One Month and Counting for Bears

The Bears report for training camp in exactly one month from Sunday and calling them an unproven team is the understatement of the National Football League.

In many ways, they are even less proven than last year's team.

Here is how it stands.

Their 90-man roster has 37 undrafted players and 53 drafted. Of the draft picks, 29 were Day 3 draft picks. They have five first-round draft picks and Justin Fields is the only one who has started a game for them. The others are Alex Leatherwood, Darnell Wright, DJ Moore and Tremaine Edmunds.
Of the 90 players, 51 are 25 years old or younger and 13 possible starters are 25 or younger.

One dozen of the 22 Bears starters were not starters at their position with the Bears last year. All four members of their starting secondary were starters and the nickel back in the nickel defense, as well, although Kindle Vildor's status as a starter at left cornerback will be in question at training camp as he's challenged by rookie Tyrique Stevenson. They have one player on their offensive line who started at his position in Chicago last year (Braxton Jones), one on the defensive line who started there last year (Justin Jones) and no linebackers who started at their position last season with this team. Wide receivers Darnell Mooney and Chase Claypool, tight end Cole Kmet and Fields all were starters at their spots last year on offense besides Braxton Jones.

The Bears are the only team without a 4,000 yard passer in franchise history but are one of only two teams with a quarterback who ran for 1,100 yards in a season.

The three Bears veteran quarterbacks combined have thrown for 33 touchdowns, 45 interceptions, have been sacked 120 times and have fumbled 34 times. They have combined to start 37 NFL games and their teams have won 10 of those, five by Fields in 25 starts.

The combined career passer rating of the three Bears quarterbacks is 69.39.

The five Bears halfbacks have combined total of 16 career rushing touchdowns, 10 by D'onta Foreman in five years, six by Khalil Herbert in two seasons. Bears running backs have played in 139 NFL games with 18 career starts. Travis Homer has the most NFL appearances among the five Bears running backs with 49 games (2 starts).

Trevis Gipson and DeMarcus Walker are the only Bears to make seven sacks in a season. They've done it once each and neither had more than 4 1/2 sacks in any other season.

Bears defensive players have a total of 31 career interceptions, 14 of them coming from Eddie Jackson. Edmunds has five for his career. No one else has made more than three. Kyler Gordon had three as a rookie last year. Gordon is their career interceptions leader among cornerbacks. The only other cornerback with more than one career interception is Greg Stroman Jr. with two. The other Bears with more than one career interception besides Jackson, Gordon, Stroman and Edmunds are T.J. Edwards and Dylan Cole with two each.

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