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3 posts from me in one week? You’re fucking welcome. What’s that? You have a complaint? What do you mean the NFL season has already started and this preview is late?  The Bears haven’t started their season yet, have they? So then it isn’t late. Suck it.

Anyway, what can I say about the Chicago Bears that a jilted lover hasn’t already said about their ex? Sure, they may look great and everyone says how much they’ve changed for the better and how they’re ready to take things next to level and really reciprocate your love, but they’ve hurt me so many times before, how can I trust them again?

Somehow, that’s where this franchise finds itself, having convulsed to a 3-14 last in the division, conference, and league record in 2022, they then went and did something they have not been known for–they took bold moves that weren’t insanely stupid.

Knowing how first round draft picks go around Lake Forest, I think trading the number one overall pick for DJ Moore was very smart. Beyond that, the Bears predraft moves bolstered the linebacking corps with free agent signing TJ Edwards and Tremaine Edwards, a move sure not to confuse broadcasters, added two former Titans on the starting lines with DeMarcus Walker on D and Nate Davis at guard, added a pupu platter of crappy backup QBs to compete for Fields’s clipboard, and jettisoned Trevor Simien. Smart moves. (Remember, this is offseason commentary, we’ll get to Peterman soon enough).

And then the draft, even beyond the DJ Moore move, it was….good? Weird. Offensive and Defensive line help in the first two picks (thanks to the Panthers for #10) and again with their fourth overall pick that was in the third round, no real reaches, quality playmakers at DB, RB, and WR, B+ consensus draft grades…did aliens take over the Bears brain trust, too?

Your view on the performance this offseason might depend on if you think it was alien smart or human dumb to jettison Roquan Smith and let David Montgomery walk in the offseason, too.

Look, this is the second season for GM Ryan Poles and Head Coach Matt Eberflus, and this is the third for Fields. What seems different from the previous years is that there seems to be an actual fucking plan and a commitment to stick to it. Will it work? I wouldn’t be much of a self-hating Bears fan if I was predicting a rousing success but….it seems like they’re taking steps in the right direction.  Even with the division totally up for grabs, the Bears have the longest odds of the four teams, with idiots people actually thinking the Lions can overcome decades of crapulence to take the mantle from the Love-era Packers.

For the Bears to have a shot, it really comes down to if Justin Fields is the next coming of Lamar Jackson but needed better tools around him, or if this team is built for a 10-7 ceiling and a more frequent Jeff Fisher-esque miredom of mediocrity. No one knows (though Big Daddy Drew seems to think he has a handle on an answer of low ceiling rather than open Fields).  And the ownership is still the ownership, which is never a good thing when it’s also their 100th year on planet earth.

For the moment, let’s focus on the folks that can make a difference between the lines.

QB

I noted last preseason that “Justin Fields has been electric on the ground, and the coaching staff hasn’t really given him much of a chance to show what else he can do.” And then at the bye, I wrote “Justin Fields has been electric on the ground, and the coaching staff hasn’t really given him much of a chance to show what else he can do.  And in the meantime, most of us are worried they’re going to get him killed out there.  The coaching staff plans to “tinker” with the running game to take pressure off of him.  I remain dubious, and if they’re going to slackoff for whatever jackoff will be there at the 2nd or 3rd pick next year, maybe don’t get the QB killed ad interim.” So yeah, they didn’t let him get killed, they added tools to protect and assist him, and now it’s time to take the next step and be more Steve Young/Randall Cunningham than Cade McNown/Vince Young.  The city is largely pulling for him, so hopefully he can handle the pressure and progress to that coveted “elite” assessment.

We do, however, have to talk about the backups.  The Bears signed PJ Walker to a 2 year contract to run the practice squad and be a cromulent backup to Fields. But they cut Walker despite $2M of his $4M+ contract being guaranteed and are rolling with an undrafted D2 rookie and Nathan Fucking Peterman as the backups.  Yeah, this guy

and a kid from /checks notes Shepherd University are the insurance policy if a running QB HAPPENS to get knocked out even for a little. So that’s not confidence inspiring.  Hopefully the kid is legit, because we know Peterman isn’t.

Still, though, when Fields is good, he’s really fucking good. I’d embed highlights but the NFL has a chastity belt on youtube clips.

RB

David Montgomery is gone and already fucking up my fantasy team by reducing the rookie Gibbs’s touches. Congrats on your opening night win, now quit fucking up my shit.

What’s left in Chicago is Khalil Herbert at RB1 and D’Onta Foreman at RB2, but with all the preseason buzz around RB3 Roschon Johnson. Word on the street is that Johnson is better at pass blocking than Herbert. Hard to feel good about that one way or the other. Herbert is fast and showed flashes of brilliance last season. At this point in the NFL, you need a solid committee at RB anyway, and this one has potential to be good but probably not great.

Oh and the Bears are carrying a fullback on the roster, and I have no idea why.

WR

Last year’s crew was a veritable “Who’s That?” of talent, and this year is different because of DJ Moore and the growth of Darnell Mooney from meme fantasy pick up to quality starter. Chase Claypool is still here to remind folks that TrubiskyWuzHere sometimes the Bears give up picks in ways that are only mildly incompetent. . Other WRs who made this roster include Equanimious “Not the Good One” St. Brown, Tyler Scott, Velveeta Jones, and Trent Taylor.

So much better than last year mainly because Moore is legit and the rest of the crew….wasn’t. Still lacking depth and really need Tyler’s speed to translate to stretching the field for this group to be more than ok. As a DJ Moore owner in fantasy….I’m a little scared.

TE

Cole Kmet is better than Jeff Samardzjia, but doesn’t have a baseball career to fall back on. The backups are Robert Tonyan and Marcedes Lewis, because if you can’t beat the Packers, draft their washed up TEs, I guess. Maybe there’s something to the off-season hype of him being a sleeper, but I don’t trust anyone from Notre Dame, so I expect this group to suck.

OL

Speaking of things that suck….the 2022 stats for this unit were masked by Fields’s scrambling ability and yet despite investing in this position, no one has any confidence in the Bears OL still. Going into camp, only one of the projected starters was returning to the same position or team as last year. And then the injury bug bit, and as of the beginning of this week, nobody knew who was starting where on the O Line. So either this group will be much improved or a swiss cheese shitshow, and which one will determine if Fields survives the year.

Defense

Um, I don’t know. They have “astronomically high” expectations for themselves but sucked against starters in the preseason. Last year the team was 4th worst in yards against and dead last in points against. So….room for improvement. I can see a world where it’s shootouts and turnover battles every week, and it really comes down to if the new free agent adds and rookies make this team competent or if trading away Roquan was cutting off your dawg to spite your defense.

Special teams

The Bears have stability at long snapper, and if you think that doesn’t matter then you haven’t heard Chicagoans complain about letting Patrick Mannelly go. Now I think that’s misplaced aggression about Robbie Gould getting shown the door, but what do I know?

On the actual kicking front, your punter is 2nd year man Trenton Gill and your placekicker is Cairo Santos. The latter recovered from a King Tut curse to become cromulent recently, but if a Bears fan tells you they’re confident about the team’s kicking situation, run because they are lying about everything.

Coaching

It exists. Jury is still out on the Eberflush, I guess we’re pulling for him but my guess is cromulence is the ceiling. These aren’t legends in the making, but we don’t need more initials on the jersey, just wins.

Predictions

Last year I said the floor for the team was 4-13, and they proceeded to go 3-14. So clearly I wasn’t cynical enough, an important lesson for me to bring into the rest of my everyday life.

Vegas has set the over/under at 7.5, and that sounds about right. They HAVE to be better than last year’s low bar, and if everything goes right, they could make the playoffs, maybe even shock the league and win the division, but I think 8-9 is a helluva lot more likely. Fields just has to show enough glimmers to keep building on this and add talent and depth to get to a 10 or 11 win team before we forget the Lions are supposed to suck forever. We’ve seen this romcom before, where there’s hope and pain and broken hearts. In the end, I’ll probably watch about a third of their games and bitch about most of the ones I don’t watch, but at least the AFL playoffs started this week so that love for sport can be spread across multiple leagues and continents to at least mitigate the concentration risk of heartbreak/heart attack.