The Bears need a miracle. Did they get one?
When and Where: Week 13 at home
Last season: Oh boy. Drafted a QB that didn’t want to be there in part because of the offensive coordinator they had hired. In September their defensive coordinator resigned out of the blue. In November they fired the OC that their QB didn’t want to work with. And then later in November they fired their head coach, the first time in over 100 years of franchise history that the Bears fired a head coach during the season. As 5 win seasons go, that’s pretty exciting stuff for the neutrals.
Added: Joe Thuney, Dayo Odeyingo, Olamide Zaccheaus, Durham Smythe, Jonah Jackson
Lost: Coleman Shelton, Matt Pryor, Keenan Allen, DeMarcus Walker
Players added or lost in order of snaps played last season.
Top draft picks: Colston Loveland, Luther Burden
Biggest question facing this team: Can Ben Johnson turn the Bears around? Can anyone?
Sometimes a franchise stuck in a rut hires a coach and everything changes. The Eagles saw this happen with Andy Reid, or more recently the Lions with Dan Campbell. The Bears’ situation is well beyond being stuck in a rut. The Bears have an organizational rot that needs to be exorcized. Perhaps the Chicago Pope, who was at the White Sox winning the World Series, can perform a second miracle and get the Bears a Super Bowl and reach sainthood.
Can Ben Johnson be the guy to turn it around? The Bears have a pretty good base of talent for to start with considering how dreadful this franchise is with Caleb Williams, Rome Odunze, Luther Burden, and Colston Loveland, along with DJ Moore.
By the time this game is played in late November, the Bears offense could be dangerous. In Johnson’s first year as an OC in 2022, the Lions scored 35+ points three times in their first four games, then hit a rut for a few weeks, then scored 31+ points five times in their last nine games. A repeat of making an immediate improvement, defenses adjusting, then Johnson adjusting to those feels pretty realistic for the Bears this season. They won’t be good, but if Ben Johnson is the coach people expect him to be, they could be a tough out. The first year under Dan Campbell the Lions went 3-5-1 in the second half of the season, with three of those losses being by four points or less.
If this is a competitively bad team, what looks like an easy W in the summer becomes a tough game. The league didn’t help things by making this a Thursday Night game after the Eagles travel to Dallas.
