NFL
By: Kristianna Ratliff
The Chicago Bears season last year was one to remember. A lot of highs and lows to end what we all can call a circus of a season. From fans wanting Justin Fields to be our starter to Andy Dalton missing the majority of the season due to injury. Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace are gone while Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus are here to make sugar out of shit for the Bears. Let’s get into the offense and defense for the upcoming season.
The Chicago Bears’ 2021 record (6-11) finished 3rd in the NFC North and missed the playoffs for the 3rd straight year.
Offense:
Last season, the Bears had the 3rd toughest schedule in the NFL and they finished the season 6-11, 3rd in their division. Justin Fields started in 10 games last year, standing behind their former quarterback Andy Dalton. Fields finished with 1,870 passing yards, seven touchdowns, and 10 interceptions in 12 games total. He also had 4.58 yards per game and 35 rushing yards, which means he was running the ball down the field.
This season under new coaching, Fields is expected to be locked in and moving forward with the offense. The offense has been revamped a bit and Darnell Mooney will more than likely be our top receiver. Mooney is entering his 3rd year in the NFL and with the Bears. He has a total of 8 career touchdowns and 1686 total yards in his career. He was standing behind former Bears WR Allen Robinson, who left and signed with the LA Rams. This year, Mooney is expected to shine, and to believe he will be an alpha WR this year with Fields. During training camp, fans already saw the two lock in with each other numerous times.
During the offseason, Poles and Eberflus didn’t make a big splash in the offseason due to cap space, however, they were able to get a couple of pieces to fix the offensive line and to have WRs alongside Mooney. The Bears signed Byron Pringle from the Kansas City Chiefs, they also drafted Velus Jones Jr in the third round in the 2022 NFL draft. Jones Jr came from Tennessee where he spent two years at the university. Jones entered the combine and impressed several teams with his 40-yard dash (4.31) and speed score of (118). Even though with that speed he can be heavily used on special teams, the offense may need him more. Bears also have Dazz Newsome and N’Keal Harry behind Mooney.
The Bears running game will be our key focus this year besides defense as we have a solid run game with the Bears. David Montgomery is our key RB this season. Last season he finished with 849 yards 7 touchdowns and 42 receiving yards. In a press conference, Montgomery stated he was battling depression last season and wasn’t completely focused and locked in. This season, he’s in a much better head space and is ready to give his all. Sitting at 2nd at the RB position is Khalil Herbert. Another solid player who got some playing time last season. He finished with 433 yards, 2 touchdowns avg 4.2 yards per game as a rookie.
Lastly, on offense, we have the offensive line which always had a history of not being great in protecting the quarterback. Well, we still have Cody Whitehair, the Bears signed Lucas Patrick from Greenbay, and we signed Braxton Jones, who has been showing out a lot during training camp. The rookie currently sitting at 2nd string, however with his performance in training camp he may move to first string. Sitting at first string at OT is Riley Reiff who the Bears signed from the Cincinnati Bengals.
Defense:
Defensively, the Bears lost a couple of key-value players during the offseason. We lost Khalil Mack, who got traded to the Los Angeles Chargers. This move was more so for clearing up cap space. However, the LB was suffering an injury last season which caused him to miss quite a few weeks. On top of Mack being gone and also lost Akiem Hicks who went to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Hicks also suffered injuries during his time in Chicago. With 2 of our main key guys gone, we still have Robert Quinn who can step up in Mack’s place as LB. Last season the defense ranked 6th in the NFL, and the secondary was 3rd in the league. Only allowing 191 yards passing per game. When it came to forcing turnovers, the Bears ranked 26th in the league with 26 takeaways.
Matt Eberflus was a defensive coach when he was with the Indianapolis Colts. He is now the head coach for the Bears. His primary key focus will be to strengthen this defense up. The last defensive coach we had was former Bears head coach Love Smith, who lead the 2006-2007 team to the Super Bowl.
The defense doesn’t need as much repair as the offense does however, the drama with Roquan Smith and his contract issues, it does make a dent in the defense. Smith is the only player in the NFL who has 100 plus tackles in a season since 2018. Along with 2 sacks per game and 1 interception. Alongside him is Robert Quinn who had won defensive player of the Month for the month of November. He had 5.5 sacks, 14 tackles, five tackles for losses, and two forced fumbles. He also had 3.5 sacks when the Bears played the Baltimore Ravens on Nov. 21st, 2021.
Outlook
Overall, the Bears are in rebuild mode but in my opinion and looking at our schedule, we have a pretty easy schedule. The Bears have about eight winnable games, maybe even nine. The media has the Bears being a complete failure this season, however looking at the schedule the Bears had last year and the team/coaching staff we had, the Bears can easily be a wild card team at the minimum. Fields, Mooney, Monty, and others have vocally expressed how the offense “feels” a lot better than before. Plays are a lot easier to run through and they’re even having scrimmages something that wasn’t done years prior.
The Bears can be a good team with who we have as long as we’re healthy. The Bears already are suffering the injury bug with WR K’Neal Harry who suffered a high ankle sprain. Harry had a successful surgery Thursday morning and is expected to miss eight weeks. He will be able to play for the majority of the season since the season officially hasn’t started yet.
Darnell Mooney has expressed he wants an ample amount of playing time for preseason game number 1 to show off he’s able to handle being the #1 receiver. Eberflus also stated his starters will be in the game for 15-20 plays during the entire game.
The Bears are set to take on Matt Nagy and the Kansas City Chiefs this coming Saturday at home. The kick-off is at 12 pm central time. You can find the game being broadcast on The NFL Network.
