Tempering Optimism for Bears Turnaround

It's easy to take the optimistic approach toward the coming Bears season.

All changes made by GM Ryan Poles and a second year in both the Luke Getsy offense and Matt Eberflus defense can easily lead to conclusions the Bears will be one of those classic rags-to-riches NFL stories.

This might be taking the whole turnaround thing a little too far.

There are limits to how far the Bears can go with the improvement which should occur in Year 2.

Too many factors are exerting pressure on efforts to build this team for anyone to expect they can rise beyond seven to nine wins. Pro Football Focus in the off-season wrote they could be anywhere from four wins and 11 wins and no one would be surprised.

If they were over nine wins, plenty would be surprised.

Then again, it might only take that many wins to take the NFC North. The NFC South required only eight wins to capture last year. The AFC South went to Jacksonville with a 9-8 record because Tennessee could muster no more than seven wins.

The Bears in contention for an NFC North title with a mediocre record shouldn't be construed to mean they have arrived for several reasons.

1. Not Ready Yet

The Bears have gone from the league's oldest team in 2021 to the seventh-youngest last year and when rosters are decided this year they're likely to be among the youngest again after 30-something players like Riley Reiff, Michael Schofield, Joe Thomas, Ryan Griffin, Mike Pennel, Trevor Siemian, Angelo Blackson and DeAndre Houston-Carson were removed and replaced by younger players -- in some cases rookies. When they were seventh-youngest to start last season, they still had 32-year-old Robert Quinn, as well.

Some veteran players brought in are actually younger starters, like 25-year-old Tremaine Edmunds. In other cases it's a case of relying on a rookie like Darnell Wright.

Youth like Wright or cornerback Tyrique Stevenson will take time to develop.

Last year the Lions had one of the youngest rosters in the last 15 years. They didn't start out so well.

Detroit went 1-6 and then caught fire.

The Bears are not in a totally different situation than last year's Lions were, except their quarterback is still trying to establish himself and Jared Goff was already a known commodity.

Building around a veteran quarterback takes less time, but in Fields' case it's a case where he's on the verge of arriving and will as the young team forms around him.

Either way, it's going to require more painful lessons for the Bears before they're established. There will be limits early to what they can do.

2. Time on Task

Beyond lack of experience in the league is the time on task within this offense and defense.

The Bears gutted the roster in 2022, but it's almost like they've regutted it for Year 2 -- if that's a word. They had to do it this way because their first year cap space allowed only lower-cost free agents on one-year contracts.

The offensive line has four players at positions they didn't start at last year, including two entirely new players. The defensive line has two new starters, possibly three depending on who wins out between Trevis Gipson and Rasheem Green at defensive end. The starting running back has changed and none of players at that position on the roster have ever been their team's main starting back -- even fourth-round rookie Roschon Johnson in college. Receiver DJ Moore has plenty of experience but is new in the offense. They could have a new starting left cornerback in Stevenson, at least for their nickel package.

Preseason games will be more important for a team like the Bears because of their overall inexperience within the schemes and it's all likely to contribute to making them a team for the season's second half.

3. Justin Fields the Finisher

While all indicators point to his overall improvement as a passer over the final 11 weeks of 2022, Fields has one major aspect of his game to prove. He needs to finish games.

Saying he needed more talent around him is accurate, but now that he has it he must prove he can do it.

Fields so far is like one of those golfers who looks great at the practice range but struggles to score low. He flashes big plays. Yet when he's required to put the full package together, go against a live opponent and take a team to winning points at the end the end, the result hasn't been wins.

They are 2-10 in games decided by a TD nad conversion or less with Fields at QB over two seasons. The only two close games won while Fields was quarterback were the game his rookie year against Cincinnati when he didn't start but replaced injured Andy Dalton and the start last year against Houston when he suffered his worst performance of the season in terms of passer rating. They won the Houston game by a field goal because Roquan Smith intercepted a pass in field goal range with the score tied and they kicked the winning points without help from the offense. They beat Cincinnati with Fields replacing Dalton because they took a 20-3 lead and nearly squandered it before closing out a 20-17 win.

Closers prove it. Fields will have to do this before anyone can talk about the Bears moving too far up the ladder.

4. Lack of Dominant Young Talent

DJ Moore is good but no one is suggesting he's a Hall of Famer or even top-10 receiver. Tremaine Edmunds has great natural ability but if he was one of the truly elite players then Buffalo would have found some way to keep him over other players even if it meant letting somone else leave as a free agent. Several draft picks from Year 1 show great potential to be solid NFL starters. Fields is an exciting player.

However, the Bears have yet to prove they have drafted and developed a dominant player who causes tremendous matchup issues for opponents. Fields and Moore are the closest to this they have.

They don't have Shaquille Leonard being a takeaway machine at linebacker. Jaylon Johnson is a nice cover player but isn't making one interception after another and scaring off quarterbacks.

They don't have a game wrecker like Aidan Hutchinson or Justin Jefferson.

They need their own Aaron Donald in the pass rush. Perhaps Moore can be their answer at receiver and help elevate Fields. But this is the point. That's not certain yet.

The rebuild doesn't happen overnight but it needs to produce dominant players before they can be certain they're challenging consistently for division titles.

5. Huge Deficit

The Bears have come a long way to be sure. They had an even longer way to come.

The three players they had who were on the field for the most plays last year were two undrafted free agents and a rookie fifth-round draft pick. The two undrafted players were Sam Mustipher and Nick Morrow and neither are with the team. The rookie was Braxton Jones.

They had no wide receiver with more than 40 catches and only one with more than 21—Darnell Mooney, who missed the last five games.

All of their defensive linemen combined—not just ends but tackles and ends—produced 10 1/2 sacks. There were 16 individual pass rushers who had more sacks last year than all of the Bears defensive linemen put together.

Bears QBs got sacked 58 times last year, the most in the NFL. It was the second straight year they were sacked that many times.
The Bears threw it only 377 times. No one willingly throws it 377 times anymore. No one has done this since the Steelers in 2004 threw it 358 times. They threw it so few times because they weren't able to pass more.

If they're better, they really need to be historically better to make the kind of turnaround from one season to the next their most optimistic followers suggest is possible.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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