Bears Too Far Behind Eagles to Compare

Calling Sunday's Bears game against the Eagles a measuring stick is taking great liberties with the term and maybe an insult to Philadelphia.

The term "measuring stick" and the idea of seeing how the Bears stack up against a team like Philadelphia Sunday or Buffalo on Christmas Eve got tossed around at Halas Hall this week like fish in a Seattle marketplace.

"I'm excited to see what we can do as a team," quarterback Justin Fields said. "These guys, like you said, they're labeled as one of the best teams in the league so any chance you get to go up against a team like this, the Buffalo Bills next week, it's awesome just to see what we can do now and then of course, you know just to see where we are right now.

"And of course we're going to go in there swinging, so they know that. They know that we're not just going to lay down. We're not going to do that."

The laying down will come after the knockout, no doubt a few minutes into the battle.

The Bears think they have come a long way, but measuring themselves against or the notion some have that they are similar to Philadelphia a year ago is wishful thinking.

Like everything else, this all goes back to Ryan Pace and the job he did as a general manager.

This Eagles team seemed to get it all together midway through last season and did it in time to make the playoffs in a bad division. The notion the Bears could do this next year is almost farcical.

There are too many problems and they start with the most important area—the line of scrimmage.

Sure, Pro Football Focus this week ranked the Bears offensive line 10th best in the league. It wasn't by singing ability or their skill at video games. It was by blocking ability. 

All you need to know is the same website has Buffalo ranked 26th and the Jets 23rd. They had to be looking at their rankings upside down.

The Bears are not the 10th best offensive line in the league and need to probably add one more blocker if not swap out another one in the offseason. They had given up 42 sacks through Week 12, until they got through their first sack-free game against Green Bay.

Their defensive line has made one sack since Week 6. That's the entire defensive line, tackles and ends, backups and starters.

No team succeeds with a dead zone on the line of scrimmage, even when their quarterback is 95 yards from 1,000 yards rushing on the year. And this, in itself, is more testimony they have blocking issues. In most cases, the more yards Fields gets scrambling, the more attempts, and those come from inability to sustain the pocket for him.

Ryan Poles knows their deficiencies on both sides of the ball at the most crucial spots on the field.

We haven't even begun to address wide receiver, another sore spot. 

And speaking of sore spots, Chase Claypool is out this week with a knee injury and if anyone needed to be playing in the final four weeks it's the player they spent a second-round pick to acquire. 

They need receiver help. Knowing Claypool's capabilities better lets Poles know how much they need this in free agency or the draft. But until Claypool returns, they'll be looking at receivers whose skill set or lack thereof is well known by now—with the exception of N'Keal Harry, who got started late and showed a spark in the last game.

The point of all this is the Eagles had their offensive line in place last year. Their defensive line is about as ornery and physical as it gets and was mostly set by the time they began a run of 18 wins in 21 games. They just added some accessories, like receiver A.J. Brown.

Jalen Hurts comparisons to Fields have been made all week and it's here where the Eagles weren't set. They needed to see further growth in his game. With everything in place around him, it happened.

Everything isn't in place around Fields. Even with $115 million available in free agency, they can't do enough to close tha talent level because Poles had no free agency money after Pace left the salary cap structure a total mess this year. He left a roster of 30-somethings on defense with the exception of their best player, who had a higher opinion of himself than Poles did and now is in Baltimore. That's Roquan Smith. They all had to go.

So the Bears, in Fields' second year within this offense, will not be set and rolling the way the Eagles were when Hurts was in his second year. They are another year behind in development.

For this they can again thank Pace. As a result, the final four games this season are just attempts to avoid embarrassment more than they are measuring sticks.

The measuring the Bears will want to do comes next year about this point.

They can look back then at what they were when they were 3-10 this year, maybe when they are around .500 next year with an outside chance at the playoffs, and can look ahead to 2024 for a potential playoff run.

The starting point for these Bears is just too different than it was for the Eagles, who had a football talent savant at GM in Howie Roseman running their show. Roseman is someone ruthless enough to trade away a family member for a backup offensive lineman, and possesses a great understanding of the cap and how to build.

If Poles and his assistant, former Roseman underling Ian Cunningham, enjoy even a portion of the success Roseman has had, then some day bad teams will look at the Bears in those measuring stick games.

Until then the Bears can only play football and try to keep it close, as they've done for most games this season.

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The Line: Eagles by 8 1/2, over/under 48 1/2. BearDigest record: 10-3, 6-6-1 vs. the spread.

The Prediction: Eagles 34, Bears 16

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