than the bottom of the barrel they’ve been the last couple of years, but not much better. They’ll continue to fail to score very many points and will have to rely on their defense to keep them in games.

The Defense

The defense this year will be OK to good. I think their line play will be top-notch but their secondary, especially the corners, will be picked on all season because they just aren’t all that good. As a result, the Bears will be fine stopping the run game, but the good opposing quarterbacks will be able to pick them apart in the quick passing game. There’s not much else to say here. This defense will fine, but not good enough to keep them in games when the offense is incapable of consistently scoring more than 20 points.

All this leads them to another mediocre year. I’m sure by the end of the season we’ll see Justin Fields play and that will get us all excited about 2022 and the potential it brings. “Just wait til next year!” will continue to be our perennial cheer. I’ll still watch and root for them, but honestly, there isn’t much to look forward to this season. But just wait til next year!

JIm

On the eve of pre-season game 2 and I’m so tired of this. I listen to several Bears podcasts, read many Bears blogs, follow lots of Bears fans on Twitter and I hear non-ending speculation about when Justin Fields will start. Some people point to Nagy saying that Dalton is their starter so therefore Fields won’t get to start week 1. Others hang on Nagy saying they’ll follow the plan they used for Mahomes in Kansas City and therefore they won’t start Fields until the end of this season if at all. All of them then use this to complain about Nagy’s decision as to when he’ll start Fields. The one thing the Bears coaching staff have consistently said is they will start Fields when he’s “ready” but the problem is, no one knows what Nagy’s definition of “ready” is.

Allow me to digress with an analogy. When learning to fly an airplane, you spend some time studying the manuals and learning about the process of flying. You spend some time in simulators so you can get a feel for what it will be like in an actual airplane. Eventually though you’ve done all you can and you just have to get into a plane and fly it. It doesn’t mean you know everything about how to fly a plane. It doesn’t mean you won’t make any mistakes while flying. It doesn’t mean there won’t be a point a which the instructor has to take control of the plane to stop you from crashing. It just means, you’ve learned all you can on the ground and are “ready” to go fly.

I believe Nagy when he says he’ll start Fields whenever he and the coaching staff determine he’s ready to start. They won’t wait for the right soft spot in the schedule. They won’t play Dalton just because they said at some point he’s the starting quarterback. They won’t keep Fields on the bench just because they kept Mahomes on the bench for most of his rookie season. They will start Fields when he’s ready whether that’s week 1, week 18 or somewhere in between. It doesn’t mean Fields will be perfect once he’s out there it just means he’s done all he can in training camp and in meeting rooms and now he has to get out there and play. I personally think it will be much closer to week 1 than to week 18 and I think it’s not unlikely he’ll be the starter in week 1. I will be in LA for the week 1 opener and sure hope I get to see the Justin Fields’ debut as a Chicago Bear and that he plays for them for many years to come.

JIm

I don’t have a good feeling about a “prediction” per se, instead I think I’m writing more from a “What I want to have happen” perspective. So that’s what follows.

On offense, I want to see the Bears take yet another incremental step toward running a competent offense. We saw some of that these last two weeks. They get into a rhythm, they move the ball well, they just failed to score very many touchdowns. I’d like to see that progress continue and have them put the ball into the endzone more. To do that, they’ll have to slow down Aaron Donald, a tall order given their current offensive line issues, but hopefully they do just enough to put a couple of touchdowns and a couple of field goals on the board.

On defense, I expect them to continue to get better as well. That unit has been getting stronger and stronger and has really shut down opposing teams. I expect they’ll pressure Goff, get him rattled, bottle up the run game enough so their entire offense is unable to effectively perform.

Again, like last week, I’d like to see them get a lead and hold it throughout the game. I doubt the game ever seem like a lock. The Bears have a knack for allowing their opponents to hang in there and keep it exciting right up to the very end. I don’t see that changing in this game. In the end, the Bears come out of this at 6-1 and people have to start admitting that just maybe the 2020 Bears might just be for real while the Rams demonstrate that when they face a good team, they just aren’t able to compete.

Final score
Bears: ~20
Panthers: <=13

Well, that went almost as I expected, except for the offensive line looking awful. I mean, c’mon, the Panthers rush three and still get pressure on the QB? But I digress. The Bears did put up 20+ points and I’m not sure what I was thinking when I thought they’d hold the Panthers to under 10. That’s not very realistic in today’s NFL. However, they did take an early lead and never looked back all while holding their opponent to under 20 points again.

Offensively the Bears need to figure things out. I’m no expert at evaluating game play or play calling but it seems to me Nagy is calling a different game plan with Foles under center than he did with Trubisky. I would actually expect that since they’re different quarterbacks and folks have said that Foles’ style of play more closely resembles the kind of game Nagy likes to run. Foles operates better out of shot-gun where he has a couple of extra moments to survey the field and make his decisions whereas Trubisky seemed to do better under center with play-action and rolling to the outside to make his throws. So it should be a good thing that Nagy has changed his play-calling to match the skills of his starting QB. The problem is the offensive line seems incapable of executing the kind of offensive plays Nagy wants to run and that’s getting them killed. This is feeling like 2019 all over again when everyone said nobody, not Trubisky, not Mongomery, not Cohen could be successful with such poor offensive line performance. What we seem to be seeing now is, it is possible for the QB to be somewhat effective with the o-line unable to execute but this isn’t a strategy that will work for them long-term. I have no idea what the answer is. I don’t think they should go back to Trubisky – he’s shown he’s not capable of running any type of NFL offense, but if the line you have is incapable of executing the kind of offense you want to run, and what they are capable of executing is not what your QB is good at, you have a problem on your hands. I sure hope Nagy can find a way to solve this.

The Bears are at 5-1 and are in first place in the NFC North. They have a tough three game stretch coming up against the Rams, Saints and Titans. I hope they come out of that at least 1-2. After that they have games against some teams they should be able to handle even with their shaky offense. They’re in a good position to make the playoffs, but right now they don’t look like they’d get very far if they do. Until then, I’m going to keep watching and keep being entertained by the 2020 Chicago Bears

Actual Final score
Bears: 23
Panthers: 16

I just don’t have a lot to say this time and I missed last week’s prediction, so first let’s go back a week. I thought the game would be a toss-up leaning toward a Bears loss. I wasn’t convinced the offense would put enough points on the board and Brady would pick apart the middle of the Bears field. Didn’t happen. Bears hung in there and pulled out a win. Good for them.

I think this week we’ll see an improved Bears offense. Might get back to a solid running game but overall we’ll see yet more incremental improvement from Foles and Nagy as they learn each other’s preferences and styles. As a result, I think the Bears finally put up a solid 20+ points with the arrow pointing up for the Bears’ offense as a whole.

On the defense side, I think its apparent that when the offense is struggling to score points, the defense becomes cautious and “safe”. They aren’t nearly as aggressive and just don’t look as good as they actually are. When the offense is firing on all cylinders (or at least some of them), then the defense becomes more confident and aggressive and really starts to shine. So today against the Panthers, the offense is productive and as a result the defense shuts down Carolina completely and looks like the dominant defense people have been expecting.

Final score
Bears: 20+
Panthers: <=10

The Bears come into this game as the hometown underdog but take an early lead and hold on to it throughout the game. Foles looks competent, the defense has a chance to go after Rivers and the end result is a Bears team at 4-0 leading to the national media reassessing the 2020 Bears.

In his first start for Chicago, Foles turns in a solid performance. Nagy continues his balanced attack, but with Foles he has a quarterback who can finally read defenses and make strikes downfield. The Bears are able to hold onto a comfortable 3–10 point lead throughout the game and it never feels in doubt.

With the offense looking competent, the Bears defense is energized and Pagano is able to take more risks and put pressure on Rivers. This results in turnovers but also allows the Colts to score as the Bears continue to be ineffective against the run.

Overall, this ends up being a feel-good game for Chicago and leaves the fans excited for the future.

Final score
Bears: 30+
Falcons: 20s

I couldn’t be happier to have been more wrong. Though you have to admit, I was pretty spot on for the first half of the game, I just never thought Nagy would pull Trubisky mid-game and put in Foles. Thank goodness he did.

With about 10 minutes left in the third quarter, after Trubisky tossed an interception which Atlanta turned into a field goal, the Falcons lead 26-10. I was looking at that thinking, the Bears get a field goal or a touchdown, the Falcons score another touchdown and I’m pretty much spot on. Sadly. But then the unthinkable happened! Foles is put in the game and after a couple of shakey possessions but the defense looking a bit rejuvenated, he puts up 20 points via 3 touchdowns and the Bears win 30-26.

Next up, Colts at Bears. No idea yet what will happen, though I’m feeling a Bears win is in the air.

JIm

This is the week the wheels come off the wagon. The defense doesn’t pressure Matt Ryan and he picks apart the middle of the field with a combination of short passes and a running game that gashes the D. On the other side of the ball, the running game never gets established, the Bears get behind, Nagy throws out the playbook and starts calling too many passing plays Trubisky can’t handle and it ends up in disaster. Fans start crying the season is over, the past 2 weeks are forgotten, there are calls for Pace and Ryan to be fired immediately and demands they trade away all their good players and start the rebuild NOW.

For several years now, the Bears have had difficulty stacking wins and winning the games they should win. As a result, this feels like one of those times when things all fall apart. I’m not pessimistic though. Although it will be a bummer, the team will rally. This one game will not define their season nor start some sort of downward spiral. They’re still a good team.

Final score
Bears: Somewhere in the teens
Falcons: >= 2x whatever the Bears score

Shoulda written this last night but life intervened. Frankly, I wanna say I nailed it. Sure, I didn’t get the score right, but it played out just about how I said. Bears offense started hot, but then trailed off and was frankly up and down the rest of the game. The defense was never really able to put much pressure on Jones and as a result he was able to string together several good drives and kept them in the game right up to the last minute. [As an aside here, I’ve noticed the Bears always seem to be able to keep these damn games close and exciting right up until the end. It’s exciting, but can be nerve-wracking at times.] I think the Bears D caught a big break when Barkley went out injured. Had that not happened, I’m not sure they would have been able to stop them.

As predicted, there was some good in there on both sides of the ball as well as some very concerning things. I think it’s OK to be optimistic at this point. The fan in me wants to believe Trubisky will become more consistent and the defense will stabilize into a regular force to be reconed with. The pessimist in me thinks if this keeps up they’ll once again be an 8-8 team at best because they can’t put together a regular stable performance.

This is what keeps me watching!

JIm

I’m going to wimp out on this one and not actually predict a winner. Allow me to explain.

It’s hard to know this early in the season just what teams are going to be. Especially this season with no training camp and no pre-season, teams are more sloppy and less prepared which makes the prediction business even more difficult than usual. In the case of the Bears and Giants we have two teams both of whom show some inklings of being better at times, while still showing lots of inconsistency and problems they’ve yet to overcome.

The Bears should be able to consistently run the ball, but I’m not convinced that will be enough to score many points. Trubisky should be able to take advantage of what’s considered a weak secondary and make some big plays. However, we’ve not yet seen he can do that on a consistent basis so I expect we’ll see him take plenty of shots down field but have a lot of near misses—and some not so near.

For the Giants, their QB appears to be improving yet is still turnover-prone and it’s easy to rattle him. If the Bears are able to generate significant pass rush against him they should be able to force turnovers but again they’ve not done that consistently for a while now. The Bears’ defensive front and their middle linebackers need to play much better than they did against the Lions if they hope to stop Saquon Barkley from doing them what Peterson did all too often last week.

In the end, I expect this to be a sloppy, inconsistent game for both teams on both sides of the ball, leaving fans able to find hope for the future while still allowing critics to point to the many flaws they’ve yet to overcome. I predict a final score of 13-10 but I honestly can’t say which team will have the 13 and which the 10.

Final Score
Giants: ?
Bears: ?

Wow. Just wow.

For three quarters I was spot-on in my prediction for this game. Trubisky looked totally lost and as bad or worse than he had in any game in 2019. Missing wide open receivers, overthrowing, throwing behind. He sucked. Bad. I seriously believed they should bench him at half and bring in Foles, he was that bad. Defense also sucked. The pass rush was virtually non-existent, Mack was having a hard time beating single blockers, Stafford was having his way throwing the ball and AP was gashing them in the running game.

Finally, at the end of the 3rd quarter Bears get the ball back and I swear to God I texted my brothers and said:

Going totally homer here: OK, now it clicks and Mitch balls out and scores 3 TDS in a row here. Bears win 27-23.

And sure as shit he does that. All of a sudden Trubisky is completing beautiful passes down field and completely took charge of the game. I don’t get it. Had this game ended in a loss, I could easily see them starting Foles next week. As it is, I don’t see how they can not start him.

As usual, the Bears gave me my full 3 hours of excitement and entertainment. Sometimes utterly heart-breaking other times thrilling. Can’t wait til next week!

JIm

Let’s start this off right from the top: Hate to say it, I don’t see the Bears winning this game. The Bears defense isn’t going to dominate as everyone seems to expect and the offense for the first time in recent years will be stymied by the Lions defense.

Mitch Trubisky has played some of his best games vs. the Lions. According to most people who know way more about this than me, this is because under head coach Matt Patricia, the Lions tend not to disguise their coverage or use many stunts when rushing the QB. As a result, what Trubisky sees pre-snap is what he encounters after the play starts. However, this is Patricia’s third year with Detroit and the general consensus is if they don’t improve and make the playoffs this year, both he and their General Manager will be out. Accordingly, Detroit brought in a new Defensive Coordinator and, if everyone I’ve read recognizes the reason Trubisky has been so successful against the Lions is because of how they play their defense, I have to believe the Lions know this too and will finally be prepared for him. I expect them to do things on defense designed to confuse Trubisky and he’ll regress to his 2019 self of stupid indecision and leave the offense struggling.

On the defensive side of the ball for some reason most people I read seem to be discounting the fact that both their edge rushers, Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn are injured with Quinn listed as doubtful. In the first half of last season, Matt Stafford was playing some of the best football of his career before he got injured. Word is this season he’s looking even better and people are expecting him to pick up right where he left off last year. Without Quinn and Mack putting pressure on Stafford, he will have plenty of time to pick apart the Bears defense.

With the offense struggling and the defense unable to pressure Stafford consistently, I see the Bears struggling and eventually losing this game. I hope I’m wrong.

Final score
Bears 17
Lions 24

I finally get my boring game

I recently said to my wife, I wanted to watch a boring Bears game. By that I meant I wanted to see the Bears score quickly, take charge of the game and cruise to an easy victory with the end never in any doubt.

Today, I got that game.

I could not have been more wrong in my prediction earlier today when I said I doubted Trubisky would make the plays downfield he would need to make to win this game. He made those plays all game long. This is the kind of offensive performance most fans have been hoping the Bears would have all season and today they delivered.

Off to a bye-week and then they go to Miami. I’m excited to see what changes the Bears make and how they perform after the bye.

Bear down!

JIm

Can they move to 3-1?

The Bears started a somewhat surprising 2-1 this season. Most of that on the back of the defense which is unsurprising given the addition of Khalil Mack. This week they face another surprisingly good team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Can the Bears beat them and move to 3-1 on the season? I won’t be surprised if they don’t.

So far this season, the Bucs back-up quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick has been surprisingly good. Over 400 yards passing per game and 11 touchdowns. That’s impressive. From what I’ve read though, he hasn’t been pressured and he doesn’t do well under pressure. This favors the Bears who have one of the best, if not the best, front 7 in the NFL. I expect them to get to Fitzpatrick and force him to make a number of mistakes. That’s the good news.

On the other side, Tampa Bay has a pretty good run defense which will force the Bears to rely on Trubisky to make plays downfield. From what we’ve seen so far, that probably won’t happen. Eventually Trubisky is going to get comfortable in the pocket and make those plays, I’m just not sure that will happen this week.

In the end, I expect the Bears offense will be effectively stymied and the defense will be mostly effective but still have a couple of blown plays resulting in scores.

Prediction: Bears 10, Buccaneers 17

Go Bears!

JIm

Thursday night I said to my wife I thought the Bears were suddenly 5+ years away from being competitive. Another couple years of Pace & Co., they’re fired and the Bears are back to looking for a new GM, head coach and several more years of rebuilding. Trading away 3 picks to move up one spot for a quarterback that would likely have been there for them at #3 made no sense to me. After a few days to mull it over and read opinions, my feelings have changed.

It’s clear the Bears, specifically Ryan Pace, think that Trubisky can be The Guy. By that I mean they believe Trubisky has the potential to be a 10+ year starter for the Bears who will play at least as well as guys like Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, Carson Palmer and Eli Manning. A true “franchise quarterback”. Now I agree we can all debate this. Pre-draft you could take nearly every top quarterback (Kizer, Watson, Trubisky, Mahomes) and find some analyst that had each one picked as the best quarterback in the draft and find others explaining in detail why each of them will be a bust. None of that matters. What matters is that Ryan Pace and the Bears clearly made the decision Trubisky was The Guy for them and they were going to get him in the first round no matter what.

From this base, the decision to move up to the second pick makes more sense. They were sitting at three and knew they were going to draft him, the only question was whether they would have to trade up to get him. The Browns made the obvious choice at #1 and picked Myles Garrett which left the Bears wondering what was going to happen at #2. According to Adam Jahns the Bears heard from multiple sources that the 49ers were in serious talks with other teams wanting their #2 pick. Should Pace sit at #3 and hope no one jumped ahead of them and possibly take Trubisky, or should he make sure he got his guy? As Pace himself said in the post draft press conference, he wasn’t going to sit on his hands and trust to fate, he was going to do what was necessary to get the guy he wanted. I can respect that.

What about Glennon and Cutler? Why sign Glennon if the plan all along was to draft a quarterback in the first round, especially when they already had Cutler (a proven starting-caliber quarterback) under contract?

It’s easy to argue they should have kept Cutler, drafted Trubisky, let Trubisky develop until ready to start then release Cutler. The cost to the Bears for Cutler in 2017 and beyond was pretty low and the contract was such that they could cut him nearly any time and owe him nothing. But let’s face it, Cutler was a pretty polarizing figure in Chicago. Half the city hated him, half the city loved him, and that proportion shifted every Sunday depending on how many fumbles, interceptions and touchdowns he had. If the Bears kept Cutler and drafted Trubisky, there would be an immediate “quarterback controversy” that would only grow louder and louder with every injury, interception or fumble. Those are distractions the team doesn’t need. Instead, the Bears released him and got Glennon.

Why get Glennon? According to this guy, word is Pace thinks Glennon has the potential to be The Guy in Chicago as well. Now again, we can all question this, but our opinion doesn’t matter, only Ryan Pace’s opinion matters. If he thinks Glennon has the potential to be The Guy you go get him but sign him to a team-friendly deal. His pay for 2017 is reasonable given his history and they can cut him any time after this season with not much dead money.

So where does that leave the Bears? In pretty good position in my opinion. There are four ways this can play out, three of which are net positives for the Bears. Glennon can turn out to be a genuine, starting-caliber NFL quarterback. If he does, the Bears play him all of 2017 and let Trubisky develop. If it’s looking like Trubisky is The Guy as they expect, we could see a real quarterback competition in training camp in 2018 or the Bears can trade Glennon away and get something for him. If Trubisky takes longer to develop or is looking like he will not be The Guy, they keep Glennon as their starter and begin to look for The Next Guy. Let’s say Glennon turns out to be the mediocre-to-bad quarterback many think he is. Mid-way through 2017 we see Trubisky become the starter and we’ll get to see if he is The Guy Pace thinks he can be. Only in the case where both Glennon and Trubisky turn out be busts do we see the Bears with another top ten (or maybe top 5) pick in the 2018 draft, possibly with a new head coach or even a new GM.

Like I said at the start, my initial reactions Thursday night were WTF and SMH. After a few days and a few deep breaths, I am beginning to be more optimistic. Only time will tell if Pace is right. Until then I’m going to remain hopeful and continue to cheer on the Chicago Bears.