Opinion Piece
December 17th, 2023
It’s no secret that the Chicago Bears, as an organization, have been one of the most lackluster and least creative franchises in league history. The 1985 Monsters of the Midway SuperBowl Shuffled their way from a championship to nearly four decades worth of mediocrity with just glimmers of hope for long-term success, only to be let down by poor front office leadership, terrible management, and coaching hires along with a disgusting lack of rookie development by said coaches. With the exception of the Lovie Smith era and the Nagy/Fangio Bears in 2018, the Chicago fan base, accompanied by anyone claiming to appreciate American football's history and culture, has been cheated by the Chicago Bears' ownership and management. Anyone, football fan or not, has at least heard of the Bears and could make a vaguely educated guess as to how influential of a program the franchise has been to the NFL. To have an organization in professional sports as iconic as this be as much of a letdown as they’ve been for almost half a lifetime is severely unacceptable.
The off-season hype, followed by the 0-4 start to the season and a month's worth of Bears football without Justin Fields under center, had 2023 looking like the highest tier of disappointment Bears fans have had to endure in the franchise's history. That was until Fields returned and the essential addition of a true monster of the midway in Montez Sweat. These two have proven to be difference-makers, and the season suddenly doesn’t seem to be as much of a lost cause. There may even be reason to have hope for a playoff push to cap off the season as our Bears look to ride their first win streak for a third consecutive week with a victory today in Cleveland, where they’ll take on a Browns team lead by veteran Joe Flacco who currently sit at 8-5 on the season.
Thanks to a relatively easy stretch of opponents in the absence of an injured Justin Fields and the “nothing to lose” mindset of Tyson Bagent in his month-long stint as the annual backup QB phenom for Chicago, the Bears were able to tack on a pair of wins in four weeks to keep the Bears season from being an absolute catastrophe, but in that stretch, we still showed signs of inconsistency on the offensive side of the ball. Since Fields return, we have seen the spark between our QB1 and our most potent offensive weapon, D.J. Moore, reignite, and while the play calling is still our Achilles heel, overall, we have seen significant improvement in the balance of play calls and the execution from the offensive line. Most of the progress is due to the players, their unity, and the culture that they’re developing in what appears to be a very tight-knit locker room. You can see it on and off the field; this roster is gelling, and they’ve shown time and time again that they’re playing not for themselves but for each other. The numbers aren't exactly what every fan can brag about, but the offense is finding ways to get it done despite our coordinator still not showing that he’s consistently willing to call an offense best suited for the personnel. With the help of a few losses here and there from the rest of our NFC North rivals, we are looking at a real possibility of winning out and somehow finding ourselves earning a wild card spot.
The man at the helm, Matt Eberflus, has generated a record of just eight wins and 22 losses since taking the reigns as beach coach in 2022, but for someone who’s been on the hot seat for most of his time as a head coach. Eberflus has been making believers out of fans and critics lately, though. For someone who’s seen the most adversity from his organization, he has stepped up after losing his defensive coordinator early in the season. He has morphed his defense from one of the least threatening units in the league to a top-tier defensive powerhouse. Since the addition of Montez Sweat on the edge and the undeniable evidence that Jaylon Johnson is a ball-hawking top-tier cornerback, the entire unit has shown that they were just one piece away from being what they knew they should've been early on in the season… Dangerous.
Eberflus has proven his worth as a defensive strategist, and we have an ample amount of evidence that he has not lost his locker room, which makes me believe that if this team continues on the track being laid out, they are just an offensive coordinator away from being Kings of the North in 2024.
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